If you want a future of shared prosperity where the middle class is growing and poverty is declining where the American Dream is alive and well and where the United States remains the leading force for peace and prosperity in a highly competitive world you should vote for Barack Obama.

Every cloud has its silver lining but it is sometimes a little difficult to get it to the mint.

But if the choice is a cool president and 8 or 10 percent unemployment in a declining economy and a country that seems to be going in the wrong direction and structural unemployment for young people at 50 percent I'd rather have a dorky president who fixed those problems.

Newspapers with declining circulations can complain all they want about their readers and even say they have no taste. But you will still go out of business over time. A newspaper is not a public trust - it has a business model that either works or it doesn't.

Courtesy is a silver lining around the dark clouds of civilization it is the best part of refinement and in many ways an art of heroic beauty in the vast gallery of man's cruelty and baseness.