Ora et labora

Here in the maze of the fourth floor carrels,

the Newberry Library fellows, monks

of modern day, copy into laptops

the mute treasures they find in volumes brought

by clerks who appear and disappear,

their footsteps muffled by thick ribbed carpet.

As in the cloisters, no one speaks, and when

these monks pass in the narrow corridors

they say nothing to each other -- aloud,

with eyes, raised hand or slightest nod of head.

Still, they communicate from cell to cell.

No great “Eureka!” of discovery,

but in the padded nooks not far from me

one coughs; one sneezes; one blows her nose;

another clears his throat; and someone farts.

Oh, holy Benedict! was it the same

through the ages in Monte Cassino?

Abby's Christmas Surprise

The aging gent who does occasional chores around here broke the last of his new year’s resolutions at the end of 2004.

He’d been determined to sit down on Thanksgiving Day for his annual telling of the Lorenz family’s notable events, and he did. Then something else came up.

Maybe a nap on the couch. Maybe the carcass of a turkey to be dumped in the garbage before the cats made off with it. Whatever it was, the 50 or so words that had danced off his fingertips remained in the computer, like that bowl of leftover cranberry sauce abandoned in the back of the refrigerator.

Then came the feast day of St. Fortunatus. Abby and Neil knocked on the door. She had been in Tampa for a seminar, and they just thought they would stop by and say hello on their way home from the airport, she said.

That was nice, but a bit odd; they aren’t in the habit of dropping in like that. But we all sat down in the still-to-be-holly-decked family room and chatted for a minute or two about nothing in particular until Abby suddenly stood up and said that she had brought souvenirs for the missus and the aging gent.

She reached into a pocket of her jeans and handed each of them miniature Florida license plates. Her mother got one with “#1 Grandma” stamped on it; the aging gent's read “#1 Grandpa.”

There may not be much joy in the rest of the world these days, but it is overflowing in this household.

Abby Comes Home With a Ring

It was supposed to be something of a routine visit home for my daughter Abby, who now lives in Portland, Oregon. But for some unexplainable reason I was a little uneasy about it. Call it a premonition, if you will.

The occasion was the wedding of one of her best friends. They've been close since they were in third grade, and Abby was to be in the wedding party.

What had her old gray dad a touch edgy was that her boyfriend, Neil, whom she had met here and followed out to Portland, would be with her. I couldn't help entertaining the idea that he might want to talk to me about their future. The thought set my emotions bouncing. One moment my heart was leaping with joy for her; the next, my eyes were filling with tears, and I suppose those were for me.

There were hugs and handshakes when the two of them appeared at our door. Then Abby burst out: "Neil and I have some news."

She held out her left hand, and sure enough, there was an engagement ring. "We're getting married."

She was radiant as she said it. Neil stood there with a goofy look on his face. I can only imagine that her mother and I were wide-eyed, mouths open. Over the ages that same scene has undoubtedly been enacted in millions of households, from cave to suburban bungalow. Norman Rockwell probably painted it. But it sure was a singular moment for us.

More hugs and handshakes, then Neil and I stood there (we were all rooted to the spot in a real-life freeze frame) like shy strangers at a party while mother and daughter launched into what I expect will be a long season of wedding talk.

They paused. "When did this happen?" I asked.

"Last night," Abby said. She turned to Neil.

"At the airport in Portland," he said. "But...."

He had bought the ring last week, he told us, and planned to give it to her during what he wanted to be a romantic dinner with candlelight and soft music at their favorite New Orleans restaurant. He was carrying it in his pocket when he walked through the metal detector. It set off the buzzer and red light.

He emptied his pockets of everything but the ring box and went through again. Again, the alarm sounded.

"What else ya got in your pocket?" he quoted the security guard as asking.

Neil (in a whisper): "An engagement ring."

Guard (in a commanding voice): "Gotta see it."

Neil (sotto voce, through clenched teeth): "But it's an engagement ring."

The guard held out his hand.

Neil tried to position himself so Abby, who had passed the security station ahead of him, wouldn't see what he was doing when he gave the box to the guard. The guard took it, but the handoff was badly timed. The box squirted out of the guard's hand and into the air. Both men juggled it, but couldn't catch it. It landed on the conveyor belt of the X-ray machine. The attendant tried to grab it, but she fumbled it and it bounced back onto the conveyer belt. Finally, the guard retrieved it. He handed it back to Neil and gave him the go-ahead.

Neil was crestfallen. His face was crimson, Abby said later. He was sure Abby had seen the whole episode (she swears she hadn't).

