We Regret to Announce that The Office of Ronald Reagan Will Close on December 31, 2004.

When I saddle up and ride into the sunset it will be with the knowledge that we’ve done great things.

—Ronald Reagan

Crichton's 2003 Commonwealth Club speech [to which several Corner readers directed me] is news to me. I'm persuaded that I got something important wrong. I assumed that the shift in focus apparent in State of Fear (which I haven't yet read) was aimed primarily at selling more books. However, this change may well be a result of all of the books Crichton has already sold. By this reading, the author is successful enough to feel comfortable departing from his tried-and-true techno-thriller formula to deliver a serious and heartfelt message. Pretty much the opposite of hypocrisy.

Jonah: In the mid 1970's a tribe of people in New Guinea were discovered that were so remote they had never had any contact with modern civilization. These people did not even know who Mary Anne is, or for that matter, Gilligan. When the scientists studying the tribe requested more supplies a helicopter was dispatched to the tribe's location. The reaction of the tribe was that an "insect" of that size simply could not exist (they obviously had missed not only Gillian's Island but all those 50's monster movies). Their way of dealing with this impossibility was they refused to look at the helicopter. It was impossible in their worldview, so it did not exist, or at least could not be acknowledged to exist. I fear that the "softies" you speak of are like that primitive tribe. The fact of terrorism is so counter to their world view that it simply cannot exist. They can read about it, have it shown to them, even get killed by it, but they can never, ever "see" it.

Once upon a time, in the days before Japanese animation, there was St. Nicholas--the magazine, not the jolly man in the red suit. As we pick our way through GameCubes and PlayStations under our trees this Boxing Day, we may find it hard to credit that there was a time (from 1873 to 1940, to be precise) when the arrival of the latest issue of St. Nicholas occasioned the same sense of excitement now reserved for the latest Harry Potter sensation.
For good reason. Though we now tend to dismiss 19th-century children's stories as moralistic, in fact the opposite is more often true. Today the American child who opens a book or clicks on his TV is more likely to get a cartoon sermon on the virtues of recycling than the kind of rip-roaring adventures that were standard fare back when Mary Mapes Dodge was editing St. Nicholas.
Children's literature, she insisted, “must not be a milk-and-water variety” of what adults are served. To the contrary, children's stories need to be “stronger, truer, bolder, more uncompromising.” And she backed that up by publishing the best authors she could find: from Rudyard Kipling, Lewis Carroll and Mark Twain to Jack London, L. Frank Baum and Louisa May Alcott. She herself is better known as the author of “Hans Brinker,” and it's no coincidence that when Millie Benson--author of the Nancy Drew series--made her own writing debut at age 12, it would be in the pages of St. Nicholas.
The good news is that even children of the 21st century now have the opportunity to relive the exploits that brought so much joy to their late-19th and early 20th-century counterparts. For William F. Buckley Jr.'s National Review has just reissued its second volume of St. Nicholas stories in its “Treasury of Classic Children's Literature” (along with a companion volume of Bedtime Stories).
Whether it's Louisa May Alcott's country girl Daisy Field making her way in the big city or Allen French's Sir Marrok avenging wrongs across medieval Britain or Frances Hodgson Burnett's little grain of wheat that was too proud for its own good, the stories involve characters forced to make choices: between lying and telling the truth, between selfishness and generosity, between cowardice and courage.
In his introduction, Mr. Buckley affixes these stories with the much-maligned adjective “wholesome” but notes that they come “with bite and wit and cunning.” They don't mince the dark side, either: These fictional worlds are populated by wicked witches, mean-spirited neighbors, irredeemable villains and a Mother Nature that can be heartless.
Yet however fantastic the settings, the presentation of vivid characters caught up in drama helps excite in children an appreciation for the human condition. After all, how are we ever to expect our children to recognize good and evil in real life if they have never been introduced to it in their imagination?

WASHINGTON - Terrorists may seek to down aircraft by shining powerful lasers into cockpits to blind pilots during landing approaches, federal officials are warning in a bulletin distributed nationwide.

The memo sent by the FBI and the Homeland Security Department says there is evidence that terrorists have explored using lasers as weapons, though there is no specific intelligence indicating al-Qaida or other groups might use lasers in the United States.

"Although lasers are not proven methods of attack like improvised explosive devices and hijackings, terrorist groups overseas have expressed interest in using these devices against human sight," the memo said.

"In certain circumstances, if laser weapons adversely affect the eyesight of both pilot and co-pilot during a non-instrument approach, there is a risk of airliner crash," the agencies said.

In September a pilot for Delta Air Lines reported an eye injury from a laser beam shone into the cockpit during a landing approach in Salt Lake City. The incident occurred about 5 miles from the airport. The plane landed safely.

FBI and other federal officials are investigating. It is not clear if a crime was committed or if the laser was directed into the cockpit by accident.

Steve Luckey, a retired airline pilot who is chairman of the Air Line Pilots Association's national security committee, said pilots are concerned about a recent increase in laser incidents, but do not know what to make of them. He said he has learned of two or three cases in the past 90 days.

"The most recent incidents appear to be aimed at pilots in the vicinity of airports," Luckey said. "A few seem to be intentional, and we're wondering why and what's going on."