Saturday, November 02, 2024

Saturday Diary -- Love Under the Mosquito Netting

Day five of eight. Three to go. It’s time for something different. You might call it a diversion but for me it’s one of my love stories. Because we aways need to remember the love.

One hot, humid night in India many years ago, a night nurse lifted the mosquito netting around my bed and stepped inside, letting the net fall back into place behind her. She whispered, “Are you awake?”

I said yes. Her dark brown face was inches from mine. At first, all I could see were the whites of her eyes and her sparkling teeth. I felt her breath falling softly against my skin, which was feverish and wet. She felt like a fresh breeze in the heavy tropical night.

As my eyes adjusted to the faint light in the room, I gradually became aware that she was patiently and systematically capturing the few mosquitos flying around inside my netting one by one. This was a laborious process; often she would miss the insect on her first try but would persist until she succeeded. Whenever she caught one, she would carefully lift the net and allow it to fly off free into the night.

I thought I might be dreaming or hallucinating — both of which were common during those nights in that place — but this was real. She kept at it until every last insect had been freed from threatening me, a pale six-foot-tall young man whose weight had plummeted down to 97 pounds as I was battling a combination of typhoid fever and salmonella. 

***
I don’t know why the memory of that time in India in 1971 suddenly came back to me yesterday as I was struggling to avoid sinking into despair over the prospect of a disastrous outcome in next Tuesday’s election.

Maybe my subconscious was surfacing other times in my past when the outlook looked grim, but then the threat passed and life went on.

As it turned out, remembering the gentle kindness of that nurse long ago, plus talking with a couple of the kind, gentle friends in my current life, combined to distract me just long enough for Kamala Harris to inch up in the polls from where she had been earlier in the day.

Especially significant are the influential Marist polls in the “blue wall” states, indicating Harris is now up in Michigan (+3), Wisconsin (+2) and Pennsylvania (+2). The biggest shift is in Pennsylvania, where the Vice-President’s lead appears to be fueled by her new-found advantage among independent voters — she is up by 15 points among independents, compared to a 4-point Trump lead a month earlier.

If Harris wins in those three states, she’s a virtual lock to win the election. But we are still three days away.

One thing to watch for in the polls now is any sudden, last-second movement like Marist uncovered, as the pool of undecided voters finally makes up their minds which way to vote.

As we hope for a good outcome, it’s worth remembering that the world is not all ugliness all of the time, as Trump would have us believe. Sometimes love prevails.

***

During the weeks of our nightly meetings under the mosquito netting, I grew to yearn for those moments of silent intimacy. I also was slowly recovering my strength until they said I could be released from the hospital. As I got to know the group of lovely young nurses who had brought me back from the near-dead, I discovered the heart-breaking reason why the night nurse never came like the rest did during the day. 

It turned out that she had suffered from a disfiguring case of smallpox as a child, resulting in such bad scarring of her face that she felt it might frighten the patients to see her in the light of day.

On my last night in that hospital, when she came to check on me, I felt her closeness one final time. Since I was no longer sweating my fluids away, her breath felt warm now. Other than the sound of her breathing it was silent all around, but I imagined I could hear our hearts beating as well. 

From reading my chart she knew that I would be checking out in the morning, a few hours after her shift ended. “You will be going,” she whispered. “Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, and thank you,” I whispered back.

Then I blurted out. “I’ll miss you. I think you are the most beautiful nurse of all.”

Earlier diary entries:

  1. Tuesday Diary -- “One Week Before 'What Happened' Happens” — the romantic intrigue of this moment of witnessing history together.

  2. Wednesday Diary -- “How Math Determines the Fate of Democracy” — the numerical basis behind mass fascism.

  3. Thursday Diary: “Who is that Man in the Garbage Truck?” — how not to go insane when a train crash is happening before our very eyes.

  4. Friday Diary: “Healthy Societies Embrace Choices” — focusing on uplifting activities rather than fretting that this may be our last good week for a long, long time.

HEADLINES:

LYRICS: “Hole in the World” (excerpt) 

Song by the Eagles

There's a hole in the world tonight
There's a cloud of fear and sorrow
There's a hole in the world tonight
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow

They say that anger is just love disappointed
They say that love is just a state of mind
But all this fighting over who is anointed
Oh, how can people be so blind?

There's a hole in the world tonight
There's a cloud of fear and sorrow
There's a hole in the world toniight
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow

Oh, they tell me there's a place over yonder
Cool water running through the burning sand
Until we learn to love one another
We will never reach the Promised Land

There's a hole in the world tonight
There's a cloud of fear and sorrow
There's a hole in the world tonight
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow

There's a hole in the world tonight
They say that anger is just love disappointed
There's a cloud of fear and sorrow
They say that love is just a state of mind
There's a hole in the world tonight
But all this fighting over who will be anointed
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow
Oh, how can people be so blind?

There's a hole in the world tonight
Hole in the world
There's a cloud of fear and sorrow
Fear and sorrow
There's a hole in the world tonight
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow

(Songwriters: Glenn Lewis Frey / Donald Hugh Henley)

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Friday, November 01, 2024

Friday Diary -- Healthy Societies Embrace Choices


One of those simple Beatles’ songs I can never get out of my head is “Eight Days a Week.” I’m not sure what they meant by that title, if anything, but it suits my purposes perfectly for explaining what’s behind this week’s strange series of “Diary” posts leading up to next Tuesday’s elections.

