24 August 2010
From an article today by Scott Johnson at Power Line:
…Hoover Institution fellow Thomas Sowell turned 80 earlier this summer. When he turned 75, he observed his birthday with a characteristically thoughtful column that remains timely:
All the dark and ominous times that this country and the world have passed through and overcome in the past 75 years make it hard to despair, even in the face of growing signs of internal degeneracy today. Pessimism, yes. Despair, not yet.
In my personal life, I can remember a time when our family had no such frills as electricity, central heating, or hot running water.
Even after we left the poverty-stricken Jim Crow South and moved to a new life in Harlem, I can remember at the age of nine seeing a public library for the first time and having to have a young friend explain to me patiently what a public library was.
There is much to complain about today and to fear for the future of our children and our country. But despair? Not yet.
We have all come through too much for that.
Sowell is celebrating his eightieth year with the publication of Dismantling America, a collection drawn from his columns of the past several years…
