A tiny taste of paranoia

Posted on September 15, 2011 by sheilawill

A salted caramel mocha iced frappe at Starbucks sounded so yummy. When Julie and I go for our twice weekly early morning power walks we both always have the same thing — a grande iced coffee with soy milk, unsweetened please. Maybe it was time to shake things up a bit?

Salted caramel is the new heath bar crunch. It’s everywhere. I’m happy to report that BTO Yogurt even has the hip new flavor. The onslaught of college girls must like it too. But I digress.

The “new” combo of three of the tastiest flavors on Earth was four bucks. Waiting in line I was tempted. When it was my turn to order I quickly changed my mind, reverting to the usual. But I didn’t keep it to myself.

“Gee, that salted caramel espresso drink really sounds good,” I said to Julie. “But I’ll just have my iced coffee,” I announced, smiling at the cashier.

The Starbucks ingenue had a scrunched-up face, a ponytail pulled too tight and wore glasses (I have nothing against glasses). Instead of telling the mixer-upper guy what I wanted, she left the line of customers and walked over to him. Even more curious, she whispered in his ear. I don’t think he was her boyfriend.

“Why’d she go over there to tell him what I ordered?” I asked Julie, who shrugged. Hmm…this was curious. Was I so bad that she told him about me?

“See that woman who’s complaining about the price of our wowy-wow new salted caramel frappe? Pour a bunch of sugar in her iced coffee although she requested no sweetener,” I imagined her saying. Julie and I walked over to the pick-up counter to get our drinks.

“I’m making you a sample of our new salted caramel mocha espresso frappe,” the young man told us. “I’ll split it in half so you can both have some. How does that sound?”

“Sure,” Julie nodded politely.

“Thanks,” I blurted, waving feebly to the cashier.

“Have an awesome day!” she beseeched us.

Julie and I each walked out with both our hands full. An icy thick coffee drink half filled with whipped cream, drizzled with caramel, in one hand — something totally new — and our usual stimulant in the other hand.

I was flummoxed. What to do with two drinks? We had to stop walking and concentrate. I hadn’t planned to slurp the whipped cream, but I did, every drop of super-caloried goodness.

We resumed our typical fast-paced walktalk. “Did you get brain freeze?” Julie asked. “Yup,” I told her, “I did. This sure is a different kind of day.”

 

 

 

Posted in Bopping Around Tucson, Food/happy hours, Neuroscience needs me | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Desert rain

Posted on September 11, 2011 by sheilawill

So refreshing. Sixty-seven degrees last night with the windows wide open! Riding our bikes head on into puddle dips this morning. Wheeee who! I turned around and did it again. Like the 65-year-old kid that I am. “This is why I live in Tucson,” I yelled to Dan.

We’re verging on the glorious fall/winter weather here when through my entire previous life this would be the time of foreboding. September, the most beautiful month on Mt. Desert Island, where I lived year-round for 25 years, the month of Brook’s birth. I drove into Tucson on Sept. 25 at dusk on her 25th birthday, nine years ago.

“I did it,” sighing to myself, staring at the pinkish-purple-salmon sunset. “Don’t know what I’m going to do now but I did it.”  During these nine years I’ve gone from substitute teaching to teaching Kripalu Danskinetics to transcribing a biography of Khrushchev to full-time teaching at wacky school, to freelance writing and editing, which I still do since my once full-time job as assistant editor of the Arizona Jewish Post was cut to four days a week.

For 11 months out of the year I’m busy living in the Sonora Desert and don’t think much about water. But it’s funny, about a month before returning to my home in Southwest Harbor every July, I begin to long for the ocean. The pull is there, always will be.

We’re considering a trip to San Diego at the end of the month to see old friends and to gaze at the Pacific. “Powerful wet stuff” was a favorite line that my kids and I frequently repeated when they were little, which came from “Voyage of the Dawn treader,” the classic Chronicles of Narnia title by C.S. Lewis.

I hear that the Rillito River is flowing after huge thunderstorms last night. Years ago I watched daredevils in rubber boats and canoes rushing down the usual dry river bed. Crazy young people bitten by the water bug. At any time the water could have disappeared, throwing them for a dangerous loop.

Guess they were taking a chance (there’s always the question, how big a chance do you take?). I’m reminded of the NYC boat captain in the short documentary “Boatlift” I posted on Facebook yesterday from the Teaching Tolerance website. He knew he had to take his boat from the safety of New Jersey to Manhattan on 9/11.

