"You All Look Like Americans"

 

A few years ago, I asked a Japanese friend living here on a work visa what she thought about the diversity that is so characteristic of the Bay Area. After all, we have black, white, brown, Asian, Pacific Islander  Native American, Middle Eastern, Central Asian, Indian, Latino, and other races and ethnicities all living in one region, in contrast to her country, which is far more homogeneous.

"When I look at people here," she said, "you all look the same. You all look like Americans to me."

From her outsider's perspective, our differences seemed far less apparent than our commonalities.

It easier for me to see what she meant by looking at another country. In the romantic comedy "Love Actually," there are numerous black characters, most of whom speak with a British accent and comport themselves in the distinctive manner of Englishmen (and women).

Of course, this is a fictional representation, but those characters seem far less "black" than "English" to an American viewer.

The film "Bend It Like Beckham," which gently probes the plight of South Asians in London society, has characters of different racial and national backgrounds who have similar vocabularies and proclivities. There are tensions between ethnic groups but to us, outsiders, they all seem like Brits.

Maybe the point is that it can be difficult to maintain perspective on your own society from the inside. The unfairnesses and prejudice in America are horrible and real and do concrete harm, largely due to people like Trump who prey on the fears of poorly educated whites to demonize people of different races and backgrounds.

But in the end we are not a society of tribes. Not that that doesn't exist in the world. Just spend a little time in Afghanistan, where Tajiks, Pashtuns, Hazara, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Kirghiz, Kazakh,  Aymāq,  Baloch, Pashai, Nuristani, Gujjar, Arab, Brahui, Pamiri and others struggle to leave centuries of strife behind and form a common union.

Even so, from an outsider's perspective, they all look like Afghans to me. And hopefully one day they can agree on that.

Here in America we are all one people. We just don't see that yet.

***

The topics tonight are diverse, but they all look like news to me...

* U.S. Sets Coronavirus Case Record Amid New Surge -- More than 85,000 new cases of the virus were reported across the country on Friday, shattering an earlier single-day record and stirring new fears about the months ahead. (NYT)

* Loan payments loom as Trump fights for his future in politics and in business -- If President Trump is reelected, his loan-saddled properties could present a conflict of interest: He will owe enormous sums to banks that his government regulates, and national security experts say his debts and foreign deals may constitute security risks. (WashPo)

* With far less money than anticipated, Trump campaign officials are scrambling to address a severe financial disadvantage against Biden, producing something of an internal blame game. (NYT)

* Biden called out Trump for not releasing his tax returns in the debate after Trump accused Biden of taking money from foreign countries and brought up his son Hunter and his business connections in China. “I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life. I have released 22 years of tax returns. You have not released a single year. What are you hiding?” Biden said, bringing up reports that Trump maintained a secret bank account in China. [HuffPost]

* Russia’s hackers appeared to be preparing to sow chaos amid any uncertainty around election results, U.S. officials said. (NYT)

* Covid-19 hospitalizations increased in 38 states over the past week (WashPo)

* Trump was sued Thursday by New York, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle for designating them “anarchist” cities that shouldn’t get a penny of federal funding. “This is a figment of Donald Trump’s troubled imagination,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters before the lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle. “The only anarchy in this country is coming from the White House.” Trump instructed Attorney General William Barr last month to designate the cities “anarchist jurisdictions” following racial justice protests ignited by the May 25 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. [HuffPost]

* Iowa Never Locked Down. Its Economy Is Struggling Anyway. (NYT)

* Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) indicated that mysterious dark forces — rather than his own unpopularity — are responsible for surging campaign contributions to his Democratic rival Jaime Harrison. He called for a legislative review of the kind of small-dollar donations that are boosting Harrison. “Where’s all this money coming from?” Graham asked in an interview. “Some of these shadowy figures out there running ads, is there any foreign influence afoot?” Graham conceded last month that he’s getting “killed” by Harrison’s fundraising because his foes “hate my guts.” [HuffPost]

* A recent study showed that depression rates spiked three times higher during the pandemic, and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 40 percent of American adults reported problems with anxiety, depression or substance abuse in late June. (NYT)

* Biden 378, Trump 144, Ties 16. (Electoral-Vote.com)

***

By the way, have I mentioned lately that not only do you look different from me, you are looking really, really good!

