10 Great Things
What to love about the United States.



A merica is under attack as never before — not only from terrorists, but from people who provide a justification for terrorism. Islamic fundamentalists declare America the Great Satan. Europeans rail against American capitalism and American culture. South American activists denounce the United States for "neo-colonialism" and oppression.


Anti-Americanism from abroad would not be such a problem if Americans were united in standing up for their own country. But in this country itself, there are those who blame America for most of the evils in the world. On the political left, many fault the United States for a history of slavery, and for continuing inequality and racism. Even on the right, traditionally the home of patriotism, we hear influential figures say that America has become so decadent that we are "slouching towards Gomorrah."

If these critics are right, then America should be destroyed. And who can dispute some of their particulars? This country did have a history of slavery and racism continues to exist. There is much in our culture that is vulgar and decadent. But the critics are wrong about America, because they are missing the big picture. In their indignation over the sins of America, they ignore what is unique and good about American civilization.

As an immigrant who has chosen to become an American citizen, I feel especially qualified to say what is special about America. Having grown up in a different society — in my case, Bombay, India — I am not only able to identify aspects of America that are invisible to the natives, but I am acutely conscious of the daily blessings that I enjoy in America. Here, then, is my list of the ten great things about America.

America provides an amazingly good life for the ordinary guy.: Rich people live well everywhere. But what distinguishes America is that it provides an impressively high standard of living for the "common man." We now live in a country where construction workers regularly pay $4 for a nonfat latte, where maids drive nice cars, and where plumbers take their families on vacation to Europe.

Indeed newcomers to the United States are struck by the amenities enjoyed by "poor" people in the United States. This fact was dramatized in the 1980s when CBS television broadcast a documentary, People Like Us, which was intended to show the miseries of the poor during an ongoing recession. The Soviet Union also broadcast the documentary, with a view to embarrassing the Reagan administration. But by the testimony of former Soviet leaders, it had the opposite effect. Ordinary people across the Soviet Union saw that the poorest Americans have TV sets, microwave ovens, and cars. They arrived at the same perception that I witnessed in an acquaintance of mine from Bombay who has been unsuccessfully trying to move to the United States. I asked him, "Why are you so eager to come to America?" He replied, "I really want to live in a country where the poor people are fat."


By Dinesh D’Souza


Read the 10 reasons why America is great

The legacy of Eric Hoffer


The twentieth anniversary of the death of Eric Hoffer, in May 1983, passed with very little notice of one of the most incisive thinkers of his time — a man whose writings continue to have great relevance to our times.


How many people today even know of this remarkable man with no formal schooling, who spent his life in manual labor — most of it as a longshoreman — and who wrote some of the most insightful commentary on our society and trends in the world?


You need only read one of his classics like The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements to realize that you are seeing the work of an intellectual giant.


Having spent several years in blindness when most other children were in school, Hoffer could only do manual labor after he recovered his sight, but was determined to educate himself. He began by looking for a big book with small print to take with him as he set out on a job as a migratory farm worker.


Thomas Sowell

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[From the Library of Congress: "Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Roger C. Weightman, declining to attend the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in the District of Columbia. This was the last letter written by Jefferson, who died ten days later, on July 4, 1826."]

Monticello, June 24, 1826

Respected Sir-

The kind invitation I receive from you, on the part of the citizens of the city of Washington, to be present with them at their celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of American Independence, as one of the surviving signers of an instrument pregnant with our own, and the fate of the world, is most flattering to myself, and heightened by the honorable accompaniment proposed for the comfort of such a journey. It adds sensibly to the sufferings of sickness, to be deprived by it of a personal participation in the rejoicings of that day. But acquiescence is a duty, under circumstances not placed among those we are permitted to control. I should, indeed, with peculiar delight, have met and exchanged there congratulations personally with the small band, the remnant of that host of worthies, who joined with us on that day, in the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country, between submission or the sword; and to have enjoyed with them the consolatory fact, that
our fellow citizens, after half a century of experience and prosperity, continue to approve the choice we made. May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man.