"I guess I'm busted," he told her. He led her to a quiet corner of the waiting room where he asked her to marry him, got her "Yes," and slipped the ring on her finger. Then they picked up their bags and headed down the jetway to their plane.

So much for romance. But won't that be a wonderful story for them to tell and retell their children over the years? And to remember every time they go through a security gate?

When Princess Di Died (and everything else seemed to)

I feel terrible. The world was mourning Princess Diana last week, but I didn't have time.

No disrespect to Her former-Royal Highness, but I was battling crumbling technology.

"The dryer won't run," my wife told me Wednesday night as I listened to a panel of Legitimate Journalists distance themselves from paparazzi and the tabloids. She interrupted someone (was it Pat Buchanan?) to say, "I took a load of dry clothes out and refilled it and it wouldn't start again."

The door switch lever, I found, wasn't pressing against the door switch when the door was closed, and when I tried bending the lever forward it snapped off. Because I couldn't get a new lever until Thursday, I sat down in front of the television set to learn that the Royal Family didn't understand Diana's touch with the simple folk.

The mourners had been gathering at Buckingham Palace well into Thursday evening when my son Bobby found that my aging Volvo, which he had taken to school that day, wouldn't start. We had to have it towed to the Volvo mechanic (the mechanic decided to specialize in Volvos and Saabs, the receptionist told me on one of my visits, because they seemed to be more trouble-prone than other cars). As it turned out, the ground wire for the generator had broken and had to be replaced--at a princely price, I might add.

Because I teach a late class on Thursdays, I couldn't pick up the car or buy the part for the dryer. So while celebrities gushed to sympathetic TV interlocutors of their closeness to Diana and spat vitriol at the paparazzi, I spent the rest of my evening going at the top of the clothes dryer with screwdriver, pliers and expletives. Mirabile dictu, as the Royals are wont to say, I was able to get the top off and, even more marvelous to tell, found that it wouldn't take a rocket scientist or even a brain surgeon, as my friend Tom McGann is wont not to say, to replace the part.

The Princess With the Common Touch probably did that sort of thing around the palace, I thought, while Charles was on the telephone with that filthy Camilla.

On Friday morning I gave Bobby the keys to our other vehicle, the Grand Lemon, and he dropped me off at the garage. I picked up the Volvo according to plan. Then I was to get the dryer switch lever at a nearby appliance parts shop.

I had driven less than a mile when I heard a grinding of metal against metal, then a steady crunching. I turned back. Block--crunch--by block--crunch--I held my breath. Two blocks away from the garage the crunching stopped. Everything stopped. I walked the rest of the way.

The Volvo mechanic took me to my car in his Volvo (I think only Volvo mechanics can afford to have Volvos; what I don't understand is how they find the time to fix other people's cars). The V.M. pushed me back to the station, and there he was able to crank the generator by hand.

"That's not frozen," he said. "Must be the starter."

While he turned the key, an assistant jousted with the starter with a length of metal pipe. The starter responded with billowing smoke.

"You need a new starter," the V.M. said. "I have one I'll give you."

I sat down in the waiting room to read the August 4 issue of Time. I had barely gotten through the latest Princess Di gossip when the assistant told me the car was ready. As it turned out, the starter wasn't bad. Some of the wires had been shedding their insulation and had crossed, causing a short. The assistant V.M. had wrapped them in electrician's tape.

"See this?" the assistant said, peeling yellow insulation off a wire. It was the same yellow as the flag draping Princess Di's coffin. "See this?"

More flecks of yellow plastic fell onto the motor. "Volvos are notorious for this, he said. "And this is just on top. Those wires go all the way down there," and he pointed to a void where the umbilical of wires disappeared under the motor. "No telling how many wires down there are like this."

We both stared balefully at the wires. "Yessir, Volvos are notorious for this," he mused.

Comforted that I wasn't alone, I drove off. I bought the switch lever, or, rather, the switch assembly pack ("Oh, no, you can't buy just the lever." It comes in a package with a switch, screws, and two wire clips.) and installed it.

Later in the day, son Patrick borrowed the car, then picked me up at the university. All of the red warning lights on the dashboard were lit. They had gone on when he started the car, he told me.

Despite the problem, I drove to the television station to do the usual Friday night broadcast of "Informed Sources," though giving myself some extra time, and in the parking lot I checked under the hood. One of those bare wires had partially fused to the motor. I eased it off with a thumbnail.

