Empire

Liberty exists only in the brief time between the fall of one tyranny and the rise of another. The nation's founders understood this explicitly. That's why they constructed the system they did, under which the three branches of government would check and balance each other. The idea was to prolong the life of the Republic for a longer time than would naturally be the case. The Civil War left more than 600,000 Americans dead, along with the then-popular notion that states which had voluntarily joined a union could decide to withdraw from it. Ever since, except for brief periods during which an emerging America stopped to catch its breath, the path toward ever more powerful consolidated government has been trod rather swiftly.

It's one thing for a letter that you thought was kind-of private to go viral . A letter where you ask your fellow sorority sisters at the University of Maryland if they are "_____ retarded" and in which you say "I WILL _____ ASSAULT YOU!" because you believe them to be "awkward" and "weird. " But you know you're a true Internet sensation when a Real Hollywood Star jumps into the fray. So, congratulations to the Delta Gamma whose nasty and profanity-laced letter to her sisters exploded on the web recently: Michael Shannon of "Boardwalk Empire" has helped you arrive with a dramatic reading on Funny or Die ( Warning: The video contains explicit language )

"Mr. Obama and his senior national security advisers have sought to reassure allies and answer critics, including many Republicans, that the United States will not abandon its commitments in the Persian Gulf even as it winds down the war in Iraq and looks ahead to doing the same in Afghanistan by the end of 2014. " I pluck a paragraph from The New York Times, and for an instant I'm possessed by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, aquiver with puzzlement down to my deepest sensibilities. I hold you here, root and all, little paragraph.

" Everyone dies. Not everyone keeps their promises. " The finale of "Boardwalk Empire's" third season provided more closure than excitement, capping off what has certainly been one of the worst years in Nucky Thompson's life. After last week set the table for the inevitable war between the two factions, we are caught up with a montage of the conflict between Rosetti's gang and the tenuous Chalky-Capone-Nucky Alliance. While Rosetti claims to be winning his invasion (just shy of hanging a "mission accomplished" banner up at Gillian's)

PRESIDENT BUSH wants Robert Gates to head the Central Intelligence Agency, a job Bush once held. President Reagan also favored Gates, but withdrew his previous nomination in 1987 as facts about the Iran-contra affair surfaced.Gates was a CIA leader when the agency waged covert warfare hidden from the American people. He helped his boss, former director William Casey, deceive Congress. Gates is "a very smart guy who ... covered his rear end" in the affair, security expert Tom Blanton says.

The Mulberry Empire, by Philip Hensher. Alfred A. Knopf. 512 pages. $26. Among historical novelists there is a class that aims for something superior to your average Michener or Uris potboiler. One thinks of Guy Garcia, Susan Sontag and now, Philip Hensher, author of The Mulberry Empire. Members of this "better" breed are intellectually and aesthetically more ambitious than the best-selling writers but often lack the best sellers' ability to engage us in a tightly constructed story of a faraway time and place.

Bethune-Cookman @Morgan State Saturday, 1p.m. Radio: 88.9FM Frostburg finished the day with 184 yards on the ground, its second-highest total of the season. Chucky Iweh (Eastern Tech) led the way with 19 carries for 68 yards.

And so it ends. The United States is leaving Iraq. I'm solidly in the camp that sees this as a strategic blunder. Iraqi democracy is fragile and Iran's desire to undermine it is strong. Also, announcing our withdrawal is a weird way to respond to a foiled Iranian plot to commit an act of war in the U.S. capital. Obviously, I hope I'm wrong and President Obama's not frittering away our enormous sacrifices in Iraq out of domestic political concerns and diplomatic ineptitude. Still, there's an upside.

Beyond the spectacle of the presidential race, the Washington consensus pursues business as usual. This is the season in which I wonder, with an ever-intensifying sense of urgency, what it would take to turn our political system into a democracy. "And yet the militarization of the United States and the strengthening of the national security complex continues to accelerate," Tom Engelhardt wrote earlier this month. "The Pentagon is, by now, a world unto itself. " And as the world's major powers play a 21st-century version of the "Great Game" to control the resources of the world, the U.S., in contrast with China, writes David Vine, "has focused relentlessly on military might as its global trump card, dotting the planet with new bases and other forms of military power.

College football Salisbury lineman Buckley honored by Empire 8 Salisbury defensive lineman Joey Buckley was named Empire 8 Special Teams Player of the Week on Monday. Buckley blocked a Buffalo State punt in the second quarter on the Bengals' 3-yard line and ran it in for a 13-0 lead in the Sea Gulls' 20-7 road win Saturday. Also, the Sea Gulls (3-1, 1-0 Empire 8) moved to No. 10 in the American Football Coaches Association Division III poll and remained No. 7 in the D3football.com poll.

" Bible camp's cancelled. " -- Gyp Rosetti The rubble of Babette's Supper Club is still smoking and the echoes of last week's blast are still ringing in Nucky Thompson's ears. An episode like "The Milkmaid's Lot" could have gone down a very reflexive road. This might have been Nucky's episode to dream he's a different person while he recovers from his wounds (looking at you, Tony Soprano). Instead, Steve Buscemi turns in a stellar performance as a shell-shocked Nucky who just wants all his rivals dead and a pony for his stepdaughter.

Bethune-Cookman @Morgan State Saturday, 1p.m. Radio: 88.9FM Frostburg finished the day with 184 yards on the ground, its second-highest total of the season. Chucky Iweh (Eastern Tech) led the way with 19 carries for 68 yards.

"There's gotta be easier ways to make a buck. " -- Nucky Thompson This week's episode of "Boardwalk Empire" was a sleepy affair. If you had told me before the season started that we'd see Nucky thrown in jail for violating prohibition, I'd assume we were talking about a whopper of a season finale. Instead, we have a slow crawler with Nucky being fined five dollars for possessing a flask's worth of hooch and kids reciting the state capitals. This is what happens when Gyp Rosetti sits out a week.

Orioles fans are chortling this morning after the Detroit Tigers routed the New York Yankees 8-1 Thursday for a four-game sweep of the American League Championship Series. This was an unbelievably humiliating series for the Yankees, which always plays well here. It's been fun watching the notorious New York media savage the home team, too. The Yankees seemed intent in mailing this one in from the beginning. It didn't help that Yankees' ace  C.C. Sabathia, who surrendered 11 hits and six runs, appeared to be throwing batting practice to the Tigers yesterday.

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT Vladimir V. Putin announces his intention to strengthen the role of the state and reminds the world and his country that Russia remains a great nuclear power. Strobe Talbott, the Clinton administrations previously upbeat Russian policy maker, now sounds a distinctly less optimistic note in concern about a resurgent Russian past. Is empire again on Russia's agenda? We do not know the motives of Russias present leaders, but if they do yearn for restoration of an empire, they will have great difficulty bringing the voters along.

The headline reads: "Thousands of angry Iraqis pillage billion-dollar U.S. Embassy in Baghdad." The article details the ransacking of the grandiose American Embassy by Iraqi mobs. This is the story I expect to read one day within the next decade. In the 1950s, when I was in high school in Baghdad, my friends and I admired the technological advances of America and the West. But we resented the colonial tendencies of the West (especially, at the time, those of the British). Many demonstrations were held in front of the British and American embassies.