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Alan Abelson, RIP
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South Carolina on My Mind
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Just Like a Woman
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Missing So Many
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Ben Stein's Diary
America’s Exceptionalism
We cannot be reminded of it enough.
I had always planned to be a historian and I still spend much of my time reading history. When I do, I am struck by a few dramatic truths.
The first is that life in America, at least right now, at least for most of us, is simply great. I’m reading a book about “Hitler’s Central European Empire” by a recently deceased historian named Jean Sedlar. She writes in great detail about the horrifying brutality in the region from Finland down to the Balkans in the period roughly from the late 1930s to the end of World War II.
Every ethnic group at war with every other ethnic group. Every nationality wanting to kill their neighbors. Two totalitarian states, the Soviet Union and The Third Reich crushing everyone in their path.
The suffering of untold millions, the gruesome living conditions, the fighting, the fleeing, the hiding, the starving, and the dying just went on endlessly. There was no end of pain from the Baltic to the Adriatic.
As we saw much more recently in the wars in the former Yugoslavia, that kind of ethnic and religious hatred persists to this day.
When I read about this, or read about the torment of my fellow Jews even in a supposedly highly civilized nation like France in World War II or about the staggering viciousness in the drug trade in Mexico right now, or the endless civil wars and mineral wars in Africa, my head reels at the cruelty of man to man.
Then my wife and I take our dogs out for a walk in our neighborhood in Los Angeles and the lawns are green and the birdies are singing and soon we will have some French toast — and life is great. No wars, no ethnic hatreds, pretty much everyone accepted and taken at face value as a fellow citizen, brother and sister.
I mention this because I am like you. I worry constantly. About my son and his family. About getting older. About the hideously ugly house someone is putting up across the street from me. About the ‘flu.
But when I think about our lives in America right now, and compare them with what life is like and has been like for so many hundreds or millions — no,
Billions — of human beings, I cannot help but feel as if God had shone a special privilege and blessing upon America.
I know this is not allowed and it’s called American exceptionalism and it’s academic poison. But it’s true. God really has blessed this glorious land, from sea to shining sea, and compared with the privilege of living here in 2013, no problem I have right now means much. What glory to live here.
Thank you, God, thank you.
About the Author
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes “Ben Stein’s Diary” for every issue of The American Spectator.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (88) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 2.26.13 @ 7:04AM
And we Christians have hope that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not (and cannot) overcome it.
However, we do have to be careful not to practice "I'm all right Jack" happy thought reality that reassures us that we personally are okay, and therefore don't rock the boat.
Oh, and remember: studying history is worthless and bogus, because it is part of a classic Liberal Arts curriculum and will not get you a job as a network anchorman, a sports and entertainment lawyer, or a software engineer.
TLP| 2.26.13 @ 4:39PM
"Every Ethnic Group at war with every other Ethnic Group. Every Nationality wanting to kill every other Nationality."
Has Ben actually BEEN to Chicago, lately?
Idiot.
Joellen| 2.26.13 @ 7:24AM
And, how blessed will we continue to be Ben? It seems your thought for today is only half thought out.
We've murdered close to 60 million babies in the womb. GOD's children.
We've mocked the sacredness of marraige between one man and one woman.
We've embrace every type of indecency and call it Relativity.
We've aided and abeted in creating a people totally dependent on the government
and not
build a faith in GOD and believe in HIS providence on earth and in heaven.
Yes Ben we are blessed, yet GOD who is slow to anger will not tolerate this mockery and perversion forever.
HE will send HIS judgement one day; and then I pray we humble ourselves and seek HIS forgiveness and HIS rightousness.
Best to have a ending with meaning Ben, not live in a make believe world - we're all to old for that and it doesnt serve a purpose to leave one in the dark.
Jack in Wi| 2.26.13 @ 8:11AM
Amen Joellen: The USA is an exceptionally bad place. 60 million is worse then Hitler or Stalin. The American Empire is headed for the ash heap of history just like theirs. Even Hitler and Stalin had more respect for the laws of nature then to push homsexuality as normal and healthy.
SUBVET| 2.26.13 @ 9:52AM
Jack...........maybe you need to read up on your history...."hitler & stalin had more respect for the laws of nature".
