The end is near. The last space shuttle mission soon will be completed. Unfortunately, because of a lack of vision and leadership in Washington, we may be seeing the beginning of the end for our national space program as well.

Rocky Marciano was the only heavyweight champion who never lost a single fight in his whole career -- and, at the time, he seemed the least likely fighter to do that. In many a boxing match, he was battered, bruised and bleeding.

Last Thursday was the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's inaugural speech, and while the anniversary did not go unmentioned, it got less attention than I expected. I suspect that those of us who can remember that snowy day -- why do we schedule our great national outdoor ceremony for a day that is as likely as any to be the coldest of the year?

Martin Luther King Jr., Hero

I had the privilege of being part of this man's magic when I heard him speak in 1962, while I was in college in North Carolina. There -- in a segregated city where whites used one toilet and "coloreds" another, where the largest hospital admitted blacks only to windowless basement rooms -- the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., in a single afternoon, welded into one thousands of people, black and white.

In his superb speech in Tucson, Ariz., Wednesday evening, Barack Obama did great service to the nation. He put to rest the libel that political incivility is responsible for the Tucson shootings. He did so with three words that he added to the written text: "It did not."

Public Policy Polling (PPP), a polling firm with connections to Democrats, released a poll Tuesday that showed Ohio will be a battleground, even though President Barack Obama currently leads the four main candidates for the Republican presidential nod.