(John Andrews in the Denver Post, Sept. 4) Labor Day is a liberal observance, initiated in 1882 by the labor movement. Labor Day 2005 finds that movement in decline. The AFL-CIO is breaking up, and union membership is an ever-smaller percentage of the work force, while middle-class affluence continues to rise. Does this mean Americans are becoming more conservative? British journalists John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge devoted a book to that question and gave a tentative yes (“The Right Nation,” 2004). I won’t retrace their lengthy analysis. Instead let’s take this Labor Day – with its mingling of summer leisure, fall politics, back to school, and struggles over sharing the wealth – for a look at the uses and limits of those timeworn terms, “liberal” and “conservative.”

Since Backbone Radio is programmed well in advance, our Sept.4 show didn't initially reckon with the New Orleans disaster after Katrina, or the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist yesterday. But today's show will make time for those big stories, along with the other topics outlined in my radio email earlier. Here's what the email said: Just as con is the opposite of pro, said Will Rogers, it often seems Congress is the opposite of progress. Is it possible to have both? We'll find out next week, when Speaker Hastert and Majority Leader Frist call the unruly U.S. House and Senate back into session after the summer recess.

Confirmation hearings will begin on President Bush's nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court. A vote is promised on permanent elimination of the death tax. Debates on the war against Islamofascism will intensify, as 9/11 is observed and members pass along what they heard at home during recess.

(Jessica Corry in the Colorado Daily, Aug. 25) Maybe I was offered this newspaper column because I’m a conservative. Maybe it was because of my gender or because of my race. I guess I never asked why I was hired. I was just happy to get the job. Maybe I should have asked. According to the Urban League, America’s media establishment is racist. In its recent well-publicized report, titled “Sunday Morning Apartheid,” the League laments “under-representation” of black panelists on the nation’s top five Sunday morning political talk shows.

By Jeremy Schupbach jshoebox@mac.com Fareed Zakaria's Newsweek piece is well worth reading as an analysis of the foreign policy implications of America's dependence on foreign oil. Zakaria, is dead on in his dissection of the problem, namely that our dependence on foreign oil is crippling our foreign policy. He argues that the money and energy being spent advancing our foreign agenda is nothing compared to the money and energy being pumped right back into the regions we are so rightly trying to change. We are frustrating our own agenda.

It's a great piece, but then he jumps ship and blames SUVs. No kidding. So I'm going to help the guy out.

Back to school we go, everybody from kindergartners to grad students. No educational institution in the country greets the fall term with more at stake than the University of Colorado. That will be our leadoff topic this Sunday on "Backbone Radio with John Andrews." Hank Brown, CU's interim president, took the job this month with all eyes upon him. The university has been through stormy times with athletic and alcohol scandals, budget problems, and the disgraceful Prof. Ward Churchill. Brown's leadership credentials from the US Senate and a previous university presidency will be tested at Boulder as never before.