Detroit Free Press

As the stories mount from the survivors, almost all of them horrific, we hear of an eerie darkness in the middle ...

The new war began with pictures of smoke, mushrooming smoke, billowing clouds of smoke, smoke that rose above the busiest skyline in the busiest city in the busiest nation in the world, yellow smoke and white smoke and a deathly shade of gray smoke. Smoke filled with jet fuel, with the debris of airplanes, with the shattered glass of two of the tallest buildings in the world, with the charred flesh of victims, smoke filled with what used to be a uniquely American attitude, one that said, "We are safe here, we are the biggest, the richest, the proudest, so we are the most secure."

He is a hockey player who isn't playing hockey. He has a huge contract, but he hasn't been paid in years. He is ...

It's back-to-school time, friends, and that can mean only one thing: lawsuits.This one comes from the Houston area, where a mother felt compelled to explore legal action after enrolling her child in kindergarten only to find that -- gasp! -- the school had a dress code.One of those dress code limitations -- along with no ripped clothing, no halter tops and no gang-related items -- was no earrings for boys.For girls, earrings were OK.Therein lies the problem.

Twenty years ago last week, IBM gave birth to the home computer.It's been downhill ever since.Oh, sure, our speed is up. Our efficiency is up. We can talk to people in Thailand with just a few keystrokes. And any patient who has ever needed medical information will swear by computers and the Internet.But in so many ways, computers in our homes have changed us forever. The human price we have paid over 20 years?Let me count the ways.

He waved to his wife and baby son, and headed for the airport.Fourteen years later, he still hasn't come home.The son is a teenager now, about to start a new school. The wife does the chores that her husband used to do. She takes care of the lawn. She fills the gas tank. She is hardened by her tears but strengthened by her faith.

Ilove the Ten Commandments. I can recite them. I don't always succeed in obeying them, but I still try, and I think the world would be better if we all did.Having said that, I can still say this: The Ten Commandments do not belong in a state courthouse. But last week, in Montgomery, Ala., they arrived in a big way.In the still of the night, a 2 1/2-ton monument featuring the Ten Commandments was trucked in and positioned in the rotunda of the state's judicial building. The building is home to, among other things, the Alabama State Supreme Court.