EDITORIALS : The what of July?

JOHN ADAMS told his better seveneighths, Abigail, that this day would be "the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore." Of course he was talking about the Second of July. - Saturday, July 4, 2009

COLUMNISTS : Iran in limbo

BY AUSTIN BAY CREATORS SYNDICATE

As Americans celebrate the Fourth of July, Iran enters limbo, an uncertain yet perilous period of time separating anger-driven demonstrations from either bloody tyrannical repression or sustained popular struggle producing a liberalizing revolution. - Saturday, July 4, 2009

The end, and the beginning

BY JIM JENKINS MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

YORKTOWN, VA. First, we did the Pledge of Allegiance. Then, "America the Beautiful," and then "God Bless America." A person is struck with such impulses standing on the edge of the Yorktown battlefield. Nearby Williamsburg has its moments, of course, full of the historic footprints of Thomas Jefferson and the other patriot-revolutionaries who trod its streets now well more than 200 years ago. ("Trod" . . . I know. But I was feeling very colonial.) Ah, but for the deep-down feeling, for that windlaced tingle that reminds Americans of what it all meant, and the measure of sacrifices that were made to win glorious freedom, Yorktown is the place. - Saturday, July 4, 2009

Some bad days

Mike Masterson

There are days when I find myself muttering, "What the heck were those folks thinking?" First it was Berryville Mayor Tim McKinney, who's now serving a 39-day term in the Carroll County Jail after his conviction on driving while intoxicated and marijuana possession charges. - Saturday, July 4, 2009

A revolution that worked

Bradley R. Gitz

The American Revolution was the most important human event of the past several centuries, one without which the broader global democratic revolution of recent decades likely never would have happened. - Saturday, July 4, 2009

LETTERS

Keep our nation strong God bless America. This is the Fourth of July weekend and my sincere desire is that all Christians would pray a special prayer for our lovely nation. The U.S. was founded by men who believed the basic principles of religion. Their faith was built to keep this nation strong. - Saturday, July 4, 2009

EDITORIALS : Pardon Wilburette!

SOMETIMES things are just meant to be. Or maybe not meant to be. And it seems that Miss Wilburette—great, big, scrumptious-looking thing that she is—just wasn't meant to be bacon. - Friday, July 3, 2009

Just once

YOU KNOW what we'd like to see just once before we shuffle off this mortal coil or get shipped to cyberspace? (Whichever comes first.) We'd like to see the next High-Ranking Politician Caught in Compromising Position—and you know there will be a next one—handle his highly personal problem the old-fashioned way: Tell us to mind our own danged business. - Friday, July 3, 2009

COLUMNISTS : Political play should shock no one

BY JOHN KASS CHICAGO TRIBUNE

It's amusing to watch the Washington political establishment feign shock, now that President Barack Obama's reform administration has used a clay foot to vigorously kick one inspector general and boot another out the door. - Friday, July 3, 2009

Plane infuriating

BY JANE MUSGRAVE COX NEWSPAPERS

I've long ago forgiven airlines for charging me an extra $15 to satisfy my need to pack my clothes in a suitcase when I travel. While I sometimes miss those free bags of peanuts, these days I just stick my nose in a magazine when flight attendants hawking $7 snack packs squeeze down the aisle. - Friday, July 3, 2009

Optimism helps

Meredith Oakley

Sigh. Another holiday weekend, another pound. Those stories in the women's magazines of my youth were right: If you don't lay off the calories in your 20s, you'll pay for it with fasting and exercise in your 30s. - Friday, July 3, 2009

Declaration tells the tale

Dana D. Kelley

Afew years back, author Brooke Allen published an article in The Nation magazine called "Our Godless Constitution." The article opened with a cheap shot at then-president George W. Bush as a non-reader who somehow had learned the Orwellian lesson that a lie told often enough becomes believable. It then castigated his administration, as well as the believing horde, for accepting the "whopper" that America was founded on Christian principles as gospel. - Friday, July 3, 2009

LETTERS

State cannot afford bill Say good-bye to air conditioning, Arkansas. According to President Obama, your energy bill will "necessarily skyrocket" with passage of his cap-and-trade plan. The House of Representatives passed the plan and it will soon go to the Senate. - Friday, July 3, 2009

Express your opinions, Northwest Arkansas

The Democrat-Gazette welcomes your opinions, Northwest Arkansas. Unfortunately, not all letters received can be published in the space available. Clarity, brevity and originality are particularly valued. Submit letters of preferably no more than 250 words to Voices, Democrat-Gazette, P.O. Box 2221, Little Rock, Ark., 72203, by FAX at 479-770-8484 or via an e-mail form found at our Web site, www2. arkansasonline.com/contact/voicesform/. - Friday, July 3, 2009

EDITORIALS : Justice is served

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. . . . nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." —Fourteenth Amendment Constitution of the United States IN WHAT one hopes will be a landmark decision, the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that all Americans have civil rights—not just those belonging to certain specified classes, minorities, or some other arbitrary category. Whereupon said honorable court proceeded to protect those rights. Definitively, let us hope. - Thursday, July 2, 2009