"Please start," I prayed as I turned the key. The car started. The warning lights were out. Had Diana, who so loved the simple folk, interceded for me? Or her faithful assistant in performing good works for mankind, Mother Teresa, now with her in the Heavenly Kingdom?

Preparations for the program went well. We breezed through the rehearsal of the opening. Promptly at 7 the theme played.The opening animation came on the screen. The red lights on the camera flashed. "You're on," the director said.

I began to read the script on the Teleprompter in front of the lens: "Good evening. I'm Larry Lorenz."

The copy is supposed to scroll up as I read. It stopped dead.

I turned my eyes to the script in my hand and read. I looked up into the lens, down to the script and back to the lens again. The copy hadn't moved. I kept reading. I spoke the last line into the camera and began to introduce the panel. The copy scrolled in front of my eyes as if a Ritz Hotel security man were at the 'prompter controls.

"The computer froze," the director explained afterward. "You know those computers."

"Yes," I said. "They're notorious for that."

I went home to watch and listen as a British simple couple told how their friendship with Diana began when she visited their sick daughter and how she sustained it with frequent telephone calls (Of course! Charles and Di must each have had a private line so that she could express her love for the lame, the halt, the blind and her ne'er-do-well society lovers while Charles expressed his obscene desires to Camilla).

Saturday dawned.

"Good morning," I said to my wife.

"The toilet's broken," she replied.

So I was off to the hardware store to buy a new Fluidmaster 200A Toilet Tank Repair Valve. And while the rest of the waking world was watching The Funeral of a Princess, I was installing that. Or, as I had heard Di say so eloquently in a replay of one of her speeches, there I was "with my head down the loo."

They are all fixed now, the dryer, the car, the teleprompter and the toilet. And the fairy tale that was the life of Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales, is over.

God save the TV set.

Adios, Fidel Velasquez

Fidel Velasquez, leader of Mexico's principal labor union for 53 years, died while I was in Mexico in the summer of 1997. He was 97.

His body lay in state at the union's headquarters on the plaza of the Monument to the Revolution from Saturday evening until Sunday noon. I went there on Sunday morning to see how the Mexican people say adios to one of their most famous public figures.

Photographs show the plaza jammed for political rallies, and authorities had expected hundreds, if not thousands, to gather there. Portable crowd barriers had made a maze of the plaza and the adjoining streets. Big men in dark suits with wires of radio receivers snaking out of their ears and into their coat collars stood around looking less menacing than self-conscious; police cars, marked and unmarked, drove in and out, stopping occasionally so that the officers inside could confer with their men on the street; a platoon of soldiers in battle gear sat in a transport truck parked on a side street behind the monument.

But the barriers and police and soldiers had few people to control. Only a relative handful of Don Fidel's rank-and-file were there, and most were auto workers from the local Chrysler plant who formed an honor guard, and it was said they had been bribed with new blue work uniforms and envelopes filled with pesos.

Most of the other people in the plaza, it seemed, were like me, onlookers, curious about what might happen. We shuffled around and looked at one another or at the technicians and cameramen for Televisa who were busy setting up their equipment. I saw no tears.

Four buses manuevered into parking spaces, two marked for the family and two for members of the CTM. A hearse arrived and backed up to the sidewalk in front of the building.

A correspondent for a U.S. newspaper spotted me as a fellow yanqui and we talked. She had been inside the CTM headquarters for the obsequies, she said. The president and most of the cabinet had been there, along with family and union leaders, and the president had given a eulogy of sorts. As he talked, a cat made its way through the crowd, toward the casket, she told me, and she had decided that, this being Mexico, the soul of Don Fidel had entered the cat and he was there for one last time. Nevertheless, someone scooped up el gato before it could brush against a presidential leg and threw it outside.

The president spoke of all that Don Fidel had done for the country--he had been a close adviser to the last nine presidents and a powerful voice in the Institutional Revolutionary Party. But the president, like so many of the prominent who were quoted in the newspapers, said little about what the one-time milkman had done for the obreros, the workers, of Mexico.

Some of the security men with the ear-plug radios moved barriers to allow the buses through to a side door. A couple of tv cameramen rushed to get pictures of people boarding the buses.

We heard clapping at the top of the stairs and pallbearers appeared with the casket--the funeral home's finest, a newspaper had quoted a family member as saying-- and began struggling it down the steep front stairs. A bouquet slid off and scattered on the steps. Some began to chant "Fee-del...Fee-del..." but the chant was half-hearted and trailed off like cheers at a football game that fail to excite a rally. No one cried.