He couldn’t let people suffer if there was anything he could do to stop it, he said. His wife called him a “maniac.” But he had no choice. Don’t look back over your life lamenting that “I should have done this,” the captain said.  “That’s what I tell my children. Do it.”

We make choices moment by moment. I could hop in my car and drive to the rushing Rillito or jump in the pool next door. Whatever else I do, I’ll continue to commemorate the innocent 3,000 who perished on 9/11. I’ll read about them in today’s NYT special section. For today, that’s my choice. Yesterday I read the entire Sept. 12 New Yorker, and was especially struck by George Packer’s “Coming Apart.” No surprise about his theory — reality — that “after 9/11 transfixed America, the country’s problems were left to rot.”

George Bush, with his deer-in-the-headlights lack of insight couldn’t see beyond telling the American people to “go out and shop.” Ten years later, we’re in big trouble because choices were avoided.

To maintain our sanity — at least my own — I take breaks from thinking about the rubble we’re left with. I choose the comfort of water, again and again, the ocean, the waterfalls by the names of the 3,000 at the NYC memorial that opened today, the Rillito River and the pool. Lucky me.

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Long ago and far away: Sept. 11, 2001

Posted on September 10, 2011 by sheilawill

How can I not write about 9/11? My New Yorker magazine arrived in the mail yesterday with its solemn but lovely cover commemorating the tragedy. More security is evident in NYC than any time in the past 10 years. I’m going to spend Thanksgiving with Brook and Gianmarco across the river from NYC, and I’ll probably venture into the city to see the new memorial with its hundred of live oak trees, and one pear tree in the center that was saved from the inferno (sort of like Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree,” which I always disliked).

How can I forget that morning? Here’s my little story for posterity: I was teaching journalism at Mt. Desert Island High School in Maine. I sent a student to do some xeroxing in the library, where the TV was on verifying the recording of a high school basketball game. Ron came running back to class, telling us “there’s been an accident, a plane flew into the World Trade Center!”

“That’s no accident,” I said. “Let’s go.” The 12 of us were the first ones to descend on the library. We stood frozen in front of the television screen. The second plane had just hit, and the commentator was talking about an all-out attack on the White House, the Capital, and who knew where else.

Other students and teachers streamed into the library for what turned out to be an all-day vigil. Then it hit me. Is Brook okay? She worked in Manhattan. It took her around three hours to get to a pay phone (cell phones weren’t working) after standing in a long line. “I’m alright mom, I’m alright,” she gushed.

Mayor Rudy Giuliani got on TV to exhort everyone to leave the city. Brook and her boyfriend walked the 10 miles or so to Astoria, Queens. Across bridges out of the city, others joined the throng leaving the city. Many were covered with dust, or ashes I guess, from the explosion.

Brook told me about shoe stores making sneakers available to women walking in heels, shop owner not letting her pay for coffee. If I recall correctly, her subway was just coming above ground as the second plane hit, and a preacher in her car became hysterical, along with others.

Today, 10 years later less a day, we passed about 150 bikers decked out in American flags getting ready to parade around Tucson. We were on our way back from sharing a humungous cinnamon roll at Gus Balon’s (although I’ve lived in Tucson for nine years I’d never been there, which I can’t believe).

It’s a third-generation-run Tucson establishment. Besides the prompt and friendly service, cleanliness of the place, eggs that tasted like they were just hatched in the backyard, I was impressed by how the owners treat their employees. They get a three-day weekend every six weeks, the month of July off and two weeks at Christmas, four days at Thanksgiving as well as all the major holidays, plus the restaurant is closed on Sundays. No milking every last ounce out of people. A wonderful example of sharing the business’s success.

I’ll never forget seeing the giant abyss in NYC in October 2001, which was once the World Trade Center. The fearful aftermath of that horrendous event shaped the next decade in this country. Fear, unnecessary wars, fear, economic disaster, and more fear.

But today, I chose to eat a giant cinnamon roll, appreciate biker guys who held the door open for us at Gus Balon’s, chat with the cheerful wait staff who kept filling our coffee cups. Now that’s an American story that needs to be retold.

Posted in Bopping Around Tucson, The Rest of the World | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Teach your children well

Posted on September 5, 2011 by sheilawill

I just couldn’t do it. Teaching seems like the job from hell these days. Bullying, test scores, no child left a dime, school prayer, and now technology as GOD. And I’m not a luddite.