Say hey, good lookin'
Whatcha got cookin'? 
How's about cookin' somethin' up with me? 
Hey, sweet baby 
Don't you think maybe
We could find us a brand new recipe? 

I got a hot-rod Ford and a two-dollar bill
And I know a spot right over the hill 
There's soda pop and the dancin's free
So if you wanna have fun come along with me
Say hey, good lookin' 
Whatcha got cookin'? 
How's about cookin' somethin' up with me?

-- Hank Williams

-30-

The Hollow Man Cometh

"Oh yes, politics, where greed wears the mask of morality." -- Inspector Clouseau

Even a cursory check of the news headlines reveals what a strange time we are living through -- I use the word "through" because this is clearly a transition moment, from one era to another.

It's impossible to ignore the growing astronomical evidence that there is intelligent life out there in the universe and that our biosphere is probably visible to some of those living on other exoplanets. I hope I live long enough to see this confirmed.

Meanwhile, Borat is back and has entrapped no less a victim than the President's top apologist, Rudy Giuliani, who unconvincingly says he was tucking in his shirt while lying on a bed and reaching inside his pants while flirting with a "Russian" actress in a hotel room in New York. 

I suppose it's hard to flirt when your shirt is untucked. Never tried that one.

Next, Santa Claus is *not* showing up at Macy's in New York this year. He won't be in Detroit or San Francisco either. So much for how we've resolved the contradiction of  presents under the Christmas Tree with the nativity story to kids. 

I mean, all of this is crazy. But at least the old world is going out with a bang, not a whimper. (Sorry, T.S. Elliot, circa 1925.)

Trump threw a hissy fit and walked out on Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes, but what else is new?  His enablers are all feeling the pain, even Lindsey Graham, who is in deep trouble now.

Joe Biden leads practically everywhere now and has even answered the question he avoided for so long about what he will do about the Supreme Court after Barrett gets in. He says he'll appoint a non-partisan panel of Constitutional Law experts to give him recommendations about what, if anything, to do about Trump's last-ditch outrage to pack the court.

My guess is that commission will say to leave it alone, and he probably will.

I don't know what else awaits us in these final days before the election, so stay tuned, but beware of any bangs, and pray for some whimpers.

NOTE: I found the debate boring but at least more substantive on issues than the first one.  It seems doubtful it will have much impact on the outcome of the election. My 12-year-old grandson summed it up: "At least it was better than the first one." Amen.

***

"The area is secure." -- Inspector Clouseau

* I Should Have Worn a Mask by Chris Christie (WSJ)

* The majority of U.S. registered voters, 56%, believe President Donald Trump does not deserve to be reelected, while 43% say he does. (Gallup)

*  Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats' decision to boycott Thursday’s committee vote on Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination was a protest against Republican efforts to rush her through before the election. This follows the release of Barrett's answers to follow-up questions from the Senate, many of which she kept extremely vague. She refused to say whether voter fraud is a widespread problem in U.S. elections (it is not) and whether restrictive voter ID laws suppress the vote in poor and minority communities (they do). Both questions are easy to answer and backed by substantial evidence. [HuffPost]

* Demand for Pakistan Visas Sets Off Deadly Stampede in Afghanistan -- At least 12 people died as thousands crowded a soccer stadium. Many were seeking medical care in Pakistan, which recently eased its pandemic border restrictions. (NYT)

* North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has paid respects to Chinese soldiers killed in the Korean War, ahead of the 70th anniversary of Chinese forces entering the conflict. (NHK) Remember BTS controversy? (DW)

* Facebook's Oversight Board open but unlikely to play role before U.S. election

 -- 

Facebook Inc's independent Oversight Board, which can overrule company decisions on whether content should be removed and recommend policy changes, started accepting cases for review on Thursday. (Reuters)

* Sacha Baron Cohen’s follow-up to his 2006 hit comedy "Borat," to be released Friday, reportedly features a scene in which Rudy Giuliani puts his hands down his pants and touches himself in the presence of a woman pretending to be a conservative reporter. Soon afterward, Baron Cohen, playing Borat, bursts into the room and says, “She’s 15, she’s too old for you!” (The woman is actually 24.) Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, said he was tucking in his shirt. He said earlier that he thought he was participating in a real interview, only to find out he was being fooled by Baron Cohen, who is notorious for pranking public figures. [HuffPost] 

