First the Kennedys endorsed him. Now a writing giant has endorsed Barack Obama. Toni Morrison wrote to Mr Obama, in part:

“In addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don’t see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which, coupled with brilliance, equals wisdom” .

[both articles from The New York Times

Can you imagine a situation in Ireland where Seamus Heaney or John Banville or indeed any other writer endorsed a candidate for President or Taoiseach?

Meanwhile, it appears more likely that the US economy has been bushed - again. A New York Times preview of Mr Bush's last State of the Nation speech is headed Echo of First Bush: Good Economy Turns Sour [requires registration]

It would seem that War=Econony buckling under the strain. Who would have thought?

I don’t want to pain myself as well as you, dear reader, by quoting the obvious line about failing to learn from history. Perhaps given the opening paragraph, it might be more apt to quote this one.

A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the sound of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.
-Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964)