While fantastic, the breakthroughs in stem cell research announced last week should not change everything overnight. And the news media needs to stop heralding every new stem cell discovery as a way past the political controversy.

(Just one more Thanksgiving piece, and a good one. - JB ed.)

As we sit down for Thanksgiving dinner this week, we would be wise to remember the Pilgrims. Not just by looking at the interestingly attired characters who appear on greeting cards and school decorations but really remember them — why they came here, the challenges they faced and what they were able to overcome.

There’s a great scene in “Night at the Museum” when Ben Stiller is trying to get the North and South to stop fighting the Civil War every night. He goes ahead and tells the North that they win and, as for the South, “You all get the Allman Brothers and NASCAR.”

While clearly intended for laughs, the South’s legacy really might be rather dismal if we don’t change our attitude toward education.

Call it the great overreaching. In politics, one often has to look backward to figure out the present. Such is the case when it comes to the Houston City Council and the Harris County Republican Party.

To quote an old Texasism, the religious right in the Lone Star State must feel like it’s been rode hard and put away wet. When Rick Perry endorsed Rudy Giuliani for president last week, he gave his former base the equivalent of the middle finger salute. It really makes you wonder how much they’re going to be willing to take before simply going back to church and leaving politics to others.

Who kidnapped the Harris County District Attorney and replaced him with this guy calling himself Chuck Rosenthal? You would think if someone were going to play such a public role, he would have at least studied his subject a little more closely.

Members of Congress deciding whether to vote to override President Bush’s veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program should watch an old political advertisement on YouTube.

It was a shot heard ’round the world. Well, that’s a serious overstatement, but it was a shot heard ’round the Texas political world and one that will continue to reverberate well into the future.

When Gen. David Petraeus went before Congress a couple of weeks ago, it brought back memories. And while his appearance received fairly high marks from pundits and many scored it a public relations victory for the White House, I wasn’t left with a sense of optimism as I was the first time I met the general.

Something just didn’t make sense. I can’t remember when I first heard about the case involving the Border Patrol agents from Texas serving time for shooting a drug smuggler. It was probably after a group of Republican congressmen, among them Ted Poe and John Culberson from Houston, started crying out for something to be done to correct the injustice. They were calling the two agents heroes and arguing that it was an outrage for them to be in prison while the drug smuggler walked free.