So, in the end, Monday the Iranian wild man Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got a dressing down from the man who had invited him -- in the name of free speech, you understand -- to speak at Columbia University.

WASHINGTON -- The Alice-in-Wonderland quality of legislating in Congress was typified this week. The Democratic Congress quickly passed a national health insurance bill, drafted in secret and protected from amendment, that constitutes the most important legislation of this session. While designed for a presidential veto, it is national health insurance -- through the front, not the back, door. Democrats view it as no-lose: either landmark health care will be enacted over President George W. Bush's veto, or, if overridden, they'll have a lovely 2008 campaign issue.

No one tolerates everything. Some who tolerate the murder of unborn children abhor the killing of some animals. One man's Mede is another man's Persian.

It amazes me how life can change in a solitary moment. As a firefighter, I see this, every day at work. One moment we’re training; the next we’re fighting a house fire, performing CPR, or disentangling someone who’s trapped in an automobile. Not one of those people thought their lives would change in such a profound way when their day started, but it did nonetheless.

Beware of friends like me. I’m the kind of friend that you invite to dinner and I turn around and invite the whole neighborhood.

Minor thoughts on local themes:

Fayetteville Mayor Ken Steele has no opposition to another four-year term as top dog in the county’s commercial center. Two years ago, 7 percent of Fayetteville’s registered voters bothered to come to the polls to vote. Could there be any connection between those two facts?

I would not be as bothered by Columbia University’s decision to host Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad if Columbia and other universities had a consistent policy toward those they invite to speak and the rules applied equally to conservatives and liberals; to totalitarian dictators and to advocates for freedom and tolerance.

The guy was extremely courteous and nice but obviously distraught. The five-page letter forwarded to me from a newspaper detailed the downfall of men.

“Be prepared.” It’s the motto of both the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts. I had a friend in my Brownie Troop (back when we wore beanies and brown dresses with orange neckties) who took this to heart. We were at day camp and one sunny day we were to go on a nature hike. She brought her rain coat and galoshes. The leaders tried to explain to her that there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and that we wouldn’t be gone long. She wasn’t hearing it. “But it might rain and we’re supposed to be prepared,” she said.

Hillary Clinton has spent years trying to erase the memory of her failed attempt to bring socialized medicine to the United States, but this week the ghost of Hillary Care was lurking in the wings again as she unveiled her new plan to overhaul the nation’s health system.

Let’s play “Jeopardy!”

Answer: This news event triggered the following headlines. “Greenspan Faults Bush in Book; Ex-Fed Chief: Politics Trumped.” “Former Fed Chair Greenspan Criticizes Bush in Book.” “In New Book, Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan Bashes Bush.” “Greenspan Book Criticizes Bush and Republicans — ‘They Deserved to Lose.’” “Greenspan Is Critical of Bush in Memoir; Former Fed Chairman Has Praise for Clinton.” “Greenspan Decries Course of Bush and GOP in New Book.”

Nothing is easier than to second-guess other people’s decisions, ignoring the inherent limitations of knowledge, the pressures of circumstances, and the dangers of alternative courses of action.

I'm going to continue with the Cochran family this week, giving you more detailed information on two of the children of William Allen and Alpha Johnson Cochran. These Cochrans were only one of several Cochran families in the Campbell County area and may be related to some of them. They were in a corner where three counties come together - Campbell, Coweta and Fayette - and they lived in the McCollum community.

In the late 1950s, the formal engagement in state socialism by Great Britain had twice been confirmed by the voters. And the socialists had been twice disfranchised. Great Britain was a mess. Clement Attlee, the clever lawyer-intellectual who embraced the dreams of common ownership, couldn’t quite sell the country on the success of it.

On Friday night, June 8, just before midnight, John Holloway suffered a massive stroke. The next night, he would undergo an emergency surgery to save his life. Since that time, he has spent most of the past three months in hospitals and a rehabilitation facility.

Like actress Sally Field, I am a mom. Unlike Sally Field, I do not live in La-La Land. We breathe a different brand of oxygen. We hold diametrically opposed worldviews. We have nothing in common but stretch marks.

I haven’t yet inquired of the most intelligent person I know, but I think she’d endorse a critical element in Alan Greenspan’s critique of the Republican party, as conveyed in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

Every now and then you have to entertain folks at your house or you’ll be labeled a recluse, or worse, a hermit. Last weekend was just such a time.

In a world where the tragedy that is Iraq is usually discussed only in media sound bites and political slogans, it is especially gratifying to see an adult, intelligent, and insightful account of life inside Iraq by someone who lived there for nine months in the early days of the occupation in 2003 and 2004, and who saw the fundamental mistakes that would later plague the attempt to create a viable Iraqi government.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s closest adviser and architect of the New Deal, Harry Hopkins, advised, “Tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect, because the people are too damn dumb to know the difference.” Professor Bryan Caplan, my colleague at George Mason University, sheds some light on Hopkins’ observation in his new book, “The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies.”

Not that I expect anyone to believe this, but our daughter Mary, the German pianist, will be 50 years old in November. How can this be, when I’m only 55 and Dave 60?

There is a type of research beginning to emerge that may, in years to come, trigger a real debate in science and, hopefully, a re-writing of state and federal environmental regulations on a scale that would make what happened with the decades-long research into tobacco look like child’s play.

“If you can read this, thank a teacher,” says the bumper sticker on the car in front of me. But literacy is more than the ability to read a bumper sticker. It also includes the accumulation of basic knowledge combined with a way of thinking that allows an individual to lead a life that is personally productive and contributes to America’s health and welfare.

When I was a kid, I often heard my parents say, as they parted company with others, “Y’all come see us.

And they meant it.

According to a survey done by the Barna Research group, only about eight percent of born again Christians tithe. If that’s true, and other studies reveal the same thing, then less than 10 percent of Christians are financing the impact that the church is having on the world today.

I was elated a few weeks ago to see that a few of our south Fulton readers made the time to post blogs on our website, both pro and con, in response to a column I wrote advocating the formation of the City of South Fulton. Participation from south Fulton residents by blogging on our website is something I hope will continue and grow in the future. With the website getting about two million hits per month, it is a great way to have your say in a manner that tens of thousands of viewers will see and, perhaps, provide their own response. And whether we all agree or disagree on a given topic, it’s as critical as ever that people make their voice heard. Given the topic of city-hood, it was not overly surprising that the column attracted a few bloggers. And blogger responses to the “Form the City of South Fulton” opinion column weighed in on both sides of the issue.

Had the corporate suits at Kroger not righted themselves today, there was another solution to handling the "baby" Kroger leaving the Peachtree Crossing East shopping center.

Sure there would've been a Goodwill in its place. But have some vision people! Look at what COULD happen there.

Sometimes I feel as if I must be one of the few people left in America who is not a military expert.

For example, all sorts of politicians have been talking about all sorts of ways we ought to “redeploy” our troops. The closest I ever came to deploying troops was marching a company of Marines to the mess hall for chow.

We’re a pragmatic lot, we Americans. Or would cautious be the word? Those who prefer clarity in public policy often seem doomed — with blessed exceptions like the Reagan tax cuts of 1981 — to witness no end of philosophical hemming, hawing, stammering and foot-dragging.

A few weeks ago I attended a training session of the Georgia Association of Law Enforcement Chaplains, or GALEC. The several day sessions took place at the beautiful Baptist campground and convention center in Toccoa with about 60 chaplains from across the state in attendance.