You have just removed all doubt.........
Occam's Tool| 2.27.13 @ 6:25PM
My country screws up from time to time, and abortion is a major screwup. But to say worse than Stalin or Hitler? Jack, how can you service your jihadist johns if your head is that firmly up your rectum?
You are a loathsome maggot; a man whose ethics lie lower than whale dung at the bottom of the ocean.
C. Vernon Crisler | 2.26.13 @ 12:49PM
Excellent comments Joellen. One hopes for a "heroic" future, but the signs point in the opposite direction.
CJW| 2.26.13 @ 1:41PM
Well said, Joellen.
TLP| 2.26.13 @ 4:40PM
He's already Sent His Judgement.
Barack Hussein Obama.
Michele San Pietro| 2.26.13 @ 7:38AM
Thank God for creating America, simply an exceptional country! I think it's time to declare heinous and intolerant anti-Americanism a crime, and to prevent disgusting anti-Americanism from entering America!
Larry E| 2.26.13 @ 7:43AM
Ben ... thank you. Once again and gratefully. I often agree with your posits (mostly), admire your compassion and joy in your joie de vivre.
You've once again started my day with a cheerful and helpful thought. Again, thank you ...
TLP| 2.26.13 @ 4:41PM
He's an Idiot.
Larry E| 2.26.13 @ 5:47PM
TLP ... how ironic an observation ...
TLP| 2.26.13 @ 6:16PM
I get it.
You think you're an idiot, too.
Hardcard| 2.26.13 @ 8:36AM
Benny.... So every thing is coming up roses for you and yours. Yes the 1930's and 40's were years of destruction, death and evil had hold over much of the world. Nothing like walking your dogs in L.A. or Beverly Hills or Malibu, where all people are at peace with one another, we are all just getting along, everybody is wearing his smiley face, no ghettos on Canyon Drive. No one is taking away your rights now, right benny? What could be better no soldiers dying, no Bengazhi, no fast and furious, no culture of death (systematic killing of the unwanted), no rabble in the streets(OWS), no hate, no bigotry, no crime. Who could stop you from enjoying your life of luxury and privilege? I know you deserve all you have, gee, why can't we all be like you? Yes this country is great because of people who had their eyes opened to reality and chose to make a stand for right, this is the country that liberated the world of the 1940's with the blood, sweat and treasure of we the people, in spite of jerks like you tip-towing through the tulips with your mutts. Take a nap!!
TLP| 2.26.13 @ 4:42PM
That was a Fantastic Comment, Hardcard.
It still amazes me that you don't win more, at The Contest.
Occam's Tool| 2.27.13 @ 6:27PM
Ben, we can't raise taxes to get us out of our mess, we have to grow.
Your counting your blessings is a little ironic because you do your best to destroy things that we have.
Pecos Pete| 2.26.13 @ 8:40AM
Ben, King O doesn't agree with you. Nor does Queen O. Nor does the MSM. Etc.
They are transforming our USA into a central planning regime of enormous size. They will, if we let them, eliminate religion and basic freedoms for the purpose of equality of life's outcome.
R Martin| 2.26.13 @ 9:12AM
Spot on, Pecos, but Mr. Stein is a “peace in our time” sort of thinker. He doesn’t want to dwell on where that academic poison he cites or the Marxist push of Obama’s class warfare might lead. To the Steins it’s all birdies, green lawns and French toast…for now.
bustunloose| 2.26.13 @ 3:26PM
Pecos Ben wants to raise our taxes even higher to make the above happen. Hey Ben, when you gonna do that big expose of how Hollywood and NYNY media avoid paying the taxrs they want everybody else to pay ? Never. You need to be in this crowds good graces since your broke. Lose 90 per cent of your income if you showed some guts. Shill for the super rich. Got you figured now. Buzz off clown.
p
TLP| 2.26.13 @ 4:44PM
Please understand that Ben's Money is like Warren Buffet's Money.
He pays less in Taxes, than does his Housekeepers.
CrackerHound| 2.26.13 @ 8:58AM
The calm before the storm Ben...enjoy it while you can.
Anthony| 2.26.13 @ 9:09AM
Careful Ben, L.A. ain't as bucolic as you make it out. The recent outbreak of T.B. has you living in L.A in the time of T.B.
