We used to know what to do with pirates.

The news stories about the pirates who attacked a cruise ship off the coast of Somalia talk about the difficulty patroling inside Somalia's "territorial waters." How can this be? If the government of Somalia were allowing the attacks, it would be a casus belli. It isn't because there isn't any government of Somalia. So how can this non-existent government lay claim to territory in the ocean, since it can't control the streets of Mogadishu?

The United States has had problems with pirates before, and two hundred years ago, we solved the problem of the Barbary Pirates by sending the Marines. I'm not suggesting we send ground forces back into Somalia, but piracy sure sounds like terrorism to me. If we have any hope of finding Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Pakistan, we certainly should have the technology to locate a medium sized ship bobbing up and down in the Indian Ocean and sending out radio signals! It shouldn't be more than an afternoon's target practice for the US Navy to clear the situation up for good.

Rosa Parks -- The "Great Woman" Theory at Work

There are two principal ways of approaching history. One is the "great man" theory. History is determined by the actions of great men. Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, Napoleon. Without them, history would have been completely different.

Oppposed to this is the inexorable movement theory. The ancien regime in France was finished after the French Revolution and something entirely new would replace it. Napoleon was the instrument, but without him, it would have been someone else.

Following the death of Rosa Parks, we seem to be seeing the "great man" theory at work, modified slightly to accommodate a woman. I don't want to trivialize what she did. It took considerable courage in Alabama in the1950's to tell white folks that you weren't going to take it anymore. But times were changing and someone, someday was going to do it.

A much stronger argument could be made for Martin Luther King Jr.. The contribution he made to the Civil Rights movement was unequalled during his lifetime and it's hard to say names like Jesse Jackson, let alone Al Sharpton, in the same breath at Martin Luther King Jr. and not choke.

It's fascinating to watch Republican leaders paying homage to Rosa Parks. The same leaders who not long ago were feting Strom Thurmond on his retirement. It's hard to do both, but I'm always amazed at the flexibility of politicians.