I guess if I had to pick a spiritual figurehead to possess the deed to the entirety of Earth, I'd go with Buddha, but only because he wouldn't want it.

Jesus and Lincoln, Moses and Jefferson can seem so long gone, so unbelievable, so dead.

There are freaky talking mannequins in the Salem Witch Museum that recite the Lord's Prayer and while they do resemble shrunken apples they nevertheless help the visitor understand how hard it must have been for the condemned to say the line about forgiving those who trespass against us.

History is one war after another with a bunch of murders and natural disasters in between.

Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, Robert Lincoln bought a nice ski lodge.

I talk about going to his [George W. Bush's] Inauguration and crying when he took the oath, 'cause I was so afraid he was going to "wreck the economy and muck up the drinking water"... the failure of my pessimistic imagination at that moment boggles my mind now.

Why is America the last best hope of Earth? What if it's Liechtenstein? Or, worse, Canada?