The 60s, politically speaking, start with Kennedy's Assassination and end with Nixon's resignation. The Baby Boomers were affected by the former which led to the latter. Steinhorn's book, as seen through Kamiya's eyes, seems to make one of my long-standing points: A liberal is someone who hasn't realized that they've won. We (and I am a Boomer) changed the world. For the better. Not alone. And with a great deal of introspection.

Today's soulless Republicans have succeeded party because they adopted the language of the hippies, and partly because the hippies were right about government in the 60s: A president from Texas lied to the American public to get us into a war for the wrong reasons which mainly enriched his political supporters. The liberal 60s were a result of WWII vets Kennedy, LBJ and Nixon. They, at least, could claim association with an heroic generation. The chickenhawks in the Bush administration(s) succeeded partly because they AVOID association with a generation that fought. As Al Gore and John Kerry found, being a decorated vet who actually fought for freedom overseas was a negative. The protesters got us out of a quagmire, saving the lives of countless military men and women. They also made "heroism" a bit harder to define in today's sound-bite media frenzy.

The hippies were right about government spying on Americans in the 60s and it's still true in the 00s. The hippies were right about the need for America to walk the walk: The Greatest Generation fought for freedom, and it was time to deliver that freedom to all Americans. While that war was largely won, the battles are still raging on some fronts. The hippies were right about government cover-ups in the 60s and they were right all along; the big mistake there was assuming that taking down Nixon would be the beginning of the end of corruption. Alas, it wasn't. But the GOP has won too many elections by running away from Nixon while adopting his slimy legacy. You can fool some of the people all of the time, and living through the 60s didn't make anyone less gullible than any other generation. We can be fooled less, I would like to think, but some still fall for the ol' shell game.

Aaron Burr is the reason for the 12th Amendment, allowing for political parties and letting two people run separately for President and Vice-President on the same ticket. That amendment states that the two people have to be from different states. Unfortunately for Bush and Cheney, both were claimed Texas as home in 2000. Fortunately for Bush and Cheney, a compliant Supreme Court ruled that Cheney really, honestly truly nice nice with sugar on top was from Wyoming, despite his tax forms and drivers license. Perhaps Cheney has been seethng at his false home of Texas ever since and has been itching to mess with Texas. Shooting a Bush Pioneer in the face seems a bit extreme, but this is a very extreme administration. Both Bush and Cheney are known known for being foolishly stubborn and being very very bad shots.

The simple truths are that a) There were no WMD in Iraq; b) Bush and most of the people around him knew there were no WMD in Iraq; and c) Before the invasion, Saddam Hussein granted UN Weapons Inspectors unrestricted access to suspected sites in Iraq.

These simple truths are part of a growing list of statements that few Republican will ever accept, collected in The Heartland Project on my site. The news media is very conservative -- or perhaps simply unprofessional, but it amounts to the same degree of bad coverage -- and we in the Heartland must reestablish the moral compass that made this country great.

Keep up the good work, Joe Conason.

Ms. Miller seems to have missed two important aspects of Holy Blood, Holy Grail: First, the sequels to the book. What happened to Yehoshua (aka Jesus) is a comparatively small part of the much longer story that starts before the events in the New Testament and continues to this day.

Second, and more importantly, it doesn't actually matter if the descendents of King David effected the world for thousands of years, it only matters that people believe it to be true. Politics trumps religion every time. Political power doesn't depend on the facts, as we see today, it depends on spin control, threat of arms and who can be bought. Convince a Pope here and a King there and armies are on the move.

Dan Brown brilliantly made the subplot of his book about sexual politics and only peripherally about religious politics. Whether the whole story has come to light, or even if the whole story needs to come to light is irrelevant. The issues are important, then and now. As always, a study of the past -- whether real or speculative -- is actually about today.

I fully agree about the noise, and the pablum coming out of tvs at airports. I've found that an adequate solution is an iPod. True, you have to turn it up. Your ears will still suffer. But at least it's your noise. (If I flew more, I'd invest in a headset that muffles external sound. Similarly, movie theaters before the movie, but that's a different topic...

Barry Bonds confuses a lot of people. Is he or isn't he? Are the pitchers also on something? How would you like to be the first pitcher, the first team, to give up Bond's first home run of 2006? How would you like to be the pitcher who gave up Bond's last career home run before he retires/has a career-ending injury/has a career-ending visit to the courthouse?

Larry Brown confuses a lot of people too, but that's a different issue.