It all seems so sensible, smaller classes make a big difference. But what school district has any money, especially in Arizona, where the way to trim budgets is to cut education, get rid of teachers. Some districts are putting everything they have into technology.

According to “In Classroom of Future, High Technology but Stagnant Grades” (see link above), many studies found that “technology has helped individual classrooms, schools or districts.” Writing scores improved for eighth-graders in Maine after they were all issued laptops. But the statistics are far from conclusive.

To me, it’s all about recognizing every student’s learning styles and strengths. I recall some years ago when the whole language/phonics debate raged. My sister-in-law, Sandra Wilensky, a terrific first grade teacher and later a tireless principal in Acton, Mass., told me she could teach any child to read. The key, she said, was to use whatever techniques, or combination thereof, worked for each child.

The same is true today for technology vs. paper and pencil learning. Do what works for each student. I remember having 100 students in my five high school U.S. history classes, and that’s a downright luxury compared to classes with 40 kids in them these days.

When I was a young, enthusiastic teacher back in the late ’70s, I gave my students writing assignments, which was unheard of at the time. They complained: “This isn’t English class, you know.”

I gave fewer and fewer written assignments as I got older, as I had two children,  because I didn’t want to stay up till 3 a.m. grading papers. How can teachers today engage students in real education when they have such overloaded classrooms? Rote memorization for meaningless test scores — not for understanding — is about all they can do.

Larry Cuban, an education professor emeritus at Stanford, says that “research showed that student performance did not improve significantly until classes fell under roughly 15 students, and did not get much worse unless they rose above 30.”

Maybe school administrators magically believe that technology will help teachers deal with unwieldy class size. In Chandler, Arizona, The Kyrene School District has spent a fortune on laptops. Maybe it’ll help and maybe it won’t. I’ll admit that for the most part the jury is still out.

Amy Furman, a teacher at Aprende Middle School in the Kyrene district, says, “I start with pens and pencils” but computers help students with the editing process. And many students prefer working  on laptops. For one thing, it’s what they’re used to in everyday life.

I can’t help feeling sympathetic toward Erin Kirchoff, president of the Kyrene teachers’ association. Teachers in Arizona must purchase their own tissues, pencils and paper, on top of traditional personal spending on supplementary books.

Questioning the large technology expenditures in her district, Kirchoff’s plea is, “Give me Kleenex, Kleenex, Kleenex!”

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Imagine “Another Earth”

Posted on September 3, 2011 by sheilawill

Last night we were pleased to see an original movie, not the same old chasing around to see if the couple stays together in the end.  Here’s the deal — Earth 2 is a mirror-image planet inhabited by all the same people as our Earth, living better or worse lives than those of us on Earth 1 (or Earth 2 to the other mirror-image earthlings). You get the picture, right?

I always check out reviews on Rottentomatoes.com before heading over to the El Con Cinemas. Ratings weren’t incredibly high for “Another Earth,” which opened nationwide on Wednesday, but they were a lot higher than for “Spy Kids 4” or even the perennial romance offering of “One Day.” I’ll confess to having different tastes than mainstream moviegoers (thank the universe). I’m a bit of a movie whore and will go to anything that isn’t poopy-joke stupid or boringly violent. Dan won’t see bio-pics (he walked to the Loft for a 10 p.m. showing of “Troll Hunter” a few weeks ago).

In a review of “Another Earth” the Houston Chronicle writer pondered this question: If there were two Earths how were the tides affected? A valid question. But in this case thinking may be harmful.

Suspend belief! “Imagination is more important than knowledge,” or some facsimile thereof, said Albert Einstein.  I recall nervous parents of 10-year-olds coming into my children’s bookstore, Oz Books, to discuss their kids’ overriding interest in fantasy or sci-fi genres.

“Will they ever learn anything if they never read nonfiction?” parents fearfully asked. I quoted Einsten and tried to explain that it’s imaginative thinking that raises entrepreneurs (what did Steve Jobs read as a kid, anybody know?), scientists, interesting people. Not facts, at in my book. Facts come from research, another valuable tool, but save it for grad school or later (I’m being a little facetious.)

Back to “Another Earth.” I was enthralled. Everywhere that gorgeous, blonde Rhoda went she saw Earth 2 overhead. In fact, it got her into a whole lot of trouble as a teen preparing to go to MIT. Not only Rhoda, but everything about the film was lovely to watch. I liked the music by a group called Fall on Your Sword. (Anybody ever heard of them?)