The pallbearers lifted the casket into the hearse, the doors closed, and slowly the vehicle pulled away, followed by the buses. The crowd scattered. The men with the dark suits and the wires coming out of their ears unhooked the barriers and moved them in batches to the side of the street. Then they were gone too.

The Co$t of Fame

I'll never do one of those "Do you know me?" commercials.

But as the host of a local tv talk show, I'm something of a minor league celebrity. At about the level of a utility infielder on a Class A baseball team, I'd say.

Occasionally I see 25-watts of recognition come across someone's face when I'm out for a walk, or a fellow shopper at Home Depot may come up to tell me how much he likes "Informed Sources" and stick out his hand just as I've grabbed a fistful of roofing nails from a bin. I've emceed the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, mingled at our Parks and Parkway Commission's annual "Feast with the Stars" and been the celebrity bartender on Media Night at the French Quarter saloon Molly's at the Market.

That's plenty for me. I don't think I'd want to be in the pinstripe class, with my face known by everyone who reads "People" or "Vanity Fair." I wouldn't want to spend my time posing for the kind of photos that would put me on their pages or even to be pestered for snapshots with ladies with blue hair every time I went out to one of the in spots I'd have to frequent to maintain my standing among the celebrated. I wouldn't want to be eating out and have people at the next table whispering and pointing, as my family and I did one night when we were seated next to Harry Connick Jr. and his family. And I certainly wouldn't want to be condemned to autographing ticket stubs or programs or scraps of used Kleenex or whatever else my panting fans would thrust at me.

Of course, I don't get the perks the major league celebs do: chauffeurs and limousines, and fawning maitre d's, complimentary champagne at every stop, and laugh-track-enhanced cheers for my appearances on Leno and Letterman. Things like that. Still, I get my share, minor league though they might be. From time to time I get special consideration that I would not get otherwise--a ticket to an event or extra-attentive service at the necktie counter. Or what happened today.

This morning, my 18-year-old son, Patrick, and I went to court in Hahnville, in St. Charles Parish, about 20 miles up river from New Orleans. A state trooper had stopped him a couple of weeks ago as he was driving himself and his girlfriend through the parish on I-10 after a party in Baton Rouge. The trooper's raider had clocked him at 83 miles an hour.

Why so fast? Patrick was afraid the car was running out of gas, he said, and he wanted to hurry to get to a filling station.

I don't suppose that rings true with you, does it? It didn't set the strings of the trooper's heart zinging either. The fine for speeding would be $185. And he didn't anticipate driving during that trip, or so he said, so he didn't have his license with him. That lapse would cost another $105. And God knows how much more to our automobile insurance would be.

Patrick and I got to the courthouse a few minutes before 10, the hour set on the ticket for his appearance. A good many others had chosen the last month to sin against traffic regulations in St. Charles Parish too, apparently. It took us three and half hours to get from the front door to the desk in Courtroom II where two assistant DAs were hearing confessions.

The female looked sympathetic. Maybe she would be motherly. The man was rumpled, seemed tired, and he had been working through the lunch hour.

"Pray to get the woman," I said to Patrick. A moment later the man picked up Patrick's ticket and we approached the bench.

He acknowledged Patrick and offered me his hand. "Hello," he said. "We've met. I'm Howie, Leslie Hill's husband." And while he listened to Patrick's explanation I remembered meeting him at WYES, the public television station. He was there to see "Informed Sources" one night when his wife, then a reporter for the NBC affiliate, was a panelist .

Talking to Patrick, he sounded like a genial used car salesman. "I can't kill this for you, but I can reduce it. Let's see what I can do here." He waved his pencil over the ticket, wiped away the driving-without-a-license charge and started subtracting miles until he got it down to 69 m.p.h., 14 miles over the speed limit. The total cost was $110. A mile faster and the fine would have been more than $150, and we would have had stain on our insurance record.

Only $110. I could see Patrick was relieved. It would not take him long to work his way out of indenture to his mother and me. Howie and I shook hands.

"Good to see you again," I said, and I damn well meant it too.

So that's what set me thinking about my minor celebrity and my satisfaction with it. However, the thought did cross my mind that, perhaps, were I a major league, People-cover celebrity, the DA would have fixed the ticket for me.

But that was only a fleeting thought. It was gone by the time I autographed a check for the sheriff of St. Charles Parish.