Great movie by the way.
Better get yourself a Michael Jackson mask if you're gonna moon walk the green grass ways of beautiful but diseased L.A.
Maybe you can star in "The Walking Dead, L.A. 2013", a modern day apocalypse movie of horror, filled with wandering flesh eating, drop dead gorgeous zombie women.
RAM| 2.26.13 @ 9:21AM
But, if present trends continue, that old mayhem could become ours, too. We're laying the moral (really, immoral) foundation for just that.
Bill8472| 2.26.13 @ 9:48AM
We are exceptional in the U.S. only because we found a way to combine personal responsibility and accountability with liberty, while at the same time keeping government intrusion out of our daily lives.
Now that we have given up the ideal of liberty for equality of result and abdicated our sense of personal accountability for eating at the public trough, it can be argued that we are no longer exceptional, although once our exceptionalism was the occasion for many a remark by percipient observers like deToqueville, Carlyle, and Crevecour.
FETOAU| 2.27.13 @ 12:15AM
AMEN!!!!!!
Lyneuss Fields | 2.26.13 @ 11:00AM
Many of us more radical folk lie in wait, longing for springtime and the demonstrations and riots this stinking America well deserves and is going to experience first-hand. All you Wall Street thugs and money misers better damn well understand that our brothers and sisters are going to “Occupy” the streets of your districts. All you conservative stinks—yes this includes you to Benny—and your greedy, cheap-skate, snipe-snout brethren, better cover your greedy asses. Then we can all take a leisurely walk down the broken, shit-laden Avenues of your abuse.
http://lyneussfields.blogspot......gious.html
Anthony| 2.26.13 @ 11:51AM
Don't tease us Lyneuss, we anxously await your brothers and sisters of scum OWS to take it to the streets.
Kicking lefty ass at last, perhaps it will indeed by a glorious spring time!!!
Bring it!!!
TLP.| 2.26.13 @ 3:25PM
Anthony is me.
bustunloose| 2.26.13 @ 3:35PM
Kicking lefty ass is one thing that does unite us. I was one out of the many who did so in the old days. A mob of long haired maggots tried to prevent me from entering my bank. Other dopes were standing around afraid to offend the bums. It got rough 20 of them against one Viet Nam vet. I had so much fun. Funny, all the confused people waiting around to go in but afraid to confront the scum-followed right in after me. Start by not sending media conglomerates a dime. Cancel your cable, stop going to movies. Write the NFL and let them know their ratings gonna suck. Send letters and post cards-let it pile up in their offices. That is an act of war that'll stagger these shits.
spike59| 2.26.13 @ 4:37PM
Leftists are like Slinkies...fundamentally useless, but fun to push down a flight of stairs
Lyneuss Fields | 2.26.13 @ 7:47PM
OK Rambo, I’m intimidated, you macho son of a winch. You must have been a real peace of work in the "good old days". But now, you’re just another old, lame, piece of worn-out brain rot. And as far as being united, you just sit back and tune into your friends at Fox News. They'll fill you in with all the ill-stated, half-cocked, truncated-to-fool dumb asses, daily info that is the sum total of your worthless Tea Party corruption- ridden ideology.
TLP| 2.26.13 @ 4:46PM
I did not write that.
Seriously.
I did not write that.
R Martin| 2.26.13 @ 12:42PM
Of all the silly rot this poster is gushing, the most offensive is referring to Ben Stein as a conservative. If he thinks Mr. Stein is a conservative, then he doesn’t know who we conservatives are, and when his brothers and sisters (mostly sisters, I suspect) come stomping down the street with “occupy” in mind they may be surprised. This could be fun.
Lyneuss Fields | 2.26.13 @ 1:52PM
Listen, both you stinking extremists aren't Conservative. So take note! You are fascist thugs trying to take down America's democratic government by suppressing the vote. Your districts will be put under siege by thousands of Americans. Your day will come! You support tax crooks and their armed Pigs, because you are total scum!
Anthony| 2.26.13 @ 2:01PM
Can't we all just get along. haaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Lyneuss Fields | 2.26.13 @ 2:05PM
Just don't call me a lefty or Socialist, you f'n jerkwad!
