Suzanne Fields from Creators Syndicate

Lessons From a Past Protest for 06/26/2009

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

BERLIN — The righteous rage in the streets of Tehran is familiar to Berliners. They recall their own demonstrations that doomed the hated Berlin Wall two decades ago. Berliners, hopeful and sympathetic, see lessons in their past for the demonstrators in the Iranian capital.

Films and photographs at exhibitions throughout the city document how "power to the people" can som ...

Updated: Fri Jun 26, 2009

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But for the grace of God ... for 07/03/2009

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

What a fortnight this has been for observing the human animal in his natural habitat. We're reminded daily of the clay feet, the wounded psyches, the angst of the exploiters and the anger of the exploitees. Their behavior runs the table, from naive foibles to deep, tragic flaws, linking the venal with the vulnerable. All is writ large in headlines about money, sex and power.

Like the bea ...

Updated: Fri Jul 03, 2009

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Palin Juggles Two Parties for 07/10/2009

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

You took a fine time to leave us, Sarah. Can't you imagine Kenny Rogers singing about it? We've had some bad times/ Lived through some sad times/ But this time your hurtin' won't heal.

Sarah Palin's detractors, and there are lots of them, pile on the lower-class comparisons, ridiculing her as more country than cool: Barbie with a gun, whose got the moose on the run. They're righ ...

Updated: Fri Jul 10, 2009

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When a Tweet Is Not Enough for 07/17/2009

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

WOODS HOLE, Mass. — All politics may not be loco, as one famous pundit (Michael Barone) puts it, but the ancient maxim that all politics is local is demonstrably true. Consider a feature called "Obama Watch" in the Cape Cod Times. There's nothing in it about the rising unemployment figures, the crash of the president's teleprompter, his health-care legislation or the latest on w ...

Updated: Fri Jul 17, 2009

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The Legacy of the Jewish Mother for 07/24/2009

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Before there was multiculturalism, there was assimilation. Before assimilation, there was ethnic pride. Before ethnic pride, there was fear and frustration in the old country, with hope for a better life in America. Such is the immigrant experience. Poverty, prejudice and tyranny, a combination of hardships and fierce ambition, drove men and women to our shores, beginning with the Pilgrims.

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Updated: Fri Jul 24, 2009

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A Shooting Star Dims for 07/31/2009

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Barack Obama was a rock star on the campaign trail and his aura went undimmed in his first few months of office. But then he began taking too many curtain calls. The applause subsided, but he kept coming back to center stage to try harder to wow us. He forgot what every star must learn, that you've got to know when to get off that center stage. If you don't have anything new to say, shut up. Th ...

Updated: Fri Jul 31, 2009

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Death in the Casino for 08/07/2009

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

When my mother was in her late 80s, I took her to a lawyer's office one sunny day to sign her "living will." We read over the questions and her answers, and she signed on the dotted line. She was pleased with the decisions that she had made weeks before.

We went shopping afterward, and she bought an antique watch that caught my eye in a shop window. This was an appropriate gift ...

Updated: Fri Aug 07, 2009

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Reverie Beyond the Beltway for 08/14/2009

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The shorter days of late summer ushers in the melancholy prospect of autumn, the thoughts of returning to school, work and reality. Such anticipation makes the last moments at the beach, lake or campsite especially precious. The kids can stay up late because they can sleep 'til noon. They come and go on whim, tracking sand or mud, but dirty footprints are easily washed away with seawater. We pu ...

Updated: Fri Aug 14, 2009

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Cheating the Least Among Us for 08/21/2009

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — Colonial Williamsburg is proud of its tradesmen. You can see the carpenters walking out of the history books and down the cobblestone streets, ready to talk to visitors about how they hammered Williamsburg together, log by log, shingle by shingle, as if still in the 18th century.

These tradesmen built new homes, smokehouses, dairies, barns. They built additions ...

Updated: Fri Aug 21, 2009

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Obama's Bummer of a Summer for 08/28/2009

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

This is everybody's bummer of a season, particularly these rough weeks for Barack Obama. You could call this a summer of discontent, but there's nothing poetic about it. The president warns that the economy will only get considerably worse before it gets better.

