Preoccupied? Who, us? Why, we only have to deal with the start of school, amid the worsening aftershocks of a recession, amid threats of terrorism, amid a war whose conclusion remains impossible to foresee... And that doesn't even take into account the start of fall football practice. Could this be the Pack's Really Big Year -- or at least Rivers' year to win the Heisman? Lots of things to grab the attention -- from the profound to the piddling. But there's one blip on the national radar that, while it hasn't gotten much attention of late, is about to grow quite a bit brighter.

A certain murder trial plodding along in Durham has featured, we're told, lots of photography from the death scene: shots of the unfortunate Kathleen Peterson sprawled, bled out, at the bottom of a stairwell. An investigator's video taking jurors on a spooky walk-through. Other images upon which we'd prefer not to dwell. Visual evidence of this sort might or might not help determine if Mike Peterson, beyond reasonable doubt, killed his wife. But whatever it was that happened to her, a fall or a bludgeoning, there's no reason to expect that it was captured by someone's candid camera.

The fellow from The New York Times wanted to see how ordinary Iraqis were reacting to the photos, just then showing up on evening newscasts in Baghdad, of what the American government asserted were the mortal remains of that devilish duo, Odai and Qusai Hussein. So he did what comes naturally to reporters looking to check the pulse of the citizenry and popped into a barbershop. Suffice it to say that not everyone in the shop was sold on the idea that the two decidedly whacked-looking men shown in the photos were in fact the ruthless, sadistic sons who had helped Saddam Hussein keep his stranglehold on their nation.

For anyone concerned about the American endeavor in Iraq -- about how, or whether, we'll be able to make the best of a bad situation -- the scariest word in the lexicon has to be "quagmire." With its conjuring of muck that traps and swallows, war as a quagmire is the classic and excruciating image inherited from the U.S. debacle in Vietnam. Iraq's terrain may not match up all that well, but any sense that we could become bogged down there in a guerrilla war with mounting casualties and no good way to get off the hook can't help but bring Vietnam to mind.

So you've kicked back on the Fifth of July, still marveling at the last evening's fireworks along Virginia's York River that thrilled thousands atop the Yorktown Battlefield bluffs. What to do for an encore? Well, you could go stand out in the broiling sun to ogle an assortment of corroded pipes, flanges, valves and other doo-hickeys. At the bottom of big tanks. And you'd feel as if you'd made a fine choice.

There is a school of thought to the effect that the Bush administration hyped the threat posed by Iraq to justify an invasion that key officials were eager to mount for ulterior reasons -- reasons that didn't really have a whole lot to do with any weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein might have been stockpiling. "Might have been," indeed. Weeks after American forces seized control (or a semblance thereof), those ol' WMDs are conspicuously AWOL.

In his salad days as an editorial writer for the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, about the worst rebuke J. Harvie Wilkinson III could have anticipated would have been a scalding letter to the editor. Now when Wilkinson misfires in print, he stands to hear about it from the U.S. Supreme Court.

For a tasty slice of Web-site baloney, try this from Amusements of America, headquartered in Monroe Township, N.J., a pleasant locale in the Garden State's semi-rural midsection (potatoes used to be a favored crop thereabouts): "Since our founding sixty years ago, with the purchase of the Ferris Wheel from the 1939 World's Fair, the company has enjoyed tremendous success. The five Vivona brothers, our experienced and insightful leaders, bring a lifetime of carnival operations knowledge to each and every one of our engagements. The integrity and reliability of our operations, built over a lifetime, is testified to by our decades long relationship with many of North America's largest and oldest events."

It was a voice that echoed down the years -- resonant with a distinctive enunciation only slightly altered by the effects of a mild stroke. The Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., a day short of his 79th birthday and using a cane as he took the stage, recalled an old Mark Twain quip in assuring the audience that what they were about to hear would be "better than it sounds." Well, it's safe to say that on that score the audience was in a tolerant frame of mind. Yale University's Class of 1968, gathering on the campus for its 35th reunion, had invited the outspoken former university chaplain to deliver the four-day event's keynote lecture.

In the North Carolina legal system Chief Justice I.

Those of us who count on our paychecks from The N&O to keep the fridge stocked are happy as clams to see people spending good money to advertise in these pages.

Whether the gang of sybaritic thugs who ran things in Baghdad until rudely dispossessed by the United States military were in fact the proud owners of weapons meant to kill scads of people like bugs you'd spray in your crawl space is proving to be quite a mystery.