COLUMNISTS : The prescience of protest

NATAN SHARANSKY IN THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

Once again, the world is amazed. As with the seemingly sudden appearance of the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1980s, or the gaudy, grand-scale collapse of the Soviet empire at the end of that decade, the massive revolt of Iranian citizens has elicited the unmitigated surprise of the free world's army of experts, pundits and commentators. Who would have known? Who could have predicted this eruption of protest in a system so highly repressed, where a generally quiescent populace lives under such a deeply entrenched revolutionary regime? - Thursday, July 2, 2009

Mission not yet accomplished

JAWAD AL BOLANI IN THE WASHINGTON POST

BAGHDAD As the United States shifts its attention from Iraq to Afghanistan and other issues of grave importance, none of us can be lulled into believing that Iraq is a mission accomplished. That sense of security is simply false. June 30th, when American troops pulled out of Iraqi cities, was not an historical endpoint to be celebrated by political philosophers; it is the beginning of a highly uncertain chapter in Iraqi democracy and self-governance. - Thursday, July 2, 2009

LETTERS

Plane a casualty of globalism Seems we are having trouble building an airplane. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner has yet to make its first test flight and is two years behind schedule. According to Kitty Pilgrim on "Lou Dobbs Tonight," pieces and sections built and assembled overseas—out-sourced—arrived incomplete and/or not to specification. - Thursday, July 2, 2009

Hypocrisy all around

Gene Lyons

With respect to Gov. Mark Sanford, it's probably always a mistake for a Puritan to visit Latin America. - Thursday, July 2, 2009

Where to send your letters, Northwest Arkansas

The Democrat-Gazette welcomes your opinions, Northwest Arkansas. Unfortunately, not all letters received can be published in the space available. Clarity, brevity and originality are particularly valued. Submit letters of preferably no more than 250 words to Voices, Democrat-Gazette, P.O. Box 2221, Little Rock, Ark., 72203, by FAX at 479-770-8484 or via an e-mail form found at our Web site, www2. arkansasonline.com/contact/voicesform/. - Thursday, July 2, 2009

EDITORIALS : Cap and confuse

HERE'S HOW to get a dubious bill into law, or at least past the U.S. - Wednesday, July 1, 2009

COLUMNISTS : 50 ways to beat the heat

Paul Greenberg

With the summer heat starting to cover these latitudes like a horse blanket, it's definitely time to update this annual list of heat-beaters. Feel free to clip and save, mix and match, and add your own: 1. Forget talk radio and 24/7 television news. Switch to the classical station. Vivaldi is nice, Beethoven's symphonies much too bombastic, and Mozart perfect as always. Or get out Miles Davis and John Coltrane's Kind of Blue. Watch an old movie (preferably one set in a cold climate) instead of The O'Reilly Factor/Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Don't even think about Als, Franken or Sharpton. Ignore Rush Limbaugh, E.J. Dionne, MoveOn.org, and all other such kibitzers left or right. It only encourages 'em. - Wednesday, July 1, 2009

LETTERS

Reform will give more options The health insurance industry has not treated us well. They may charge some people much more than others for essentially the same coverage. They may cover certain medical services for some people and not for others. Some insurance companies almost routinely deny or delay payment of claims to try to avoid payment. - Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Give mourners their moment

Meredith Oakley

Turn it off. If the television offends you with its barrage of examination, meditation and pontification upon the death of a Hollywood celebrity, change the channel. - Wednesday, July 1, 2009

What's on your mind, Northwest Arkansas?

The Democrat-Gazette welcomes your opinions, Northwest Arkansas. Unfortunately, not all letters received can be published in the space available. Clarity, brevity and originality are particularly valued. Submit letters of preferably no more than 250 words to Voices, Democrat-Gazette, P.O. Box 2221, Little Rock, Ark., 72203, by FAX at 479-770-8484 or via an e-mail form found at our Web site, www2. arkansasonline.com/contact/voicesform/. - Wednesday, July 1, 2009

EDITORIALS : Try cookin' with gas

BARRING the unlikely event that the state's Supreme Court will overturn a unanimous ruling of its Court of Appeals, that planned $2.1-bllion coal-fueled power plant near Texarkana is going to stay just that for now: a plan. Consider it a part of the future that may never materialize. - Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Editorial notebook : In search of her heroes

Marcia Garcia of Rogers wanted to personally thank two men in baseball uniforms who helped save the life of her four-year-old son, Javier Saldierna. Her problem: She had no idea who they were. - Tuesday, June 30, 2009

COLUMNISTS : Betraying the planet

BY PAUL KRUGMAN NEW YORK TIMES

So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement. But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases. - Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Conspiracy theories sprout in D.C.

BY SUSAN REIMER BALTIMORE SUN

It looks like the White House vegetable garden—first lady Michelle Obama's effort to model healthful eating for the nation—is infested with a pest previously unknown to horticulture. It's the boll weevil of the blogosphere: the conspiracy theorist. - Tuesday, June 30, 2009

LETTERS

Where is incentive to work? - Tuesday, June 30, 2009