* Trump weighs firing FBI director after election as frustration with Wray, Barr grows -- Trump and his senior aides have been disappointed that FBI DIrector Christopher A. Wray and Attorney General William P. Barr have not done what Trump had hoped — indicate that Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, or other Biden associates are under investigation. (WashPo)

* Joe Biden demanded that Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and the Nigerian military “cease the violent crackdown on protesters” who have been peacefully calling for an end to police brutality. The Democratic presidential nominee called on the U.S. to stand with Nigerians who have been protesting a police unit, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, which has a reputation of abuse that includes extortion, rape, torture and extrajudicial killings. [HuffPost]

* With a push from the government, angry mobs online have swarmed any criticism of Chinese leaders or perceived disloyalty to their country. Targets are being harassed and silenced, and some have lost their jobs. (WSJ)

* Belching Cows and Endless Feedlots: Fixing Cattle’s Climate Issues -- The United States is home to 95 million cattle, and changing what they eat could have a significant effect on emissions of greenhouse gases like methane that are warming the world. (NYT)

* Democratic Senate candidate Jaime Harrison has taken a two-point lead over Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, according to a new poll. Conducted by Morning Consult, the latest survey found 47 percent of South Carolina respondents saying they'd vote for Harrison, while 45 percent sided with Graham. (Newsweek)

* Let’s not mince words. The Trump administration kidnapped children. (WashPo)

* Since March, a coalition of Asian American advocacy groups and scholars has been collecting and documenting the alarming surge in anti-Asian racism related to the COVID-19 pandemic. On Wednesday, the group, STOP AAPI HATE concluded Trump is by far the most influential “superspreader” of anti-Asian racism. Throughout this year, Trump has routinely used racist slurs and epithets to refer to COVID-19. He also frequently blames China, placing an outsized focus on where the virus originated, in order to deflect from his own catastrophic response to the pandemic. [HuffPost]

* Goldman Sachs fined record $2.9 billion over role in Malaysian bribes (WashPo)

* Actress Jennifer Lawrence has revealed that she voted for John McCain over Barack Obama - but that she voted for the Democratic Party after that. She was talking to Heather McMahon on the Absolutely Not podcast. "I was fortunate to grow up in a Republican house, where I could see the fiscal benefits of some of the Republican policies. But then, for me, when Donald Trump got elected, that just changed everything." (BBC)

* Colorado wildfire grows by more than 100,000 acres in a day, forcing evacuations (WashPo)

* Macy’s said Santa Claus won’t be greeting kids at its flagship New York store this year due to the coronavirus, interrupting a holiday tradition started nearly 160 years ago. (AP)

* Are aliens watching us? Many exoplanets may be able to see life on Earth (StudyFinds)

***

"The area is still secure." -- Inspector Clouseau

We're going out with a bang
We're going out with a bang
I said we gonna go out with a bang
Bang-bang-bang, bang-bang
Out with a bang, yeah

If you say we're losing
Watch out, we're taking the crown
Thumbs go up all the way
No sign of slowing down, yeah

--Scorpions

-30-

Human Rights, Language, Online Dating

 

[Note: the final Presidential debate airs tonight at 6 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.]

Among the most encouraging social changes during my lifetime is the broad acceptance of same-sex relationships. So it is refreshing to see the spiritual leader of the Catholic portion of the Christian religion finally bless civil unions. That is a major step in the right direction.

It's also a reminder that in such a discordant time, with hate speech all around, there are voices in authority who will take a unifying stand on behalf of human rights.

This is the only time I have ever said this, but God Bless the Pope!

***

On the negative front, one of the issues many organizations are confronting is how to balance our new consciousness of inherent biases with the casual use of language that may or may not perpetuate stereotypes. As a person who cares a lot about words and phrases, it pains me when those in authority overstep their bounds to insist that people speak in only certain acceptable ways.

An incident that recently came to my attention illustrates what I am talking about. To start off a group conversation inside one company, an employee posted the greeting, "Hi guys!"

