As I return to school this Fall, after a 26-year hiatus, I find this article by Virginia Postrel to be quite interesting, as she examines the consequences of our increasing lifespans. She argues that the old model of people retiring at 65 and living the rest of their lives going golfing, or travelling, or simply getting by on their pensions or Social Security checks, is simply not sustainable, nor is it desired by many people contemplating life after 60 or 70. My father recently passed away at age 80. He grew up during the Depression. For him and his generation, the ideal was to get a good, steady job with a pension that guaranteed security for life. He eventually became a policeman, and did his 25 years on the force, retired at 57 and never held another job. I cannot imagine living that way, even if I had a job that provided me with a pension that would allow it (which I do not). After over twenty years in the broadcast media I am moving on to another career. I hope to pursue that career for many years and, if I find other interests, or the economic situation requires it, I will do something else down the road. I think this vision of life is shared by many Baby Boomers and the subsequent generations.

If Russ Feingold is in trouble in Wisconsin, then the Democrats could lose the Senate as well as the House.

Michael Gerson believes the President simply has not been able to sustain his focus in terms of his message to the American people, which should be about jobs and the economy.

Harold Meyerson hits the political nail on the head when he writes about the white, working class voter as being the key to the upcoming elections. Unfortunately for Meyerson and his Progressive friends, he does not understand why those voters are listening to Limbaugh and watching O'Reilly and Beck. He does understand that those voters are unhappy with Big Business and Big Finance, but he does not understand that they don't trust Big Government or Big Labor to make things better (in fact, many of those voters believe letting government get bigger will simply make things worse).