Sarah Palin is increasingly irrelevant. I don't think many people really care what she thinks.

Bravo! Allen West is a truely free man.

I read and reread "Jane Eyre" when I was a teen and young adult. It affected me deeply. Now I'm retired and have time to read both fiction and nonfiction. Several months ago I read "The Wide Sargasso Sea" by Jean Rhys, and I will never think of "Jane Eyre" in the same way. Rhys' book tells the story of Edward Rochester's first wife during her childhood and young womanhood in Jamaca and Martinique. In Bronte's book she is the crazed, sex obsessed monster in the attic,which Rochester does his best to hide from everyone, including himself. Rhys portrays her as a much manipulated daughter of the dying class of white plantation owners in a diverse and very rich West Indian culture.

As an example of great literary fiction, I recommend "The Foundation Pit" by Andrey Platonov. The New York Review of Books edition is the best because it's translation is based on the most complete and accurate of Platonov's manuscripts. Very little of Platonov's work was published in the Soviet Union, certainly not "The Foundation Pit" which concerns the collectivization of the peasantry in the Ukraine. Platonov was the only Soviet writer who witnessed the collectivization. He was one of two writers who wrote about it. The other was Vasily Grossman, who probably heard about it from Platonov. "The Foundation Pit" was completed about 1930 or '31. Platonov died in 1951 of tuberculosis.

The sooner he disappears the better off we all will be.

A clique of military officers, including Nassar, Sadat, and Mubarak, staged a coup in the 1950's and threw out King Farouk. The military has been effectively in power since that time. It appears less and less likely that they'll give up that power. I can't see a civilian government in Egypt having control over its military.

What a jerk. He should get at least 20 years. Life seems too severe unless any of the information he gave to Wikileaks resulted in anyone's death.

Ridiculous is exactly the word for it. I have no doubt that few graduates of our public schools who are Democrats have ever heard of Teddy Roosevelt.

It's time to move on. They've had a lot more than the alloted 15 minutes.

Surprise surprise.