Newspaper Mottoes

It was once common for a newspaper to state a motto (slogan, tagline) in its nameplate on Page One. Like the New York Times' "All the News That's Fit to Print," the motto was a statement of principle for some newspapers; for others, such as the Chicago Tribune ("World's Greatest Newspaper") or the Allentown Morning Call ("Lehigh Valley's Greatest Newspaper"), it was simply a chest-out boast. What follows are some mottoes that have flown under the flags of American newspapers through the years. Readers are encouraged to send the proprietor their own finds at lorenz@loyno.edu .


Worth Looking Into
--Aberdeen (S.D.) American News

The Newspaper That Pays for Itself
--Abilene (Tex.) Reporter News

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Way
--(Albuquerque) New Mexico State Tribune (adopted by all Scripps-Howard newspapers) [Thanks to Angus Lind, The Times-Picayune]

A Fearless And Wide-Awake Democratic Newspaper
--The (Alexandria, La.) Weekly Town Talk

Lehigh Valley's Greatest Newspaper
--The (Allentown, Pa.) Morning Call

If You Don't Want It Printed, Don't Let It Happen
--The Aspen (Colo.) Daily News [Thanks to Angus Lind, The Times-Picayune]

For x Years The South's Standard Newspaper--The Atlanta Constitution

Covers Dixie Like The Dew
--The Atlanta Journal

South's Oldest Newspaper--Established 1785
--The (Augusta, Ga.) Chronicle

The Great Newspaper of the Southern San Joaquin Valley
--The Bakersfield (Calif.) Californian

Light For All
--The (Baltimore) Sun

Maine's Largest Daily Newspaper
--(Bangor, Me.) Daily News

At the Crossroads of West Texas
--Big Spring (Texas) Herald [Thanks to Angus Lind, The Times-Picayune]

A Clean Newsy Newspaper For the Home
--The (Beaver, Pa.) Daily Times

The Hometown Newspaper Of The Southern Tier
--The (Binghamton, N.Y) Evening Press

Liked by Many, Cussed by Some, Read by Them All
--The Blackshear (Ga.) Times

Fanning the Flames of Discontent
--(Boonville, Mo.) Anderson Valley Advertiser

The Gimlet -- It Bores In.
--(Brownsville, Ky.) Edmonson News

Boston's Independent Newspaper
--Boston Traveler

America's Most Colorful Newspaper
--Burlington (Vt.) Free Press [Thanks to John Engels, International Business Initiatives--IBI]

To Give The News Impartially, Without Fear or Favor.
--Chattanooga Times Free Press [Thanks to Bill Peterson]

An Independent Newspaper
--Chicago Daily News

World's Greatest Newspaper
--Chicago Tribune

Open to all Parties--but influenced by none
--The (Cincinnati) Centinel of the North-Western Territory
The Newspaper That Serves Its Readers
--The Cleveland Press

Independent But Not Neutral
--Colebrook (N.H.) News and Sentinel

A Weekly Newspaper for the Mutual Benefit of Ourselves, Colleton and Beaufort Districts and Mankind Generally.
--Colleton and Beaufort (S.C.) Sun [Thanks to Debbie van Tuyll, Augusta State University]

Independent Since 1880 / America's Oldest Independent College Daily
--The Cornell Daily Sun [Thanks to Donna Kramer]

Continuously Published for x Years
--The Dallas Times Herald

The Voice of the Rocky Mountain Empire
--The Denver Post

Colorado's First Newspaper--Founded in 1859
--(Denver) Rocky Mountain News

On Guard for x Years
--The Detroit Free Press

The Home Newspaper For More Than x Years
--The Detroit News

America's Oldest Continuously Published Newspaper
--Hartford Courant [Thanks to Diego Sorbara]

Houston's Family Newspaper
--Houston Chronicle

Mississippi's Leading Newspaper For More Than A Century
--The (Jackson) Clarion-Ledger

A Leader In The Growth And Development Of Florida And The South For x Years
--The (Jacksonville) Florida Times-Union

America's No. 1 Small City / Capital of the East Texas Oil Field
--Kilgore (Tex.) News Herald

The Oldest Newspaper West of the Mississippi
--(Little Rock) Arkansas Gazette

Long Island's Only-Online Newspaper
--The Long Island Times [Thanks to Denise Newton]

An Independent Democratic Newspaper Of The First Class Unchallenged In Its Field
--The Longview (Tex.) Daily News

Largest Circulation In The West
--Los Angeles Times

Largest Circulation In The Entire West--Los Angeles Herald Examine

Since 1865, Telling It Like It Is And Defending The Peasant's Right To Know
The Madison (Fla.)Enterprise-Recorder

