A banner over Manhattan, and a line worth keeping

Two people you and I will probably never meet climbed to the very top of the Empire State Building around midday today, unfurled a banner, and — on the way down — one of them dropped to a knee and proposed.

The banner read:

When the power of love beats the love of power, the world knows peace.

The wire desks are handling the rest the way wire desks do: CBS, ABC, and NBC have the trespass angle, the reckless-endangerment angle, the "NYPD closed the street" angle. The identities are still unknown. The charges are still being sorted. All of that is real news, and none of it is why this is on the front page.

It's here for the sentence.

Fredericksburg is about as far from a Manhattan spire as a place gets — 250 miles and a whole different pace of life. But that line doesn't need a skyline. It works on Caroline Street. It works at a kitchen table on Sunday. Love over power, at any altitude.

We don't run much national news here; there are already five outlets fighting over the same wire copy. But every so often somebody says something worth carrying a little farther south. This one's worth it.

Congratulations to whoever they are. Come down safe.