"The long-term deficit outlook remains daunting," the White House said Tuesday. Unemployment is expected to surpass 1 ...

Updated: Fri Aug 28, 2009

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No Requiem for a Twitching Corpse for 09/04/2009

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

All but hidden in the fulsome eulogies for Ted Kennedy lurk a few serious ideas worthy of more than romancing history or waxing sentimental over a death in a famous family. These ideas are about the very nature of liberalism and conservatism, the connections between personal virtue and public morality, and how emotion shapes ideology.

The passing of "the last liberal lion" come ...

Updated: Fri Sep 04, 2009

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Learning Is No Picnic, Buster for 09/11/2009

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Conservatives and other parents won their point. President Obama dropped his lesson plan for the schoolchildren of America. He didn't ask what they can do for him, as he first intended to do, but what they can do for themselves and country.

"We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect, so you can help solve our most difficult problems," he said ...

Updated: Fri Sep 11, 2009

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It's Multicultural, Stupid for 09/18/2009

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The attack on America on Sept. 11 set off alarms everywhere. We were shocked to discover that few Foreign Service officers were fluent in Arabic or Farsi, the dominant languages of the Middle East. We didn't know much about Islam. Children grew up on the engrossing and romantic "Tales of the Arabian Nights," but few parents thought much about the implications of women portrayed in vei ...

Updated: Fri Sep 18, 2009

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When Defenses Go Down for 09/25/2009

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Autumn in Washington is often cruel. The heat and the humidity have lifted, and Congress returns more or less refreshed from summer vacation, but the pressure cooker continues to cook politics. Conversations about health care legislation and the economy continue to get top billing on the Hill and elsewhere, but Barack Obama is playing football with foreign policy. It's the season of the gridiro ...

Updated: Fri Sep 25, 2009

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A Revolution Too Far for 10/02/2009

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Austin, age 13, is touching and familiar. With his helmet of short brown hair, biggish ears and sensitive eyes, he's typical of a tender age almost on the cusp of manhood. So little time behind him, so much time ahead of him. If he were Jewish, he might be preparing for his bar mitzvah, thanking his parents for giving him life, expressing his hopes to live up to the respect they place in him.
Updated: Fri Oct 02, 2009

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Sense and Sexuality for 10/09/2009

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Not so long ago, rape was a capital offense, right up there with murder. When death was not decreed, convicted rapists could count on a long prison sentence. No one took rape lightly. The crime was an absolute evil, the moral equivalent of neither shoplifting nor stealing a kiss.

Our sex-saturated society — where children are exposed to titillation they cannot fully understand and ...

Updated: Fri Oct 09, 2009

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The Nobler Nobels for 10/16/2009

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Enough already. Barack Obama got the Nobel Prize for Hope and Hype, and now the rest is up to him. But there are more important Nobels, and this year women won three of these for scientific research. They won not for what they might do, sometime, maybe, could be or hope so, but for what they've already done. Only eight women have won Nobels in physiology or medicine, and the recognition of thes ...

Updated: Fri Oct 16, 2009

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An Inconvenient Rebuttal for 10/23/2009

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Ann McElhinney's low-budget documentary refuting the global warming hype and hysteria arrives in Washington just in time to break Al Gore's crystal ball. "Not Evil Just Wrong," the feature-length film she made with her husband Phelim McAleer, coolly reveals how Al's disguise of hot fanaticism as cold fact arrives as the Senate begins to gear up for debate on "climate change" ...

Updated: Fri Oct 23, 2009

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Home Economics Reduced to Economics for 10/30/2009

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Maria Shriver is no "wife of," even though she's married to the governor of California. She's no "niece of," although her uncle was president of the United States. She credits her late mother Eunice Shriver for encouraging her "to believe we had the ability to change the world," and as the inspiration behind "The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everyt ...

Updated: Fri Oct 30, 2009

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A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man for 11/06/2009

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Twenty years ago, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. If Humpty Dumpty had been sitting on top of it, not Soviet soldiers, nor Stasi spies could put Humpty together again. It wasn't the end of history, as some liked to call it, but rather like history on a pause button that showed the world in one powerful moment that some of the evil that men do can be undone.

It is a coincidence not lo ...

Updated: Fri Nov 06, 2009

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