She was quickly reprimanded that such a greeting excluded all of those present who were not biologically or by choice male.

Nonsense! That is a form of political correctness I will never abide by. In fact, in solidarity with that wronged employee, I say loud and clear to all of you: HI GUYS! If you are offended by that, get a life.

***

Recently a couple friends were talking with me about online dating under the present circumstances. They said they thought singles are becoming more "frantic" (their word) as the pandemic drags on. 

I suggested that this time of enforced separation may be a great opportunity for people to communicate remotely in ways that help them actually get to know each other *before* dating. "After all, we fall in love with each other's vulnerabilities," I heard myself say.

Maybe that means that on top of the hubris that enables me to express opinions about political matters, I must now have somehow acquired the delusion I am an expert on dating as well. Let's just hope there is no fact-checker nearby.

***

The news overnight:

* Pope Francis has declared support for civil unions for same-sex couples for the first time, according to the Catholic News Agency. The Pope made the historic remarks in a new documentary film, "Francesco," which was released in Rome on Wednesday."Homosexual people have a right to be in a family. They're children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out or be made miserable over it," the Pope said in the film. (Catholic News Agency)

* Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett served for nearly three years on the board of private Christian schools that effectively barred admission to children of same-sex parents and made it plain that openly gay and lesbian teachers weren’t welcome in the classroom. (AP)

* Barack Obama, in a moment of catharsis that doubled as a warning against Democratic complacency, blasted President Trump in a speech dripping with ridicule ahead of Thursday's crucial debate. (CNN)

* OxyContin maker pleads guilty, agrees to $8.3 billion settlement -- The Justice Department said in a news release that its resolution of the case “includes the largest penalties ever levied against a pharmaceutical manufacturer.” (WashPo)* Lawyers tasked with identifying and reuniting families separated in 2017 and 2018 under the Trump administration’s so-called zero tolerance border policy say they still haven’t been able to locate the parents of at least 545 migrant children. “Approximately two-thirds” of these parents, according to an ACLU court filing, are believed to have been deported to Central America without their children, some of whom were “just babies” at the time of the separation, ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said. [HuffPost]

*Republicans, it’s time to choose between autocracy and a republic (WashPo)

* In ‘Lobster War,’ Indigenous Canadians Face Attacks by Fishermen -- A battle over the lucrative lobster industry in Nova Scotia has become the latest flash point in a series of abuses of Indigenous people in Canada. (NYT)

* Intelligence officers in charge of briefing Trump on threats against the nation are reportedly “terrified” of speaking to him about Russia. “No one’s going to brief anything on Russia to the president,” Marc Polymeropoulos told GQ. “Because he’ll explode and the whole thing will get derailed, because he has this weird affinity for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.” Asked why Putin is such a touchy subject, Polymeropoulos said Trump “wants Putin to like him.” This comes as more than 50 former intel officials say the GOP's Hunter Biden smear appears to have the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign. [HuffPost]

* Trump is Giving Up -- Opinion (NYT)

* IF TRUMP LOSES, HE MAY GO TO PRISON Trump’s activities in recent years ― from paying hush money to a porn star to his claiming of a massive tax refund to obstructing an investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia ― combined with a ticking statute of limitations clock potentially make Election Day far more consequential for him than it had been for his predecessors. If Trump wins a second term, the time limit for starting a prosecution would run out in the next four years for a number of those activities, given Justice Department guidelines not to prosecute a sitting president. If Trump loses, indictments could quickly follow. [HuffPost]

* Study finds no crime increase in ‘sanctuary’ cities, despite Trump claims (WashPo)

* Nearly 1,000 children were held in US custody for over a year (Reveal)

 * San Francisco has moved into the least restrictive yellow tier in the state’s system, which allows some smaller theme parks and stadiums to reopen. [KQED]

* The latest numbers. President Electoral Votes: Biden 358, Trump 180. Senate: Democrats (51) Republicans (49). (Electoral-Vote.com)

***

And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes ev'rything's been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain

-- Bob Dylan

-30-

Looking for America

As the election cycle winds down to a merciful close, our country seems lost in a sea of confusion. Who are we, really?

