The Gridiron Club, an invitation-only organization of fewer than 70 Washington reporters and columnists founded in 1885, exists almost solely to host an annual white-tie dinner attended by Supreme Court justices, Cabinet secretaries, congressional leaders and assorted celebrities.

Ward Churchill, the controversial University of Colorado ethnic studies professor who likened 9/11 World Trade Center victims to “little Eichmanns,” has finally lost his job. CU regents voted 8-1 this week to fire Churchill after a lengthy investigation that revealed a long history of academic misconduct by Churchill, including plagiarism.

Last week brought a convergence of issues into the public realm, all of which I’ve previously written about, polled on or participated in.

My wife, a professor of nursing, often displays a pin on her clothing that has become, for her, a favorite symbol. That symbol is a turtle.

The Democrats are poised to hurl America right over the cliff, to the rocks below.

Wait — I didn’t say they long to do such like, or that, in suicidal mood, they’d take the chance if they got it, assuming they win big in 2008. I think if they do win, much of the creepy teeth-baring and chest-pounding they presently go in for will likely just ... go away.

Nothing good could come of it, but like moths drawn to a hot porch light on a cool summer night, we just had to look. After all, it’s not everyday we saw an armadillo the size of a football padding his way across Flamingo Street, totally unaware of a freckled-faced boy with bright red hair bearing down on him.

“Moral paralysis” is a term that has been used to describe the inaction of France, England and other European democracies in the 1930s, as they watched Hitler build up the military forces that he later used to attack them.

Several months ago, Anne Westbrook wrote me and asked if I'd be interested in doing a series of articles on the Jones families in Fayette and surrounding areas. Since Jones is one of the more difficult families to keep track of, I gratefully accepted her offer. Anne has done a lot of research and gives her sources plainly in her articles. The stories appearing the next few weeks were written entirely by her. She begins with Robert Jones of Clarke County.

Sometimes the advocates of socialized medicine claim that health care is too important to be left to the market. That's why some politicians are calling for us to adopt health care systems such as those in Canada, the United Kingdom and other European nations. But the suggestion that we'd be better served with more government control doesn't even pass a simple smell test.

Recently Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to target Europe with missiles if the United States deployed components of a limited missile defense system to the Czech Republic and Poland.

Recently Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to target Europe with missiles if the United States deployed components of a limited missile defense system to the Czech Republic and Poland.

WASHINGTON — When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid picked up his ball and went home following his staged all-night session last week, he saved from possible embarrassment one of the least regular members of his Democratic caucus: Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

Credit CNN with trying to shake things up in an otherwise dull, exasperating and too-long campaign season with its YouTube Democratic presidential "debate" Monday night. There was a good deal of silliness, like Sen. Chris Dodd claiming he has white hair because he's a hardworking senator (what does that make senators with dark hair, dyed hair or no hair?).

Fox News ought to buy a copy of Monday’s Democrat debate on CNN to play over and over during the general election campaign.

“What made you decide to wash all the knick-knacks?”

“They’re not knick-knacks. They’re mementoes.”

“They look like knick-knacks to me.”

For the last few months, when Coweta County has been mentioned, Fayette residents in person and on our website react like they have a bad case of heartburn.

PORTSTEWART, NORTHERN IRELAND — The release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the final book in the Harry Potter series, has momentarily diverted the public’s attention from certain realities: The weather, which normally depresses during winter months when there is less sunlight, has been crying unmercifully on Britain, bringing what the Daily Telegraph calls “chaos and misery” as homes are flooded, flights are canceled, or delayed, and train and subway service is disrupted.

From the moment I saw it, I though it was the dumbest thing I’d ever seen. I spent 20 years thinking that, too.

“Whatta ya think?” Daddy stepped back, folded his arms across his chest with the look of a satisfied, proud man.

Desperate situations come to all people. Most people, when faced with a desperate situation turn to prayer. Prayer seems to be the most important thing to do when in desperation, but is it always the right thing to do?

Barack Obama and John Edwards want to get us out of one war and into another. The two Democrats vying for their party’s presidential nomination want to end the war in Iraq and spend at least some of the savings on a new war on poverty.

As I drove through the city of Los Angeles on a lovely day, I listened to an interview on National Public Radio. I heard something disturbing. The NPR host interviewed a lawyer with the NAACP who said that he had filed a lawsuit against several banks.

My fellow Americans, we have a problem. We spend billions of dollars on homeland security, but our government can’t even track and deport convicted criminal aliens.

WASHINGTON — Ignoring pleas from outraged South American governments, Democratic leadership of the House this week was adamant about Congress going into its August recess without taking action on free trade agreements with Peru and Panama as promised.

For a guy thought to be sleeping in some shack in the middle of nowhere, Osama bin Laden is certainly a hot topic of discussion. A front-page headline in The New York Times this week blares: “Bush Advisers See a Failed Strategy Against Al Qaeda.” Really? Do all the president’s men believe that, after hundreds of billions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost, Osama and his killers are prospering? Can that be possible?

If you liked making bets you’d never lose (up to now), try asking the name of the American poet whose statue sits on the “Literary Walk” of New York’s Central Park. It’s not Longfellow, Whitman or Robert Frost. It’s ...

“And then what?” That is the question which should be asked of those who are demanding that we pull out of Iraq now.

Senate Democrats, who had announced an all-nighter Tuesday to reiterate their anti-war positions, packed it in shortly before midnight, surrendering to a greater desire for a few hours sleep. Only a handful of stalwart senators kept the Senate — technically — in session. We know that Senate Democrats don’t have the staying power to win the war in Iraq, but can’t they even make it through the night without some shuteye?

Thompson may be more than a drop in the bucket

Did you hear the one about the $15 million worth of ice someone paid for and never used? They finally just decided to let it all melt. After all, it was just a drop in the bucket.

On July 11, New York Times reporter Patricia Cohen wrote an article titled, “In Economics Departments, a Growing Will to Debate Fundamental Assumptions.”