Someday we'll learn the whole story of why George W. Bush brushed off that intelligence briefing of Aug. 6, 2001, 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.' But surely a big distraction was the major speech he was readying for delivery on Aug. 9, his first prime-time address to the nation.

In the bubble decade, making money as an end in itself boomed as a calling among students at elite universities like Harvard, siphoning off gifted undergraduates who might otherwise have been scientists, teachers, doctors, entrepreneurs, artists or inventors.

Looking back at my high school years, I'm struck by how slowly history can move.

The cruel ambush of 9/11 supposedly 'changed everything,' slapping us back to reality. Yet we are constantly shocked, shocked by the foreseeable.

In terms of productivity - that is, how much a worker produces in an hour - there's little difference between the U.S., France, and Germany. But since more people work in America, and since they work so many more hours, Americans create more wealth.

Feelings are above money.

Cultists do not want to admit they have been manipulated by charisma. Nigerian money scheme victims do not want to accept that they had been swindled. To accept those realities is to accept their own faults. Denial of our own weaknesses is something we all suffer from time to time.

The wise treat self-respect as non-negotiable, and will not trade it for health or wealth.