TLP.| 2.26.13 @ 3:27PM
Lots of me on here. I go by many names.
Lyneuss Fields | 2.26.13 @ 3:57PM
But your BS, regardless of the name you give it, is all the same extremist rot.
TLP| 2.26.13 @ 4:48PM
That was not me.
spike59| 2.26.13 @ 4:35PM
Socialist Lefty Progtard...how's that?
Lyneuss Fields | 2.26.13 @ 5:28PM
Say, tell me how you and your crew like it Spike!
http://lyneussfields.blogspot......ammer.html
spike59| 2.27.13 @ 5:52AM
aww...LF...did i hurt your widdle pwogwessive feewings? call a wahmbulance, pantywaist punk
Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.26.13 @ 4:48PM
I think we should start by rationing Fields' exclamation points.
Lyneuss Fields | 2.26.13 @ 7:53PM
Well Al, so why don't you give us your points!!!
Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.26.13 @ 8:22PM
Well, I don't want to make any blanket statements, Linus; but if I was doing comedy, I'd say we start with the one at the top of your head.
Lyneuss Fields | 2.26.13 @ 8:42PM
It's spelled Lyneuss! So let's hear about ideas from the crap under your cap, Constantino.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.26.13 @ 9:50PM
Crap under your cap is a clever rhyme. Since you are displaying the poetic side of Lucy's little brother,
One good poem deserves another:
He says his name is spelled Lyneuss
I guess it rhymes with Doctor Seuss
An angry keyboard that he wields
The raging lefty Lyneuss Fields
He threatens and he shakes his fist
Don’t dare call me socialist
And as his angry words do fly
As he prepares to occupy
I leave you with this meditation
Please increase your medication
Bob K| 2.26.13 @ 10:43PM
Seriously Albert! Do you think that Linus the lunatic's maunderings are starting to look like excerpts from Christopher Dorner's manifesto?
Maybe the moderators here should consider showing him the door?
Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.26.13 @ 11:02PM
...if not the door, then perhaps the lake house...
Lyneuss Fields | 2.26.13 @ 10:55PM
No where on this thread, on any blog of this site, or on my website, have I ever said I supported government control of capital. I'm almost sure you know I mean "capital" is the economic tool for producing goods and services. This is what defines free enterprise: the foundation that supports Americans (this means you and me bonehead) in our freedom to choose. Therefore, your rant that I am a Socialist is pure bull-crap.
Bill8472| 2.26.13 @ 2:53PM
What you "more radical folk" don't understand is that we're ready for you.
So please do your worst. I know you will.
I think a comparison of the relative "stinks" of the left and the right will lead to a self-evident conclusion.
spike59| 2.27.13 @ 5:53AM
LF's 'worst' is sitting in mommy's basement, scarfing down cheetos, and posting moronic little rants while he waits for a new episode of 'spongebob'
Bill8472| 2.26.13 @ 2:56PM
Why do I have deep doubts as to your intentions to leave these shit-laden avenues behind as you live your ever-so-much-more-righteous life?
Oh yeah; the fight's here. That's what all the radicals say so as to both avoid having to leave these cushy precincts and maintain the moral high ground.
Bill8472| 2.26.13 @ 3:00PM
And by the way, the videos provide that the lading of shit in those avenues has been the product of the "radical" activity.
That "radical" activity, by the way, is more appropriately classified as reactionary.
Lyneuss Fields | 2.26.13 @ 4:47PM
You're wrong again on the moral high ground malarkey. Your “Tea Party Kind” is the extremists who protect Wall Street thugs who claim they've broken no laws. Oh, don't you remember bonehead? I'm talking about The Glass-Stengel Act, short stick. Your Republican Congress repealed that 1929 legislation during the Clinton Administration. Is it any wonder why Bubba is worth over $100 million today? It was these same Wall Street bamboozlers (Greenspan, Rubin, Summers, Geithner and crowd—Benny’s Buddies) who later claimed they'd broken no laws. Do you notice the connection between most of these characters by any chance?
And so this is the justification for the Occupation of your districts by our movement. Your politicians in America's Congress are the ones who continue to elaborately deceive Americans by thwarting attempts to reinstate legislation to correct tyranny. Therefore, it is you and your kind, who should be occupied.