We seem to be living in parallel universes, with Democrats living on one side of space and Republicans occupying the other. Where that leaves the rest of us, I'm not sure.

Yesterday I wrote about my dream -- for peace, unity and compassion, at least in the short run. To remain balanced, today I have to write about my nightmare, given our current trajectory.

In this nightmare, the impending election is a distant memory.

It turns out that there is something much more fundamentally wrong with our society than the conflict between the two political parties. We are being severed into two classes -- a small, landed overclass and a large landless underclass.

Land barons and peasants.

This historical reversion to the conditions of the Middle Ages is temporarily masked by the  existence of a "middle class," where home ownership persists and social welfare benefits stave off homelessness and starvation for the many.

But I fear the middle class will fade away as climate change and waves of pandemics reduce the human population and render large parts of the planet uninhabitable.

Advancing such a dystopian vision does not come easily for a congenital optimist, but I cannot ignore the evidence. Among my many personal flaws, disdain for science is not one of them.

After the news summaries below, I've reprinted the now-quaint Simon & Garfinkel lyrics from their iconic song "America." It was written in a simpler age, when we could hit the road and imagine innocent things from whatever we saw along the way. 

Now, if we take a road trip, we have to imagine that what we see along the way may well not be there in the future. Our innocence is gone.

Maybe it's not too late to salvage some kind of future on the planet, though it will almost certainly be vastly more dreary than it has been in our time.

And, as the climate change worsens, I'm concerned that pandemic after pandemic will be released, decimating our grandchildren's generation and those beyond. Young people today have every right to be completely pissed off at us --we have failed to exert proper custody of our common environment.

As the super rich pull away in their Lamborghinis for their second homes, and expand them into secure mansions, the rest of us will stay behind to face disease and pestilence and to compete over dwindling resources in a world where engendered species are disappearing at a frightening rate.

The rich will employ us to build their homes, enforce law and order against the rising unrest in the streets, and to practice the finer arts, as long as those arts avoid controversial topics like class.

As so many animals and plants go extinct, so will the ecological systems that sustain us.

Thus, even the rich will ultimately be doomed, and the age of humans on earth will have passed.

That is my nightmare.

***

So much for the bad news. On to the (relatively) good...

* Voters Prefer Biden Over Trump on Almost All Major Issues, Poll Shows -- Joe Biden leads President Trump, 50 percent to 41 percent, a New York Times/Siena College poll shows, with voters favoring him by wide margins on the coronavirus and law and order. (NYT)

* Retired four-star Adm. William McRaven endorsed Biden in an editorial published on Monday by The Wall Street Journal. “This week I went to the polls in Texas,” wrote McRaven, who oversaw the raid that led to the 2011 death of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. “I am a pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, small-government, strong-defense and a national-anthem-standing conservative ... But, I also believe that black lives matter, that the Dreamers deserve a path to citizenship, that diversity and inclusion are essential to our national success, that education is the great equalizer, that climate change is real.” [HuffPost] 

* The Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit Tuesday alleging that Google engaged in anticompetitive conduct to preserve monopolies in search and search advertising that form the cornerstones of its vast conglomerate. (WSJ)

* Prominent Republican pollster Frank Luntz blasted President Trump and his campaign on Tuesday for focusing on Hunter Biden in the stretch run to Election Day, calling Trump’s campaign the worst he’s ever seen and saying the president’s advisers should be “brought up on charges of political malpractice.”Speaking at a briefing for the British strategic advising company Global Counsel, Luntz said Trump’s advisers have “their heads up their asses” if they think Hunter Biden will be a winning issue for them. (The Hill)

* What Fans of ‘Herd Immunity’ Don’t Tell You -- A proposal to let people with low risk of infection live without constraint could lead to a million or more preventable deaths. (NYT)

* Melania Trump’s return to the campaign trail will have to wait. Her chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham, said Tuesday that Mrs. Trump continues to feel better every day following her recent recovery from COVID-19 but has a lingering cough. (AP)

* Kaiser Family Foundation: 68% of Americans trust Dr. Fauci but only 40% trust Trump.

