role of government

Hercules starting to clean a 1,000-cattle stable that hadn't been emptied in 30 years. Like the U.S. government, says Gary Hart.

With a Doonesbury bonus: The deep rootsof modern conservative policy-making"None of the leading Republicans," says E. J. Dionne Jr., is willing to offer a more fundamental challenge to the party’s rightward lurch over the past decade." "Unfortunately for the Republican Party and the country, [Wisconsin Gov. Scott] Walker’s careful parsing of shape-shifting counts as one of the cerebral high points of the debate among the party’s 2016 presidential candidates."-- E. J.

Again, pay no attention to the "NO BICYCLE RIDING IN SUBWAY TUNNEL" sign. After all, no bicycle riders did in the time the sign was up.

The artwork comes and goes, but the "I.R.T. SUBWAY 191st ST. ENTRANCE" remains -- leading down a flight of stairs (or a steep concrete ramp) to the three-block-long tunnel that links those of us on Broadway to the subway -- though not so well when the stairway on the left is closed for "repairs" that aren't happening. (Pay no attention to the "NO BICYCLE RIDING IN SUBWAY TUNNEL" sign, which was dismantled by the kids who use the tunnel as a bike speedway.

by KenThis story is left over from late last week, but I don't think that, in the time it has taken me to get around to it, it has lost its topicality. It got a certain amount of attention, but it needs more. It's one of those periodic stark reminders of how the world so often doesn't run quite the way we naively think it does, or at least should.