News of the year

The top 10 stories of 2005

Can oaths taken under a clearing January sky ring true beneath the dark days of December? "I do solemnly swear . . ."—these are words requiring the full measure of a man before he is tested in storms man-made or God-sent.

Before merchants by day pack explosives by night, toss them roadside concealed in soiled diapers, and forever prevent some mother's son coming home for Christmas. Before the tectonic plates heave and Apollyonic waves flatten cities. Before a knot of water-laden wind crumples towns like dry leaves in a hand. Before good will becomes as dependable as the bank Robert Frost once knew: a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.

From the streets of Beirut, the people broke free. In Baghdad young girls ate pistachio-sprinkled ice cream in the open summer air. Even Aslan roared again.

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