The New Yorker reviewer, I think it was David Denby, wrote that if you could figure out the ending of “Another Earth” “you should get a refund.” Oh comon’ David. Contemplating the options makes for more fun.

For yet more fun, check out Whatever…, science fiction writer John Scalzi’s blog. Meanwhile, consider this: There’s a time for thinking and a time for imagining.

Posted in Visual Entertainment | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Two hours of happiness

Posted on September 1, 2011 by sheilawill

I’ve always wanted to eat a squash blossom, but I’ve never remotely imagined dipping pieces of giant peanut butter-cum chocolate chips-cum bacon topped cookies in bourbon infused sweet milk. Huh?

All this was part of the Wednesday night garden dinner with Julie and Penny at Jax Kitchen. The proud bearer of a Groupon that needed to be used up, I figured what the hell. I had never been there before. Dan and I usually don’t venture that far out of  our hood.

The crisp squash blossom apps were filled with Mexican chorizo and shrimp (probably Mexican too), set on a purple grilled onion “flower.” Really too pretty to eat but we forced ourselves. Our waitperson was a fine young man, an enthusiastic salesman. He was great. He knew his wine.

“We have this garden downtown. Everything on this menu comes from our own garden.” Wait a minute, chorizo? Shrimp? I still trusted him. The farmer’s salad comes with “our” squash + zucchini, bacon lardon (which I never heard of before), a soft-boiled egg and lemon oil. Gush it all together and it was yummy. Heirloom tomatoes too.

I don’t mind naming all these refined new vegetables. As a writer, a person who adores words, it’s fine to make everything we eat sound so artistic, even poetic.

Julie even took pictures of some of the dishes.  I always ask to hear about the desserts, which satisfies me enough to not order anything. Not tonight. I succumbed.

Two weeks ago I lost a few pounds. I had started to change my eating habits. Then Dan took me to Feast for a lovely dinner following a very difficult week.

Meat meat meat. Bar-b-q ribs rubbed with coffee grounds, which I chomped on like a cavewoman. Licked my fingers and all. Cured all that ailed me.

We finished the meal with Doug Levy’s outrageously gooey chocolate (decadence?) $.65 cookies, the best food bargain in town. A small cookie for each of us seemed just right.

This evening, a thin young woman at the next table with her boyfriend stared down a full plate. Had she eaten anything all day, or all week? Would she be able to zip her jeans up the next morning? Ahh…so much holds little importance to the young. Metabolism takes care of itself. Each day rolls smoothly into the next.

And life goes on. Some people eat nasturtium sandwiches. My uncle Joe went out to to eat and ordered spaghetti with ketchup. We had liver and onions for dinner growing up. Tonight I finally tasted a squash blossom.

Posted in Food/happy hours | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Kudos to Bill Keller, down with wimpiness

Posted on August 28, 2011 by sheilawill

He’s so right. “We need to ask candidates tougher questions about their faith,” Keller, the NYT executive editor writes in this week’s NYT mag. If a presidential candidate believes in the rapture, does that mean that s/he could never appoint an atheist to the Supreme Court?

That’s the way we’re rolling these days: It’s my way or the highway.

( Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas thinks of himself as an “originalist” and although he hasn’t posed a question at court proceedings in five years, he’s writing opinions neglecting precedent or that the framers of the Constitution allowed for changing times).

What are we so squeamish about? asks Keller. Be more aggressive, he advises journalists and ordinary citizens. I remember all the hubbub about Catholic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy during the 1960 campaign. People worried that if elected president he would have to consult with the pope before making decisions. Back then, voters were adamant about a president not being beholden to religious dogma in policy-making.

Today the opposite seems to be true; the more adherence to religious “values” the better. Worse yet, we’re not talking about nicey nice religious values like “love thy neighbor.” Disregard science, be subservient to your husband while condemning how some Americans choose to love, disregard the poor by condoning huge tax cuts to the wealthiest among us, and so on.

Keller has sent Republican presidential candidates questionnaires. Here are a few of his excellent questions:

“Do you agree with those religious leaders who say that America is a ‘Christian nation’ or ‘Judeo-Christian’ [I’ve never heard that one] and what does that mean in practice?”

“Would you have any hesitation in appointing a Muslim to the federal bench? What about an atheist?”

