We know - or should know - what lies at the end of the road of racial polarization. A 'race card' is not something to play, because race is a very dangerous political plaything.

Just as any moron can destroy a priceless Ming vase, so the shallow and ill-educated people who run our schools can undermine and destroy from within a great civilization that took centuries of dedicated effort to create and maintain.

Whatever we wish to achieve in the future, it must begin by knowing where we are in the present - not where we wish we were, or where we wish others to think we are, but where we are in fact.

Neither your life nor my life, nor the future of this country, will be affected in the slightest by whether Linda Tripp is naughty or nice. But if any president is able to commit crimes with impunity by using the vast powers and perquisites of his office to cover up, then we will have a danger of corruption and abuse of power that can only grow with the passing years and generations.

Young people in general - and young women in particular - need to understand that they cannot retrieve in their forties the opportunities they threw away in their twenties.

In this era of political correctness, some people seem unaware that being squeamish about words can mean being blind to realities.

Any policy is a success by sufficiently low standards and a failure by sufficiently high standards.