Of irrepressible spirit and immoderate vanity

First, the New York Times reports that work on the Freedom Tower, the building that is to rise to a height of 1776 feet where the twin World Trade Center towers stood before Sept 11, 2001, is continuing apace, some 65 feet below the surface. Construction began quietly some time ago and is expected to be completed in 2011.

The project, bedevilled by political wrangling and financial posturing, nonetheless is an excellent example of the indomitable spirit of the American people. I can think of no more moving and inspiring symbol of a nation giving a collective middle finger to the ranks of terrorists, than to build a bigger, bolder, stronger and more spectacular edifice to replace the one they tore down.

On the other end of the scale, going from the sublime to the ridiculous, or perhaps merely the ridiculously vain, the London Daily Telegraph reports that Mark Oaten, a married man with two children, and a British Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament confessed that he had an affair with a male prostitute, (a rent boy as the English so colorfully term it) because he was going bald.

Am I the only one who thinks that Mr. Oaten's reasoning is a little specious? When a man discovers he is going bald, membership to the Hair Club for Men and comb-overs probably occur to him as possible cures well before a homosexual fling.

Being gloriously bald myself, I can confess quite candidly that taking up with a 'rent boy' didn't cross my mind once.

And now, as the Monty Python crew used to say, for something completely different: Stephen Colbert is the toast of every Democratic get-together and the scourge of every Republican banquet, for his performance at the Annual White House Correspondent's dinner. He lampooned the President, but flubbed a joke of his own. If you're the only person in the free world who hasn't seen the video, check it out here.

The whole evening was covered by C-Span, that pre-eminent cure for insomnia, but realizing they had some hot material on their hands they have since allowed a number of sites to carry the video. I am prediciting a significant increase in C-Span viewership at least for a while.
[Colbert]
[Mark Oaten]
[Lib Dem]
[Freedom Tower]