Roger Rosenblatt on the PBS NewsHour:

After the London bombings, experts there and here were asked what one can do to protect oneself — in subways, on buses, in shops — anywhere. The answer the experts gave, uniformly, was vigilance. Keep your eyes open for unattended packages, unsavory people — for the exit doors, in case of the worst.

The implication of such advice is that most people, most of the time, are not vigilant, not even casually observant. And this seems true. One saunters through the day without taking notice of the details of one’s surroundings. Now we are told to notice all we can, as the act of seeing may save our lives.

…

If Americans are to be more vigilant in their self-protection, that includes a watchfulness of one’s government, as well, to see that it does not exercise power that diminishes the freedom of those it protects. A PATRIOT Act that interferes with the free life of libraries takes away an essential kind of sight. An unattended package is no more lethal than an unattended liberty.

Molly Ivins, a few months ago, on the PBS program NOW:

Here are these people — they have all the executive power; they have all the legislative power; they’re getting all the judicial power just as fast as they can — and sitting around whining about people of faith being discriminated against. It’s silly.

…

There are those of us who are Christians who believe that the politics of the right is actually un-Christian. It’s not a hard position to hold.

Come the Revolution (already in progress), Molly Ivins will be burned at the stake for her heretical views.