Why we don’t  ask more aggressive questions? For example, I’d ask, when there are millions of people out of jobs and the income level of working Americans hasn’t risen in years, how will you specifically help the unemployed? What are they supposed to do, pull themselves up by their ‘American Dream’ bootstraps, even if they have no boots?

I don’t like wimpiness. What are we so afraid of, especially journalists, whom I always told my students were the fifth branch of government? But I’m not only talking about journalists; we’re lucky enough to discuss controversial topics without being carted off to jail.

Can we be respectful without being wimps? I just finished reading “Dreaming in English” by Tucsonan Laura Fitzgerald. Ike, the recently married husband of Tami, an Iranian woman new to America, keeps telling her to stand up for herself, to be strong. Without giving away the story, when Tami finally speaks her mind without fear of what might happen, she wins it all. Granted she’s come from a repressive country and traditionally must gives in to her likely fate, but she finally gets it.

She gets the importance of not being wimpy, for those she loves, but mostly for herself. Guess I’ve always thought that the crux of good education is learning to speak up for yourself, doing your research and asking perceptive questions.

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“Too Jewish”

Posted on August 27, 2011 by sheilawill

Most of my life it’s been a quandary. Sure I’m Jewish but going to synagogue doesn’t do it for me. It feels more sacred to walk down the path at Wonderland in Acadia National Park; I feel more “one ” with the universe than I’ve ever felt being part of an organized religious practice.

My older brother, Joel, has his office in a building outside of Boston, which also houses  a Chabad group of religious Jews. Joel and I both went to Hebrew day school but are secular Jews. My brother’s a really nice guy, and when the Chabad rabbi was twice short of a minyan (10 Jewish men needed to hold a service), Joel took his place among the daveners,  or praying men, to help out. He told me recently that he could still read Hebrew but didn’t know what it meant. Only having to stay 15 minutes or so was fine with him.

Last week on the phone, my brother mentioned that he came across the tefillin from his bar mitzvah. One day he ran into the Chabad rabbi and asked if the rabbi wanted them.

“Oh, maybe you’ll need them, Joel,” the rabbi said.

“Rabbi, we’ve had this conversation already,” Joel replied, and the Chabadnik relented. My brother was not returning to his Jewish religious beginnings.

My kids are technically Jewish because they have a Jewish mother but they’ve never had any Jewish training except for going to Chanukah parties at the Einhorns’ house in Bar Harbor, Maine. My daughter, Brook Wilensky-Lanford — the wildly talented author of “Paradise Lust: Searching for the Garden of Eden” — was interviewed on Tucson Rabbi Sam Cohon’s “Too Jewish” radio show last Sunday.

Rabbi Cohon is a sharp guy. He had told me that he’s always been fascinated by the Garden of Eden, and although I told him that Brook’s book wasn’t at all Jewish — let alone “Too Jewish” — he was intrigued. I listened to the program and as much as Brook wanted to tell about her characters searching for the Garden of Eden, Rabbi Cohon wanted to remark on any Jewish connections. That’s what rabbis do, what anyone so connected to any religion takes on in her life.

Me, I keep wondering why I’m at the Arizona Jewish Post at this point in my life. Constantly steeped in Jewish life, I’m always trying to find out who’s Jewish and has an interesting story. My calendar revolves around the Jewish one (extra days off are great).

I’m definitely not “too Jewish.” Am I not Jewish enough? Will being Jewish matter more to me one day? Why are my children so interested in the impact that religion has made in history (Brook) and cultural anthropology (Ethan)? It’s a conundrum.

Posted in Family Matters | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

In my house

Posted on August 25, 2011 by sheilawill

If it all works out, a lobsterman will move into my Southwest Harbor home this weekend. Perfect timing. A major relief for me to have the house occupied through howling winds, ice and snow. Winter renters have moved in and out over the past nine years. Some great, some awful. A seamstress I had to evict, a lovely young woman dentist from Montana, teachers, a documentary filmmaker, a family waiting for their new retirement home to be finished, a Hungarian College of the Atlantic student and her older boyfriend with his art collection.

I’ve only spoken with said lobsterman twice. Each time he sounded like he was half-asleep or drinking too many beers after a hard day at sea. I guess it doesn’t matter what he does as long as he keeps the place clean, pays his rent on time, and makes sure that the pipes don’t freeze.

