Tomorrow marks he 39th year since 241 servicemen were killed in Beirut.

[Hortensis]

15. Oh, nostalgia for old times. In those days half the nation didn't

snatch every excuse to slather and snarl at people who didn't wear their jersey. RW neighbors were already becoming overtly impolite and even hostile, of course (I remember!), but we were all downright rational and decent compared to today. The Beirut deaths were a national tragedy and the enemy external.

But, I guess the nostalgia was a little too swift -- not for that old time! None of us foresaw the future and how profoundly we would change, but the right was already slipping the cultural leash, morphing and on its way to what it's become. And in the next century the authoritarian and populist left, a smaller but dangerous cohort, would follow them.

Leaving us. Thank goodness America has us!