Bob K| 2.26.13 @ 5:12PM
Let me guess?
Casey Stengel wrote part of the Glass-Stengel Act. Is that right?
Was that when he managed the Mets?
To paraphrase Casey: "Can't any of you left tards write an intelligent post?"
Lyneuss Fields | 2.26.13 @ 5:18PM
Glass-Steagall, you got it now?
Bob K| 2.26.13 @ 5:39PM
Rewrite the entire post Dummy!
It's as illiterate as your blog posts are. You are out of your league here.
Lyneuss Fields | 2.26.13 @ 7:02PM
Mark the date asshole! You and the rest of your Tea Party jerk fest are gone in 2014.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 2.26.13 @ 8:25PM
If Obama had a son, he'd post like Linus.
spike59| 2.27.13 @ 5:56AM
'our movement?' hahahahahaha...puh-leeze...we've SEEN your 'movement'....95% hissyfit by trust fund-coddled poseurs, 5% BOWEL movements in the street and on cop cars
anna k from emory u| 2.26.13 @ 3:56PM
Again, Mr. Fields, the stench of your foul HATE creeps over a thread here again. I imagine you lie in wait with your fellow radical folk, because lying is something you all do well.
Of course, the ambush and the use of force is the only tactic that you and your unwashed filthy comrades can pull off in order to find someone to have sex with, which is why rape became so common at the occupy sites 18 months past.
Even the relaxed morally casual attitudes of my fellow progressives cannot permit anyone to imagine someone voluntarily mating with you or your ilk.
Best of luck increasing traffic to your “blogspot”.
Lyneuss Fields | 2.26.13 @ 5:11PM
Well, my hat comes off again to you Ms. Goody Two-Shoes. Yes, of course I recognize you believe your opinion is a hot piece of damned property, especially from your previous rants. Your rape argument is just an extra helping of more of your logic-less trash talk. And as far as this ambush BS goes, you'll see us damn well before we ever hit your front yard. Just make yourself halfway presentable.
anna k from emory u| 2.26.13 @ 10:41PM
Ah, the HATEFUL rapist reveals himself.
Have no fear, Lyneuss, as I'll pray for your soul and the mercy of God, in the event that I might be required to hasten your appearance before him for judgment.
Lyneuss Fields | 2.27.13 @ 1:11AM
But you're OK with vaginal probes from Bob McDonald?
No one on this website is advocating violence but yourself. You better be careful though. This jerkwad named Albert Constantine Jr. wants to limit our right to free speech. Beware, because he might call the webmaster of this blog site and shut your whiny butt, sniveling, not worth a damn,opinionated comments down.
spike59| 2.27.13 @ 5:49AM
LF, you're cordially invited to hit MY front yard, along with the rest of your fellow Occutards..i could use a little target practice with the .22 loaded with rat-shot; and to make it marginally more sporting, i'll wear a blindfold, and let the stench aid me in target selection
spike59| 2.26.13 @ 4:33PM
'Many of us more radical folk lie'
-------------------------------------------------
pretty much sums up 'liberal thought'
Occam's Tool| 2.27.13 @ 6:31PM
Lyneuss: keyboard commando. Molon Labe, punk.
I have a very sharp Ka-bar and dissection training. And the water of my lake is very deep and very, very cold. So, leave me alone and go threaten someone who cares.
Lyneuss Fields | 2.27.13 @ 10:43PM
As long as you blog on this thread, or any other thread on this website, I'll continue to challenge your no account, butt-hook, illiterate, degenerate generated, totally foul and not worth rot spew. And if you don't like that, you can stick your head in a hot pot of shit stew.
Bob K| 2.26.13 @ 11:54AM
So Ben,
Have you have been reading the articles in the current March/April issue of "The American Interest" on American Exceptionalism and it's "unlikely history" where the author argues that the notion of exceptionalism came from doctrinaire Communists and Catholics as recently as the 1930s?
Or the next article which argues that most countries think they are special?
Or the last article that argues that "America may once have been 'exceptional' next to Europe, but is so no longer."
Bill8472| 2.26.13 @ 2:57PM
American exceptionalism was remarked upon as early as the first quarter-century after the American Revolution.
