[This is an adaptation of a 2017 column that ought to be an annual classic.]

"People who travel the high road of humility in Washington don't have to worry much about heavy traffic." – Alan Simpson, former Senator (R, Wyoming)

"Will you accept the election results?" – Hillary, during 2016 debate, to Trump

TIDES ARE TURNING; SEAS ARE CHANGING. Nihilists are whining, and some people are still pining for power. Some reflections:

"GOD must have given common sense by the acre. That must be why people in highly populated areas seem to have so little of it." – RANGE magazine

"There is no such thing as a New York intellectual establishment. It just looks that way from the outside [of it]." – Jason Epstein, Editor; Random House (1970s)

I sit in an office at 244 Madison Avenue,

And say to myself, You have a responsible job, havenue? - Ogden Nash, 1929 ("Spring Comes to Murray Hill")

"A newspaper may somewhat arrogantly assert that it prints 'all the news that's fit to print.' But no newspaper yet has been moved to declare at the end of each edition, 'That's the way it is . .'" – Sen. Eugene McCarthy

"The city room is an outhouse." – Jimmy Breslin

"Journalism is a kind of profession, or craft, or racket, for people who never wanted to grow up and go out into the real world." – Harry Reasoner

"The press is like the blackbirds in the fall – one flies off the telephone line, the others all fly away; and the other one comes back and sits down and they all circle and come down and sit in a row again." – Sen. Eugene McCarthy

"Journalists have been . . lured out of their normal and proper role and have become, not critics in the aisle, but actors on the stage." – Eric Sevareid

"As reporters, we should stay the hell out of politics and maintain a private position on any issue." – John Chancellor

"Our job is only to hold up the mirror – to tell and show the public what has happened . . " – Walter Cronkite

"Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions." – Edward R. Murrow

"Just report the news; don't encourage it." – conservatives, forever

"Hitler said that he always knew you could buy the press. What he didn't know was that you could get them cheap." – Mort Sahl

"There are honest journalists like there are honest politicians. When bought, they stay bought." – Bill Moyers

"What is Truth, said Pontius Pilate, and didn't wait for an answer." – Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

P.S. Most of the news media quotations above are from Barbara Rowes' "The Book of Quotes" (1979). Oh sorry ma'am, but just one more question: Are you more impressed by man-made things than anything else? Many people in "the Big City" consider the concept of an Intelligent Designer weird. Well, the other day my mouse clicked on something and got three trillion, 450 billion results in less than one-third a second. By a mouse! Now to me, that's weird! But not as weird as a brain that thinks it can out-think the Designer of the human brain. There aren't very many atheists in horticulture, farming, or fox holes, but I'm not sure about J-school. I've heard that as many as 70 percent of kids who start college as believers lose their faith before they graduate.

PPS: One frat boy told his pastor that he had given up believing in God because God didn't answer his prayers. The pastor says:

"How many of God's prayers have YOU answered?"