The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

I will ask permission here to express the pleasure with which I should have met my ancient neighbors of the city of Washington and its vicinities, with whom I passed so many years of a pleasing social intercourse; an intercourse which so much relieved the anxieties of the public cares, and left impressions so deeply engraved in my affections, as never to be forgotten. With my regret that ill health forbids me the gratification of an acceptance, be pleased to receive for yourself, and those for whom you write, the assurance of my highest respect and friendly attachments.

Th. Jefferson

Howard Dean and Us
Conservatives ought not to cheer the Democrats’ leftward lurch.

Republicans are looking forward to next year's elections with a song in their hearts and a smile on their faces. They were happy when Nancy Pelosi became the leader of the House Democrats, and they are even happier about Howard Dean's momentum in the Democratic presidential primaries. They are happy about every sign that the Democratic party is lurching leftward, since they think a left turn would create the possibility for a Republican landslide. It will be 1972 all over again


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Nobel poet proclaims his respect for Eminem's 'verbal energy'


Heaney, 64, former professor of poetry at Oxford University, spoke of his admiration for the rapper, also known as Slim Shady, comparing his impact to that of Bob Dylan and John Lennon.

Heaney said: "There is this guy Eminem. He has created a sense of what is possible. He has sent a voltage around a generation. He has done this not just through his subversive attitude, but also his verbal energy."


By Ian Burrell, Media and Culture Correspondent

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Miller Emerges as New Voice for Bush Re-Election




Miller flew on Air Force One from San Francisco to Los Angeles with the president on Friday, and later gave a stand-up routine at a Bush fund-raiser in Los Angeles.


"I spent an amazing couple of hours with Dennis Miller," Bush said during his Los Angeles speech after Miller's routine. "He keeps you on your toes."


He added: "I was also honored to meet his wife, Carolyn. Like me, he married above himself. It may not be all that hard, in his case. But I'm proud to have his help."




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Main Gaza road opens to traffic


Israeli and Palestinian commanders shook hands Monday, bulldozers dismantled
checkpoints and Palestinian traffic flowed freely in the Gaza Strip, the most significant sign of
disengagement after 33 months of bloody fighting.
The Israeli pullback, part of a US-backed peace plan, came on the same day as pledges by
Palestinian militias to suspend attacks on Israelis for three months.

Both sides remained deeply skeptical that the cease-fire will take hold, having been disappointed
so many times before, and a dispute loomed over Israel's demand that the Palestinian Authority
dismantle the militant groups altogether. But there was also a first glimmer of optimism.

Two new ingredients raised hope: Israelis and Palestinians, exhausted by the carnage, are
grateful for the break in fighting, and the United States is intensively engaged in supervising
implementation of the so-called "road map" to Mideast peace and Palestinian statehood by 2005.

The Poetry of D.H. Rumsfeld
Recent works by the secretary of defense.



The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

HEPBURN DIES; SIREN OF THE SCREEN




June 29— Katharine Hepburn, the revered American actress whose career spanned well over six decades, has died. She was 96.

The Dark Night of Mother Teresa

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The Dark Night. Throughout 1946 and 1947, Mother Teresa experienced a profound union with Christ. But soon after she left the convent and began her work among the destitute and dying on the street, the visions and locutions ceased, and she experienced a spiritual darkness that would remain with her until her death. It is hard to know what is more to be marveled at: that this twentieth-century commander of a worldwide apostolate and army of charity should have been a visionary contemplative at heart; or that she should have persisted in radiating invincible faith and love while suffering inwardly from the loss of spiritual consolation. In letters written during the 1950s and 1960s to Fr. Van Exem, Archbishop Périer, and to later spiritual directors, Fr. L. T. Picachy, S.J., and Fr. J. Neuner, S.J., she disclosed feelings of doubt, loneliness, and abandonment. God seemed absent, heaven empty, and bitterest of all, her own suffering seemed to count for nothing, “. . . just that terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing.”
Carol Zaleski

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