The great 1930s' humorist Will Rogers' most famous quote is "All I know is just what I read in the papers." Few rarely relate the full quote, "All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that's an alibi for my ignorance."

I'm going to show my ignorance, and my love for newspapers, with a few looks at recent news events. The basic facts are from the papers but the opinions are all mine!

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I bet Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke wishes he had never seen the job. It was bad enough having to follow Alan Greenspan, who many saw as an infallible guru of economics, but to follow at a time when the economy isn't so hot has to be working especially hard on his ulcer (and I am sure he has an ulcer!).

The Fed cut the lending rate again Tuesday to try and prop up the sagging economy. I'm no economist but I'm not sure there is a quick fix. I think people have over borrowed and over spent and the market is going to have to correct itself…sadly, at the expense of some folks who are in too deep.

Speaking of going under, some municipal and county governments are in no better shape than individuals. Here in Alabama, Jefferson County is on the brink of bankruptcy over a $3.2 billion (yep, that's a "b") sewer bond debt. A bad deal to begin with and downgrades in bond insurers have escalated the problem.

**** Part of our problem, I think, is the continuing war in Iraq. We are nearing the fifth anniversary of the conflict (World War II lasted only four years) and a military death toll of 4,000. The death toll is the most important figure but we are also pouring billions into a winless war at a time that we need to be keeping our money at home.

How much? I can't comprehend the figures. So far, some $500 billion, at a rate of about $12 billion per month. The Congressional Budgeting Office predicts we will have spent some $2.5 trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan by 2017. Others estimate the amount at $4 trillion.

The Bush Administration estimated a price tag of $50 to $60 billion to oust Saddam when the war started.

If we were accomplishing anything in Iraq, it might not be so bad. But the Iraqis continue to fight and kill as much among themselves as they ever have. Democracy remains a foreign- and unwanted- concept for many of them. We might win the war eventually but we will never win the hearts and souls of the Iraqis and we will never convert them to our way of life.

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Here at home our State Senate continues to muddle along as they have for a long time. The Senate is split almost even between Democrats and Republicans and about all they are about to accomplish is a good right punch every now and then.

Election PAC reform was high on the agenda at one time. The House passed a pretty good bill but the Senate butchered it, putting in exemptions for political groups and legislative caucuses that took all the steam out of the bill.

The Senate also killed a good proposal to create a statewide transportation commission to oversee highways and other projects. Now, a gubernatorial appointed director does the job and it is much too political. The list goes on and on.

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Presidential hopeful Barack Obama won't turn his back on his longtime minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, for inflammatory and racist remarks but did reject the opinions in a remarkably candid speech Tuesday.

Obama talked about his own background, his black father and white mother. "I can no more disown him [Rev. Wright] than I can my white grandmother- a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

I'm sure Obama's detractors think he didn't go far enough in condemning Wright and he may not have. But I was impressed with his candor.

I won't defend the Rev. Wright (who has remained strangely silent through all of this furor) but I wonder if the two or three sound bytes that were aired over and over are accurate representations of all his sermons. One has to realize that black preachers have historically played and continue to play a different role than most white preachers. They aren't just religious figures but frequently advocates of political and social change too.

As a white southern good ol' boy I have to admit those roles seem conflicting but I realize I am only looking at the issue from one side of the mirror.

Obama knows many folks, black and white, only see from one side, too. He urged the nation to break "a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years…. The anger is real. It is powerful, and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to wident the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races."

Whether he is the Democratic nominee or is elected president, I think Barack Obama has done well to bring up and discuss race issues in an honest and intelligent manner.

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Finally, if former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's embarrassing downfall in a sex crime wasn't enough, others have decided it is confessional time too.

The new New York governor, David Paterson and his wife, went before the cameras to talk about their past. "Several years ago, there were a number of women," said Paterson, New York's first black and first blind governor. His wife admitted to past affairs too.

I supposed they decided to speak before the tabloids found old girlfriends and boyfriends.

Paterson's and Spitzer's situations are different. An affair may not be something to brag about but they do happen. Spitzer was a regular client of a prostitution ring and spent more than $80,000 on call girls (he is a multimillionaire by the way).

Despite that, it isn't the prostitutes as much as Spitzer's hypocrisy that offends me. He was a crusading assistant DA and then state attorney general who went after and prosecuted people for wrongdoing- including prostitution- and regularly appeared before the TV cameras to make public condemnations.

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I am way over my allotted space and will stop There is too much in Will Rogers' newspapers to comment on!