At its September 4 meeting, the City Council passed a resolution favoring a timetable for comprehensive withdrawal of all troops from Iraq, with all votes affirmative except for Demro’s abstention.

The crimes of Michael Vick haunt me. I look into our beloved dogs’ eyes and I think of the atrocities that Vick and his partners-in-crime committed, and I shudder. “How could they have done such things?”

Lakewood Public Library’s new building looms majestically above the avenue, like a distinguished paterfamilias watching over his protégés. The city’s school buildings have all been rebuilt and spruced up and technologized.

Our national anthem, as we all well know, is serious business. Why else would we play it at every public event? Why else does an individual, especially a male, risk his safety if he fails to stand when it is played?

The atheists are on the attack. The likes of Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have recently written books aiming to eradicate belief in God and devotion to religion, Christianity in particular. This may be a backlash against the intrusion of certain religionists, especially those called fundamentalists, in our lives. (On this, more later).

America, historians tell us, has been largely shaped by its frontier. Of all the types of frontier life, none has received more popular attention than the Wild West, and perhaps the best-known and most enduring example of Wild West life is the gunman-to-gunman shootout.

By the time this reaches print, the scandals involving the Duke lacrosse team, Don Imus’s racist/sexist remarks, and the firing of U.S. attorneys may be out of mind, overshadowed by the tragic and senseless shootings at Virginia Tech. However, the scandals are worth keeping in mind for the deeper problems they exhibit.

Do I need to belabor the obvious? We are now in the middle of the 2008 “money primary,” in which candidates vie not for the favor of voters but for the largesse of contributors, with the clear aim of amassing enough money to make their victory seem inevitable. (So much for “one person one vote.”) One presidential candidate at least has dropped out not because his program was unworthy or even unpopular, but simply because he couldn’t raise large amounts of money.

How often have you heard those words, and how often have they been empty window dressing? With your help – both before the election and after – I will make them mean something again.

First there was moral clarity. From moral clarity came self-righteousness and supreme self-confidence. Then came arrogance, and out of arrogance came the waging of aggressive war.

In the previous issue I held that misuse of an expression is not merely a matter of taste but rather demonstrates obtuseness of one kind or another -- about logical consequences, historical context, or distinctions.

Here are a few more examples:

It gripes me – and many others, I suppose -- to hear someone misuse a common saying. On the surface, these irritations are only a matter of taste – or pedantic preference -- but on a second look we might find more obtuseness than mere preference. One incident especially summed it up for me . . .

In a previous column I admitted to having no solution to the immigration problem. But discussions with the Lakewood Public Library’s “Great Decisions” group changed my perspective. And immigration is worth another round of discussion, for under the new and (hopefully) improved Congress it might again be on the table.

As Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday approaches, my thoughts turn not toward him but toward Bob Moses. No, not Robert Moses the highway megalomaniac, but Bob Moses the civil rights leader.

Conservatives and liberals: Like cats and dogs? Or like yin and yang? As with so many questions in this world, the answer is “It depends.” It depends on what we mean by conservatism.

Judging by the recent election, we may hope that the nation is recovering from its posttraumatic stress disorder. Or to look at it another way, we are awakening from a six-year sleep punctuated by nightmares. More and more of us realize that the Bush administration is merely a deplorable aberration, born of arrogance and nourished by stupidity. From the start it was obviously not liberal, and conservatives are realizing as time goes on that it is not conservative either.

Come back in time to World War II, to all wars, to the Trojan War. Our vehicle is a song, “Lili Marlene,” which I have cherished for more than three decades.

Electoral Systems: Other Ways to Skin the Cat

As the time approaches for campaigns and campaign promises, multitudes of politicians are competing to be our representatives. So this might be a good time to consider what they are competing for: What does the job of a representative consist of? (By “representatives” I mean not only legislators but also executives such as presidents and governors.) What are the legitimate grounds for a representative’s decision? Conversely, when do a representative’s constituents have a right to feel betrayed?

The Bush administration is unique within recent history. Its antagonism toward liberalism has been evident almost from the very beginning, and now conservatives have begun to distance themselves from it also, for various reasons such as fi scal irresponsibility.

Recently we’ve seen a controversy about whether the Star-Spangled Banner should be sung in Spanish or only in English. But if it’s important to think about the language in which the song is rendered, isn’t it even more important to think about the song itself, about what it means?

Let’s Get Government Out of Religion
When is a tempest-in-a-teapot not a tempest-in-a-teapot? When it reflects deeper issues. That is why I hope you will bear with me as I recount my enforced displacement on Election Day, last May 2nd.

“What’s the deal here? Why do costs outstrip inflation? A college education is one of the most expensive and important things you’ll ever buy, and, yes, it’s still a good value, blah, blah, blah, but you can find out more about a lot of other products.”
So said Margaret Spellings, Secretary of Education, on a subject of great concern to many Americans -- college tuition.

The Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) program, in effect since 2004, provides tax deductions to individuals on condition that they spend the tax-free money on health care needs. The Bush administration’s rationale is that “market forces” will drive down health-care costs, just as they drive down the costs of other commodities.

The Bush program for health care focuses on Health Savings Accounts, a program to give tax deductions to the individual health-care consumer for certain amounts of money, on condition that the individual spend the money on health care needs at his or her own discretion. The program has been in effect since the beginning of 2004, and has just recently been re-emphasized by the Bush administration, including mention in the State of the Union address.