I'll second the endorsement of the Rob Inglis audio version. Even if you have read the book many times, this reading will open new aspects of the story. Perhaps the greatest difference is being forced to take in the story, and Tolkien's powerful prose, at a speaking pace. This is how great saga's should be experienced, savoring the language and imagery, with time to consider each event or statement. You won't regret it.

The image of the "eight little burros" is just too charming... and probably more appropriate for the birthday of a man from Galilee, or for a Saint from Myra.

And I do agree, a work of genius.

I'll add my compliments, Professor. Great article. In addition to their spending policies, those mayors resemble the current president in their utter commitment to a strategy, political, financial and managerial, that continued to fail them. They were so deeply wrapped in a way of seeing the world and thinking about issues that they could only respond to the failure of their plans by doubling-down and spending more. I clearly remember both Lindsay and Beame becoming visibly frustrated and disoriented.

I was in NYC yesterday and thought about the contrast between the NY of today and the NY I experienced in the '70's. The damage done to that great city in those years should have been a vivid lesson, but we don't seem to learn from these sorts of mistakes.

I do remember the coup. I heard about it on the radio at work and was very scared. It had seemed too good to be true that the Iron Curtain could collapse without violence, even global violence. We were waiting for things to get ugly and hoping it wouldn't spread. The worst fears were not realized, but I clearly remember the "oh no, here it comes" feeling.

I also heard Gorby speak on that lecture tour and remember one thing especially. He described how the Soviet Union had come apart into smaller units of tribe and clan, and then offered that there was no real future for a world that could not get past the old tribal and clan loyalties. "It will all end in fire", he said (of course I'm paraphrasing. Being Russian he spent 45 minutes saying that)

You make a point that needs to be reiterated.

Years ago I was acquainted with a very accomplished Jewish man who had left Germany in the late 1930's, just before it was too late to escape. He told me that we had Hitler all wrong. Rather than a singular and exceptionally evil man, he was quite ordinary and at the time, easy to like. His point was that what happened in Germany in the 1930's was not nearly as freakish as our wartime propaganda and subsequent history have portrayed it. That movement made sense at that time to a lot of ordinary Germans who never imagined where it would lead.

His larger point was that such a thing could easily happen again in any country, and that failure to recognize that made it even more likely.

The problem with making your "enemies list" public is that your opponents will fight to get on it. Note Mark Steyn's response this morning. How long before conservatives begin bragging about the size and virulence of their "files" on this site.Can you be taken seriously as a Republican if you're not listed?

Although intended to be a fundraising tool for the Dem's, it may well become an effective fundraising tool for their opponents.

One wonders if the reason the the President, his staff and perhaps his whole party have such an evident low opinion of business, is the nature of the businesses they know. Apparently they assume that all business success is due to sweetheart deals and backroom string-pulling.

There are business people who don't hang around the power-centers of Washington with their hands out, but how would a fella like Barack Obama ever meet them?

I believe the "inheritance" is already in place...it's a mountain of debt.

They say that struggle and adversity build character, so we're bequeathing to our descendants an excellent opportunity to build strong character. I'm sure they'll be grateful.

C'mon Wilber, let's admit it, that has everything to do with the DOJ's actions in this case, and probably many other similar cases. The superficial reason for this action is so obscure and beyond Gibson's control that there can be no real hope of compliance. The DOJ has dug around looking for some technicality to justify trouble-making, or perhaps a fishing expedition.

This is not at all the first action against Gibson or other guitar makers, or anyone making use of exotic woods. This is a perfect case-study on how careless regulation can lead to outrageous abuse of power.

As I remember, Claire, you make clear in the book that Thatcher matters because she understood that "the conflict" was more than just a political horse race or even a battle of public policy ideas. It was (and still is) a conflict of national character and morals; deeply rooted and much more important than just the next year's election. She knew this and had the courage to say so.

Thatcher vanquished the immediate foes of her era, but sadly the underlying rot in the culture resurfaced after she left office. I just stumbled into an interview by Rod Dreher that has nothing explicit to so with Thatcher but illustrates how much the national dysfunction that she feared has spread. 

It is telling that the values championed by "the shopkeeper's daughter" have found their last refuge in small populations of immigrant shopkeepers.

I wonder if the one ray of hope for the US in the coming troubles will be that our much burdened private sector is not yet defeated and dying, and that people reliant on private and personal enterprise are still a visible and vocal force (Tea Party?). When the cutbacks come to the US in a big way, as they inevitably must, some Americans will rejoice to have a crushing burden lifted, and there is hope that private hiring could soften the blow on those losing their government-supplied livelihood.

Private investment is reputed to bring more jobs and prosperity than government programs, so a concerted reversal of the flow towards government control of the economy should return tangible benefits and find supporters, at least in a country where people still think that way.

Has the dependance of government in Europe become so universal that no one sees cutbacks as a relief?

Despite the stream of spin coming from the WH and the media, the problem with pinning the downgrade on the "Tea Party" is that it is not really a party. What influence they have is entirely based appearances and perceptions; they are a nexus for public emotions.

By declaring them a political force capable of forcing a President's hand they hand the Tea Party movement legitimacy and importance they might have struggled to achieve. What a gift.

The president has essentially declared that this amorphous Tea Party is (are?) the really effective counter to his policies, and as his policies become ever more unpopular, Republican candidates will fight to wrap themselves in the Gadsden flag.

I believe you are correct to call this a "trap" that the President is caught in, but it is a trap of his own making. Credit the the Speaker with the good sense to trip the trap when he saw the chance, although even here the Republicans had help from the President when he declared that he was bluffing.

If we are very lucky the generally clueless White House can be held in a position of irrelevancy, while Congress slowly eases us into some painful but responsible measures. That, and we benefit from Europe's race to look even worse off than the U.S.

Great evening! (And pretty good pizza too) As Mark said, once a year is not enough.

(And I'm the one between George and Peter...with the beard)

I realize that your "exactly right" comment refers to Stimson's conclusion that the decision was the "least abhorrent", but I would respond to his assertion above that it was the decision to go to war in the first place, made years earlier, that released the demons of death and destruction upon Japan. Individual decisions of targeting and tactics are just links in a long chain.

As you have related in you post, Fr. Bill, the fabled "four horseman" were very much on the ride in the region and every month brought death and suffering to thousands. A decision to bomb shifts the suffering to one group while likely relieving others, and a decision not to bomb saves (for a while, at least) Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but allowed many others to die. There is no resolving this sort of calculation, except to say that anything that hastens the end of fighting is an act of mercy, no matter how horrible the immediate effect.

...joining this conversation late...

Aside from welcoming Fr. Bill, I just want to toss a question into the mix.

Do we believe that the Cold War could have remained "cold" for decades had the world not witnessed the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

I am confident that sooner or later, and probably sooner, such exotic and mind-blowing weapons were going to be used against a population. Only the shock and remorse of the result would cool the passion to see it in action. There is a power in nuclear physics that fascinates and horrifies at the same time, and a weakness in political decision-makers that makes them unable to hold a great power without using it.

As I said, sooner or later the weapons would get used. Had the first detonations been a decade later, the results would have been much more terrible and potentially led to genuine exchanges. Truman answered the question for the whole world, and the bombs stayed in the silos.