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America, it has been said, is one part moral striving, one part technology; a people engaged in a perennial quest for the twin absolutes of ethical purity and economical efficiency. By either measure the country is evolving in unpromising directions. Tiring of the vehemence of the election debate on its morals, the public, we are told, is focusing more closely on its pocket. Underneath the stagey old slogans about private enterprise and public investment there is a dawning fear that somehow future generations of middle-class Americans will never have it so good as their parents. America may give the impression of a semi-deranged country, a whole people lost to common sense. But with the rational side of itself it is a worried place too. The realisation of anything approaching the American dream has rarely seemed more illusive. This year, for a chunk of the summer, even Martha's Vineyard, the new Atlantis itself, has been marooned in a mist. (Extracts: By George Walden, Sunday Telegraph) IT'S NOT STRAIGHT New schemes to prop up the Leaning Tower of Pisa are aired virtually every year. They are often imaginative. A few years ago there was a plan to inject thousands of tons of concrete into the foundations, and then to freeze it. (I am not sure that the technology of this had been worked out). The latest idea is to prop up the tower with a giant metal buttress. Something more radical is needed. The only permanent solution would be to dismantle the tower, stone by stone, and then to re-erect it in a perfectly vertical position. This would mean that we could then view one of the most beautiful buildings in Italy as it was meant to be seen. A further advantage is that it would reduce tourists to Pisa by about 90%. (John Casey, Sunday Telegraph) THIS EUROPE Last year Mr. Colin Wilson of North Kessock, near Inverness, took his family to the local [flower] show, where he thought to sample the freshly-baked scones offered by the ladies of the Women's Rural Institute. When he asked for some of their delicious home-made jam, he was told that under EC regulations they were no longer able to serve it. Thinking this might simply be a misunderstanding, when he returned to this year's show - as he described in an amusing letter to last week's Inverness Courier - he again asked for jam with his