Don't give the Communists too much credit.
Bob K| 2.26.13 @ 5:58PM
I'm not giving them any credit.
The author of the article did. He is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League Scholar, so you know he must be smart! Right! And the essay was first published at the Foreign Policy Research Institute's website so you know it must be important. Right? It even has 23 footnotes and the 23rd one suggests that "Americans are important not because of who they are, but where they live." It's all because of Geo-Politics, you see! In short, sh-- luck!
Bill8472| 2.27.13 @ 10:32AM
Footnotes? Holy crap, he must be really smart.
Cobalt| 2.26.13 @ 11:55AM
Mr. Stein,
You need a piece of property in a very rural area, at least a few hours drive, or more, outside of Los Angeles. A small property, with a small house, where you can grow a garden. A property that isn't anywhere near freeways, interstate highways or major roads. Put a mobile home on it if you have to. Drill a well, and put in a septic tank.
The economic course, the United States is on, isn't sustainable.
Zeppo| 2.26.13 @ 12:24PM
Il faut cultiver notre jardin.
Bill8472| 2.26.13 @ 2:58PM
Il faut que nous cultivons notre jardin.
Bob K| 2.26.13 @ 11:56AM
The first sentence should read "Have you been reading....."
Ronsch| 2.26.13 @ 12:57PM
L-F is the kind of sick, twisted, perverted "thinker" that has been raised in the broken heap known as "public education."
The "Occasionally Washes Selves" (OWS bowel movement) are a bunch of crybabies who scream "gimme-gimme-gimme" instead of actually working for something in their pathetic lives.
Ben my boy, you really need to wake up...it is class and racial warfare as preached by the Halfrican Kenyan Usurper, and the sooner you figure that out and quit preaching about higher taxes to feed the beast that is the Feral .gov, the sooner you can be free...
TLP.| 2.26.13 @ 3:27PM
Ronsch, you sound like me.
TLP| 2.26.13 @ 5:01PM
That is not me. This is Anna K's Boy, soon to be removed, again.
I don't have a (.) after my name.
What does Rush always say?
"The Left will always tell you who they Fear."
spike59| 2.26.13 @ 4:41PM
Battle Cry of the Occutard:
"When do we want it?"
-'when do we want it?'
"Now!"
-'now!'
"What do we want?"
-'what do we want?'
"Ummmmmm...STUFF!"
-'ummmmmm...stuff!'
TLP.| 2.26.13 @ 5:41PM
Poor me. I have no life. The only entertainment I get is responding all day and night to AmSpec.
Pitiful, isn't it?
TLP| 2.26.13 @ 6:18PM
That is not me. This is Anna K's Boy, soon to be removed, again.
I don't have a (.) after my name.
What does Rush always say?
"The Left will always tell you who they Fear."
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 2.26.13 @ 8:49PM
It's an illusion Mr. Stein. The current reason why our nation doesn't suffer from the same violent ethnic tensions as the Balkans, the Middle East or Africa has to do with bread and comfort. Even the poorest among us in this country largely have a roof over our heads, cable or satellite tv, a car and above all food on our plates. Now the creature comforts people can do without but I can't see our country surviving a second Great Depression. We are too narcissistic and the lack of a cohesive American identity will make us tribalistic if we had to endure the food shortages that our grandparents had to endure in the 1930's. I believe we would look more like LA after the Rodney King verdict or New Orleans after Katrina. If you don't believe me just look at some of the blogs about that exLAPD rogue Dorner who murdered the daughter of an LAPD brass and her fiancee. Despite those cold blooded murders there was a large outpouring of support for Dorner and I've encountered many in the blogs who believe Dorner was justified in murdering that young woman and her fiancee because her father had somehow committed an injustice in Dorner's eyes.
op top| 2.26.13 @ 10:01PM
Ben is a gentle, kind man, unlike so many responders to his diary.
anna k from emory u| 2.26.13 @ 10:35PM
Yes, Trish, why don't you get him a puppy, to help him cope with this plague of nasty phony posters.
It's warm today in Phoenix. It's good I have my documents.
fmm| 2.27.13 @ 5:06AM
All you see is the cover over the rot. For those things you mention are alive and well in the shrivelled hearts of progressives.