"Secession is the essence of anarchy," said Lincoln, who believed such an event would cause the U.S. to "collapse into a multitude of petty autocracies, thus fulfilling the prediction of European monarchists and aristocrats that the mad republican experiment of 1776 would never endure." I quote James McPherson from The New York Review.

And yet this is what some crazy people seem to want.

***

CNN pulled out all the stops for their kickoff Michael’s lunch to introduce Christiane Amanpour’s coming new show, bowing weekdays at three o’clock PM on CNN International on September 21. (Sundays at two o’clock PM CNN/U.S.)

Fourth estate luminaries from Time to CBS to ABC and The Daily News were there as well as people like Gloria Steinem, Karenna Gore Schiff, Lisa Caputo, Susan Mercandetti, Clare Gregorian, Harry Evans, "60 Minutes" honcho Vicki Gordon, Police Chief Ray Kelly, et al. And I got to hug my longtime ago "Live at Five" cohort Jack Cafferty, whose e-mails from an irate public make CNN such a hit during its "Situation Room" news hour.

CNN’s head guy, Jon Klein, had a gracious intro for Christiane and her producer, Kathy O’Hearn, and then the star herself said a few words. She remarked that she had spent her reporting years in the field and now people thought she was in the studio, out of the danger zone. "They don’t realize that being inside constitutes ‘the danger zone’ for me, so I will have to watch it." This much-respected pro is going to be a big hit, I predict.

***

Delighted to see that the New York Post has hired a distinguished Pulitzer Prize winner, Michael Goodwin, to write for them. It’s nice being replaced by someone who is really talented … At the CNN party I met young Jose Antonio Vargas, who told me the story of how he was being pushed around at a party by someone who mistook him for a waiter. Arianna Huffington observed this, intervened and befriended Jose and now he is writing for The Huffington Post.

***

On October 5, the legend herself, Lauren Bacall, will be feted at a private screening of her classic 1957 Vincent Minnelli comedy, "Designing Woman." This co-starred Gregory Peck. Rex Reed will be on hand at The Lighthouse Theater on East 59th Street to say a lot of laudatory things. Miss Bacall, who doesn’t suffer fools or foolish questions gladly, has consented to a Q & A following the film.


Lauren Bacall © AP

***

Being old doesn’t mean you are all washed up. How about the 92-year-old singer Dame Vera Lynn. She was the sweetheart of the British armed forces in World War II and equally embraced by every GI who landed in England to fight. I remember my fiancé writing me from the airfields of Great Britain to say he’d actually fallen for a singer named Vera Lynn. "I love this woman’s singing so much, it is interfering when I bend over the bomb sight to take aim at the Germans." (In spite of this infatuation, eventually we got married anyway.)

Vera Lynn last topped the charts in 1952. But now she could rank as the oldest artist in English musical history to have a No. 1 record. Her album "We’ll Meet Again – The Very Best of Vera Lynn" – is poised to steal The Beatles’ thunder as they return with their remastered releases.