And the spirit survives.

An alleged Ponzi scheme with a sort of headquarters in a Caribbean nation is curiously connected to Raleigh because William Wise, the man whom one official says was running it, enjoyed at least some of the trappings of his wealth while living in the Olde Raleigh neighborhood.

Would it be right for the Louvre to throw a towel over the Mona Lisa? For Rodin's works to be dressed in double-knits in the name of modesty?

The once-hot immigration potato is on the table again. Consulting recently with Democratic and Republican lawmakers at the White House, President Obama made it clear he wants Congress to wrestle with, and formulate a policy for, dealing with the current and surely future illegal immigrants in the United States.

Old ways die hard, and the North Carolina Senate recently showed that the adage still applies. A slim majority of senators struck down a sensible attempt to fine-tune the law that allows public school teachers and administrators to punish students by hitting them.

It will be left to historians to determine whether the American invasion of Iraq by George W. Bush was a shrewd foreign policy move, a blow to advance freedom, or a costly exercise of decisions made on the basis of bad advice and political calculation.

We hear a lot about the coming cost of health care overhaul for all Americans, especially those 50 million with no health care and 50 million more with minimal health care.

N.C. State University students showed imagination sketching futuristic designs for the Dorothea Dix Hospital property ("Students offer vision for Dix," June 29).

Your news report that Sen. Kay Hagan did not support President Obama's health insurance plan, filled me with dismay. While my first choice is a single-payer government plan, Obama's plan at least, has a public plan option.

Your June 28 article "Hard times, tough luck for Perdue" gave great insight as to how Gov. Beverly Perdue is staying focused on the long term health and well-being of the state of North Carolina.

As a policy analyst in the state's largest anti-poverty organization, the N.C. Justice Center, I would like to applaud U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge of Lillington for voting for the American Clean Energy and Security Act.

Regarding the June 25 article "What's a good deal when it comes to disease prevention?":

Krauthammer:The Supreme Court's ruling on the Ricci case -- that white firemen suffered illegal discrimination when a promotional test on which they did well was thrown out because not enough blacks did well -- will have no effect on Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court.

Point of View:Legislators in Raleigh are struggling to piece together a budget for a state with a lot less income to spend. Cuts for vital programs are definite.

When PBS aired a BBC dramatization of Charles Dickens' "Little Dorrit" last spring, Americans were treated to a rare opportunity to watch life imitating art in real time.

Jenkins:Mark Sanford came to public notice up this way, and around the country for that matter, when he made a great show of saying he was going to reject a few hundred million bucks in federal stimulus money for the great state of South Carolina, of which he is governor.

Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, has declared that any attack on his country's embassy in Honduras will lead to war between the two nations, and I can't help wishing that the Hondurans would call his bluff. The Venezuelan blowhard is getting tiresome.

Now that Bernard Madoff seems destined to die in prison, what should we think about the rampant Ponzimonium going on all over the world? It seems there are a few lessons to be learned -- lessons for regulators, investors and the scam artists themselves.