“He’s a pretty decent guy. I taught him how to play the drums in school,” another lobsterman who’s the son of a good friend told me today. “He used to be a partier but hey, that was three or four years ago.” And what, now he’s 25? Okay, I regress. If he sleeps a lot and is relatively quiet, or maybe even shy, that’s a lot better than my very worse tenants.

She was — and still is — a Southwest Harbor yoga teacher. She and her husband had three beautiful, shaggy blond-haired children. That didn’t stop the kids from drawing on the walls with crayons, carving their initials in the dining room table, with parents who were adept at lying, taking stuff and leaving dog hair all over. Bad karma indeed.

I’ll bet the lobsterman will be just fine. He went to last year’s tenant’s good-bye party. She told me today that she really didn’t know him, but he was very nice. I also heard from his previous landlord that he kept his place clean and paid his rent on time. He graduated from the University of Maine “two or three years ago.” Even though he’s a young fellow he just couldn’t remember.

I remember a now long-deceased doctor who moved his family to Maine so he could become a lobsterman. The doc tried it for a while but it was just too hard, the story went. I know a woman in her 50s who loves being a stern man, heading out the Western Way in the dark when most people are still sleeping. In July I’m often awakened by the chug-chug-chugging of diesel engines leaving the harbor, just down the path in the field behind my bedroom window.

Lobstering is honest work. Most of my renters have been honest, decent people. Some have become friends, even left books for me that they’ve written. There were the renters who said “your house feels like a hug.” I appreciate that.

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America, America, wherefore art thou?

Posted on August 21, 2011 by sheilawill

Brook’s “Paradise Lust” is getting great reviews. Ethan arrives in Houston this weekend to start grad school at Rice. Dan and I are doing fine. But America? That’s another story. Without jumping on the disbelief bandwagon about our politics getting crazier and crazier, I’m going to do what helps me most. I read. I write.

Historically, there’s always been political craziness in the United States, and it’s mostly been incited by greed and hatred of “the other.” But recently I read “America, America” (2008) by the terrific writer Ethan Canin, and he reminded me about many of the warped personalities who jump into the political fray. Yes, we’ve had sane politicians like George McGovern, Jim Jeffords, and Gabby Giffords. (I won’t bore you with the outlandish things that we’ve heard masquerade as public policy lately.)

Here’s what Canin writes in his novel: “We tend to elect those who can campaign over those who can lead.” It’s sad, but maybe that’s what happened with Barack Obama. I’ve wondered if Hillary Clinton might have been able to get more done, even though I dislike her more opportunistic style.

“How diligently privilege has to work to remain oblivious to its cost.” Denial is a powerful tool. How can any of the right-wing loonies lash out at Warren Buffett for being honest about billionaires being “coddled” with such a low tax rate?

“Power begins to grow from its own essence, rising no longer exclusively from the character of the man [or woman] but from the office itself. And this is where some balance must be found between its attainment and its allotment, between the unquenchable desire in any politician to rise, and the often humbling requirement that one’s station must now be used to some benefit. And here, of course, is where corruption begins. For power contains an irresistible urge to further itself: there is always the next race.” Sad, but true.

The narrator of the book, a newspaper editor [ahem] says “it never fails to surprise me that journalists, and politicians, and all the people whom my profession now calls opinion makers, can still be swayed with just a few of the right gifts and the right trips, with just a few of the right drinks and the right singers and the right last names, and that the citizenry, in turn, by the millions and millions, can still be brought in line behind them.” (Are we a bunch of sheep?)

I love the part of the book about the narrator’s father, reading constantly as a retired older man who never went to college, who finally has the time. He reads philosophy, and even Howard Zinn’s “The People’s History of the United States,” which endears me to him. Maybe he’s the book’s hero, someone who wants to keep learning, who doesn’t take the bullshit for granted.

And I love the part about Trieste, the young newspaper intern, explaining that it was in the worst of times during the Depression “when the national economy was at its low point of the century, that’s when we wrote the child labor laws. That’s when we showed the most care for our children.”

I still have faith that the majority of American people are sensible, and while all this yelling is going on for the next year and a half before the 2012 presidential election, let the farmers and the teachers, the writers and the plumbers, the students and the old folks, go to the polls and disregard the crazies. First our formerly eloquent young president — with his hair rapidly turning white — must act. Sometimes I wonder. A darker mood seems to be spreading across the country. So I read. And I write. What do you do?

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