The Only Newspaper in the World That Gives a Damn About Yerington
--Mason Valley (Nev.) News

Your GOOD NEWSpaper!
--The McKenzie (Tenn.) Banner

Florida's Most Complete Newspaper (also, Florida's Complete Newspaper)
--The Miami Herald

Central And South Alabama's Largest Evening Newspaper
--(Montgomery) Alabama Journal

Serving America's International Gateway Since 1837
--The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune

The Lively One, With a Mind of Its Own
--The (New Orleans) States-Item [Thanks to Angus Lind, The Times-Picayune]

The Truth is Always Fair
--(New Orleans) Daily Truth [Thanks to Angus Lind, The Times-Picayune]

The Best Paper, the Brightest Paper, the Cheapest Paper
--(New Orleans)Evening Chronicle [Thanks to Angus Lind, The Times-Picayune]

The Only Louisiana Newspaper for a Dime a Week
--(New Orleans) Evening Telegram [Thanks to Angus Lind, The Times-Picayune]

Patroness of Peace, Commerce, and the Liberal Arts
--The (New York) American Minerva

New York's Picture Newspaper
--(New York) Daily News

Established x Years Ago. A European Edition Is Published Daily In Paris
--New York Herald-Tribune

It Shines For All.
--The New York Sun

All The News That's Fit to Print
--The New York Times

Haec olim meminisse juvabit [It will profit us to remember these things in the future. Virgil.]
--Niles' Weekly Register

Good Paper, Good Ink, Good Work and Prompt Delivery
--Osceola (Ark.) Times

Discover What's In It For You
--(Palmdale, Calif.) Antelope Valley Press

The Oldest Daily Newspaper In The United States--Founded 1771 / An Independent Newspaper For All The People
--The Philadelphia Inquirer

The State's Greatest Newspaper
--The (Phoenix) Arizona Republic

Published In The Interests Of The Oregon Country And Its People
--(Portland) Oregon Journal

Going where no dog has gone before -- and without a leash!
The only good sacred cow is medium rare with fries.
--The Putnam Pit (Cookeville, Putnam County, Tennessee) [Thanks to Geoff Davidian, publisher]

The Mountain West's First Newspaper
--(Salt Lake City) Deseret News

A Constructive Force In The Community
--San Antonio (Tex.) Light

The City's Only Home-Owned Newspaper
--San Francisco Chronicle

Monarch of the Dailies
--San Franciso Examiner

San Francisco's Evening Newspaper
--News Call Bulletin

The Oldest Daily Newspaper In Southern California
--Santa Barbara News-Press

The West's Oldest Newspaper...Founded 1849
--The (Santa Fe) New Mexican

Light of the Coastal Empire
--Savannah (Ga.) Morning News [Thanks to Julia Muller, Savannah Now]

Today's News Today
--Schenectady (N.Y.) Union-Star

The Great Newspaper Of The Great Northwest (also, The Voice of the Northwest)
--Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The Only Evening Newspaper in St. Louis With the Associated Press News Service
--St.Louis Post-Dispatch

Oldest Newspaper in Minnesota
--St. Paul Pioneer-Press

Hometown Folks Serving Hometown Folks for Over 20 Years (Also Serving Sylacauga and Pell City)
--The Talledega (Ala.) Daily Home [Thanks to Angus Lind, The Times-Picayune]

One of America's Great Newspapers--In One of America's Great Cities
--The Toledo Blade

116 Years In the Town Too Tough To Die/No Tombstone Is Complete Without Its Epitaph
--Tombstone (Ariz.) Epitaph [Thanks to Charles Walker]

Oklahoma's Greatest Newspaper / Reliability, Character, Enterprise
--Tulsa Daily World

Kansas' Leading Home Newspaper For x Years
--The Wichita Eagle

Your Hometown Newspaper Since 1916
--(Wiggins, Miss) Stone County Enterprise [Thanks to Angus Lind, The Times-Picayune]

An International Daily Newspaper
--Christian Science Monitor

Righteousness Exalteth A Nation
--Freedom's Journal

The World Is Governed Too Much
--The Globe

Our Country Is The World--Our Countrymen Are Mankind
--The Liberator

Right Is Of No Sex, Truth Is Of No Color, God Is The Father of Us All, And We Are All Brethren.
--The North Star

Power Is Always Stealing From The Many To The Few
--United States' Telegraph

It Screams
--The (Whitesburg, KY) Mountain Eagle [Thanks to Hunter Marks]