* The mayor of Tucson fired off a letter to Trump pointing out that his campaign still owes her city $80,000 for his last rally four years ago — even as he headed to his next potential superspreader event there on Monday.  Regina Romero also urged Trump to adhere to Tucson’s mask mandate and follow social distance requirements. Few masks and packed crowds are the hallmarks of a Trump rally. [HuffPost]

* Trump portrays the hundreds of people arrested nationwide in protests against racial injustice as violent urban left-wing radicals. But an Associated Press review of thousands of pages of court documents tell a different story.Very few of those charged appear to be affiliated with highly organized extremist groups, and many are young suburban adults from the very neighborhoods Trump vows to protect from the violence in his reelection push to win support from the suburbs. (AP)

* A federal judge has struck down a Trump administration rule that would have cut food stamp benefits to almost 700,000 unemployed Americans amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The judge, in a court filing, said the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been “icily silent” about how many people would have been denied the benefits with the changes. [Reuters]

* Turkey farmers fear that, this year, they’ve bred too many big birds (WashPo)

* Migrant Workers Restricted to Farms Under One Grower’s Virus Lockdown (NYT)

* Trump and Biden will have their microphones cut off in Thursday’s debate while their rival delivers their opening two-minute answer to each of the debate topics. The 90-minute debate is divided into six 15-minute segments, with each candidate granted two minutes to deliver uninterrupted remarks before proceeding to an open debate. The open discussion portion of the debate will not feature a mute button, but interruptions by either candidate will count toward their time. [HuffPost]

* U.S. single-family homebuilding raced to a more than 13-year high in September, cementing the housing market's status as the star of the economic recovery amid record-low mortgage rates and a migration to the suburbs and low-density areas in search of more room for home offices and schooling. (Reuters)

* Pfizer to test coronavirus vaccine in Japan (NHK)

* Trump isn’t even trying to slow the virus’s spread (WashPo)

* Peter Wehner is warning evangelical Christians that they made a “bad bargain” with Trump, who does not respect them or their faith. “Trump clearly sees white evangelicals as a means to an end, people to be used, suckers to be played,” Wehner wrote in The Atlantic. Wehner pointed to a series of insider reports, such as Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) revealing last week that Trump “mocks evangelicals behind closed doors,” and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen writing that Trump said “can you believe people believe that bulls**t?” after evangelicals did a laying-of-hands ceremony on him. [HuffPost]

* President Donald Trump's tax records show he has pursued expansive business projects in China for years and even maintains a Chinese bank account, disclosures that deal a blow to the President's efforts to paint Democratic nominee Joe Biden as the presidential candidate who is soft on China. (NYT)

* Fed up with white people calling 911 about people of color selling water bottles, barbecuing or otherwise going about their lives, San Francisco leaders are set to approve hate crime legislation giving the targets of those calls the ability to sue the caller. (AP)

* Oil Industry Turns to Mergers and Acquisitions to Survive -- With the price of a barrel stuck around $40 and no recovery in sight, companies are combining to cut costs and ride out the pandemic. (NYT)

*  An Ohio public school has been giving students extra credit for watching videos from PragerU, a right-wing website that produces clips of talking heads such as Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro discussing conservative viewpoints. The PragerU videos — with titles such as “Build the Wall,” “Why the Right Was Right” and “The Left Ruins Everything” — were assigned to a 10th-grade history class at Maumee High School, along with a series of questions about the videos’ “most important messages.” [HuffPost]

* New homes on the range: Weary city dwellers escape to Montana, creating a property gold rush (WashPo)

* Though book sales have been strong this year, local bookstores are struggling: more than one independent bookstore has closed each week since the pandemic started. As they enter a crucial holiday season, many stores are facing a challenging mix of higher expenses, lower sales and enormous uncertainty. (NYT)

* Democrats have 75% chance of winning control of the Senate. (538)

***

[Verse 1]
"Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together"
"I've got some real estate here in my bag"
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies
And walked off to look for America

[Verse 2]
"Kathy," I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh
"Michigan seems like a dream to me now"
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I've gone to look for America

[Verse 3]
Laughing on the bus
Playing games with the faces
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy
I said "Be careful his bowtie is really a camera"

[Verse 4]
"Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat"
"We smoked the last one an hour ago"
So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field

[Verse 5]

"Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all come to look for America
All come to look for America
All come to look for America

Simon & Garfinkel

-30-