For a cooler perspective on the high temperature case of Wright v. Obama, you should spend a few minutes listening to Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell of Princeton University. From her days in Chicago, she knows both Barack Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. She debated the issue on the Democracy Now! radio program and offered some intelligent, nuanced perspectives on the story that refuses to get off the stage.

The Long Island Eight -- the eight Republican state senators who want to hold their strong voting bloc in the November election -- have chosen several items from the state budget that they will brag about on the campaign trail. STAR property-tax rebate checks for senior citizens will grow. Some $250 million in bricks-and-mortar money is coming to Long Island, much of it headed for higher education at Stony Brook University, Nassau and Suffolk community colleges and a new medical school at Hofstra University.

The Eight also held out for record increases in public school funding. State aid is up 9.8 percent, or $236 million. Of that, $50 million will go to Long Island school districts that the state classifies as "low need." In other words, the districts are well-off.

Is it any surprise, critics ask, that the $50 million is being steered toward places that might be important to the GOP re-election, such as Lawrence, Valley Stream, Rocky Point and Middle Country?

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright seems to be on a mission to trash Barack Obama's bid for the White House. By so nakedly seeking to stay in the media limelight, and tossing rhetorical bombs while basking in it, Wright has guaranteed that Obama will be on the defensive in the waning days of the race for the Democratic nomination.

He's also handed Republican John McCain all the ammunition he could have dreamed of if, despite it all, Obama should emerge from this mess as the Democratic candidate for president.

Obama isn't responsible for every word that drops from his erstwhile pastor's mouth. It's enough that a person to take responsibility for his own words, and among the choice words Obama has used in talking about Wright and his comments are, "outraged" and "sad" and "angry" and "offensive" and "divisive" and "objectionable" and "destructive" and "appalling" and "repudiate."

Whose team is the reverend on, Clinton's?

Good thing the Nassau County Legislature, which is always looking for a salary increase, doesn't get paid by the day. They didn't do much of the county's business yesterday, spending much of their session on their very shaky connection between vaccines and autism. What does that have to do with improving the parks, eliminating wasteful spending and making sure that youth programs get funded?

If the polar bear is not an endangered species, what species is?

Ursus maritimus needs polar ice to survive. As the ice melts, due to global warming, this species will die off. So, in 2005 environmentalists petitioned the Interior Department to list the species under the Endangered Species Act. But the government has not exactly been moving at warp speed to get it done. In fact, it has already missed its deadline under the law. Meanwhile, the U.S. Geological Survey predicted last year that two-thirds of the polar bears in the world, including all of them in the United States, would be extinct by 2050.

Now, in a lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace, U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken has ordered that the government make a final decision on listing the polar bear by May 15. Maybe now the government will stop moving at glacial speed and obey the law.

As a mom, this is what I think when I see Miley Cyrus' naked back: There goes another one. Yet another teen idol succumbs to the temptations of stardom, letting down all the kids who admire her. My 9-year-old daughter harbors dreams of becoming Hannah Montana, a regular girl with a glamorous rock star identity that she keeps hidden from everyone but a few close friends.

The Cyrus family's charges that Vanity Fair manipulated the photo shoot seem insincere. Miley's family and friends were present for the photo session and viewed digital images. I think they just wanted deniability -- in other words, to blame the sexing-up of this 15-year-old star on the media. Now, Miley can have it both ways with sexy published images that push her into adult-style stardom while claiming innocence and staying in good with the Disney network, where "Hannah Montana" airs.

Move over, girls, Miley's ready to take on the boys. I guess I'll have my daughter shop around for a new role model. How about Jamie Lynn Spears? Pregnant at 16. Or Vanessa Anne Hudgens from "High School Musical"? Whoops, published nudie photos on the Internet. Britney Spears? Brooke Shields? Two more in a long line of girls whose innocence was bartered for fame.

In upholding Indiana's toughest-in-the-nation voter ID law, the United States Supreme Court has given its blessing to the use of a powerful weapon to eliminate a nearly nonexistent problem. The collateral damage will be poor people who have a tough time getting the ID that the state requires.

Fraud by individual voters is simply not rampant. Even the supporters of the Indiana law signed three years ago have to acknowledge that they don't have evidence of widespread fraud by individual voters. And Demos, a voter rights organization, did an in-depth analysis of voter fraud and found it "very rare."

The Supreme Court's decision marks a disturbing about-face for an institution that in the past has been an important defender of voters' rights. It is not the last word, by any means. For individual voters who find the requirement for a government-issued photo ID too onerous or too expensive--in next week's Indiana primary, for example--bringing a lawsuit is still an option. So we can expect more litigation on this knotty issue.

Meanwhile, let's hope this decision does not encourage other states to adopt voter ID requirements as strict as Indiana's.

This is the inaugural blog post for the opinion section's new blog. This is where you can go behind the news and off the cuff with Newsday's editorial board and opinion staff.