So who do you think won the debate? I think the Kennedy/Nixon syndrome has kicked in. Obama just comes across better, setting aside content, as the American public does.

I went into a Barnes & Nobles recently and found no book that I wanted to read! Maybe you could help me. I’m not looking for serious, interesting, or edifying books. I have plenty of those. What I need is something light, something suited for reading on airplanes. It needs to be a novel. Not fantasy or science fiction. I like well-researched, immersive historical fiction. Contemporary settings are fine, but no depressing family sagas. Mysteries are OK, preferably mixed with the above. Due to my literary studies, I have trouble putting up with a poor prose style, so the book has to be well-written. I like to feel like I’m learning something. I like complicated plots.

The gold standard of what I’m looking for would be Patrick O’Brian’s sea-faring novels, a genre I have drunk to the lees and so am rather tired of.

So do you know of anything that meets these criteria? I’d be much obliged for your suggestions.

Frank J. Fleming offers A Modest Proposal for Training Future Presidents:

If God got fed up with us — and who would blame Him — and stepped down, would we want an extensive, well-thought-out process for picking a successor? Would we want to make sure whomever we elected to rule the universe was someone we know to be responsible with the power over life and death and who wouldn’t just smite people because he’s bored?

And would we want to make sure he has a good understanding of physics so we know he won’t mess with Planck’s constant and destroy all matter? Or would we just pick someone off the street and say, “Hey. He seems nice. Let’s give him ultimate power over us all”?

Well, the American presidency is the next most powerful job after God, what with running the world’s most powerful nation and the ability to kill billions. You’d think we’d have a very solid process for figuring out the best person to fill the position, but we have been completely clueless on this for more than two hundred and thirty years. And the Founding Fathers weren’t much help on the task of picking a president, only listing two qualifications: he or she has to be thirty-five years old and has to have been born in this country. Nowadays, that limits the pool of potential applicants to about two hundred million people. Luckily we have a two-party system which somehow uses New Hampshire and Iowa to whittle down all the choices to two. . . .

In the current election, for example, people say they think Barack Obama would be a good president because he’s inspirational, but if you want inspiration, can’t you buy books or tape sets for that? Others say John McCain has the experience to be president, but experience at what? He’s been in the Senate a long time, but what do they do there? Vote on stuff? You could get the same experience just clicking on a lot of internet polls.

We even debate over which candidate will better improve the economy, which is kind of like trying to choose from a litter of kittens based on which one is best at controlling the weather (hint: it’s usually the calico). It’s like we don’t even know what a president does. No huge corporation is going to hire a CEO just because they just like the cut of his jib; they’re going to want a solid resume showing that the applicant is already experienced doing similar work.

Fleming, tongue firmly in cheek, offers one idea for doing it better. But might there be better ways to get better candidates? For example, how about choosing our president by taking the constitution literally? Just elect members to the Electoral College, none of whom are publicly committed to a candidate. We would be electing individuals known in each particular state whose judgment we trust. They would then select the president, arriving at a consensus by give-and-take and negotiation, possibly selecting someone most of us have never heard of.

Do you have any better ideas?

The summit presided over by President Bush–attended by congressional leaders, John McCain, and Barack Obama–degenerated into a shouting match, according to reporters. The plan to spend $700 billion to purchase bad securities is losing support, but House conservatives have put forward a plan for the federal government to insure the bad debts, not take them over. From what I can tell from the overheated article linked above, McCain seems to be going in that direction. That sounds far less socialist and expensive to me. It looks like it was McCain vs. Bush and Obama, who with the Democrats supports the president’s plan.

While the mega-banks are floundering, your little local bank is thriving. SeeSmaller Banks Thrive Out of the Fray of Crisis - washingtonpost.com. If you need a loan, go there.

Six Virginia state troopers who serve as chaplains have resigned in light of a policy that would forbid them when praying publicly to pray in the name of Jesus or even so much as to mention His name. Another example of forced ecumenism, as syncretism becomes our new national religion.