I’m trying to capture the rhythms of our lives during the last week before whatever happened happens. And it’s personal because the only way I know how to demonstrate I care is through this kind of story-telling.

First the math. We’re at the halfway point of a long week, one that according to my internal calendar has eight days.

The week started out on a very nice note as I was having coffee with a friend at a pleasant spot outside a cafe near the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay. Up until that moment, I’d been dreading the prospect of a very long, slow-moving, anxiety-filled week of fearing that the worst is to come.

But suddenly I completely forgot about that as I was focused instead on my friend and our conversation. She said something that made me laugh. A cool breeze showed up, she shivered, and we retreated together inside the cafe.

This led to a miniature epiphany that the best way to get through this big bad week might be to try and ignore the political noise and concentrate on the things that give me pleasure, like gardening, listening to music, and meeting up with friends. 

So on Tuesday I tended to my cherry tomato and carrot plants and fed some of the immature carrot greens to our rabbits out back, Covey and Glacier. As they munched happily, I noticed how affectionate they are with each other, two male friends who really do love taking their meals together. Later on, I watched a lot of old music videos about the fantasy world of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll, which took me back to my wilder days as a writer for Rolling Stone.

On Wednesday I took a long walk to the park, where I watched some dog-walkers, tennis players, and nannies with babies in strollers. Impulsively, I also did some early online Christmas shopping. But this proved to be too much alone-time and my mood started to veer back into worrying about the election.

On Thursday I attended my ten-year-old granddaughter’s annual Halloween Parade at her school. The children in their costumes mirror adult society, with its angels, witches, heroes, devils, dreamers and aspirants to a myriad array of options. 

But by now I was backsliding into election angst, even as the kids circled happily in front of me. “Choices are what a healthy society provides its citizens,” I thought to myself. “How dare anyone take away my granddaughter’s right to do with her own body!”

Fortunately, I was roused out of this stupor by the site of her happy face, waving through the crowd in her light blue dress and white bunny ears. Later, I extended my enjoyment at our weekly happy hour with a group of friendly neighbors.

So, you see, I’m spending these autumn days trying to focus on uplifting activities rather than fretting that this may be our last good week together before we lose our grasp on what matters for a long, long time.

And since it’s an eight-day week, it’s only halfway gone.

Earlier diary entries:

  1. Tuesday Diary -- “One Week Before 'What Happened' Happens” — the romantic intrigue of this moment of witnessing history together.

  2. Wednesday Diary -- “How Math Determines the Fate of Democracy” — the numerical basis behind mass fascism.

  3. Thursday Diary: “Who is that Man in the Garbage Truck?” — how not to go insane when a train crash is happening before our very eyes.

HEADLINES:

LYRICS: “Forever Young” by Bob Dylan

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
May you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the light surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young
May you stay forever young

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
And may you stay forever young

May you stay forever young 

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Thursday, October 31, 2024

Thursday Diary: Who is that Man in the Garbage Truck?


So it’s come down to this. When I turned on the TV, it was to see Donald Trump sitting in the passenger seat of a garbage truck. He was answering reporters’ questions as if that was how it’s always done, but then the wind came up and he said he had better get on his way — because a storm might be coming.

For a moment I thought it was a remake of the “Wizard of Oz.” Or maybe a video for a Bob Dylan song. In any event, the previous time I’d seen Trump on TV, he was trying to learn how to flip French fries at a McDonald’s. Maybe next time he’ll be working at a car wash.

I’m guessing this all means something to somebody, that there is a sort of uber-message here, but whatever that is has eluded me.

***

One of the disconcerting aspects of aging is the growing sensation that you are ever so gradually losing control of your body. You may begin to shake and simple tasks become noticeably less simple. 

So what is to be done about this? Observing the basics by eating a nutritious diet, exercising daily, trying to get enough sleep, hydrating, working on your balance and your gait all can be helpful, but still there is that little voice deep inside that insists, “Buddy, this here is a losing battle.”

Of course, it doesn’t help when your doctors confirm that prognosis, but then again, that’s the way it goes.

All of this on an individual basis is one thing. But most of us at any age and in any condition presumably wish for our country oh ‘tis of thee, our homeland, our fruited plain to remain healthy and strong.

Well, these days, the warning signs are all flashing red for our good old republic. Let me first do the math: I’m 31 percent as old as America, which means that it is just a little over three times older than I am, so it sort of like my great, great, great grandfather.

And these days the old guy is showing his age every bit as much as I am. What should be an easy task for him — looking forward rather than back — is up for grabs. So is whether he will embrace a healthy attitude of hope and joy or turn to a self-destructive urge toward fear, hate and revenge.

We know mental health is a core part of physical health, but our nation seems poised on the verge of a mental breakdown, uncertain whether to choose imbalance over balance, extremism over moderation, profanity over civility, loathing over love.

I, for one, am having none of it. I may be not yet as old as G-G-G Grandpa but I know right from wrong, good from evil, love from hate. I’m choosing the brighter path, and hoping that that makes a difference, for me and my country.

Meanwhile, if you go out for a morning walk, better keep an eye out for a white garbage truck with a large flag waving out back and a fat guy wearing a bright red-and-yellow-striped vest up front in the passenger seat. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know where he is going.

HEADLINES:

Lyrics: “I Shall Be Released” by Bob Dylan & The Band

They say everything can be replaced
They say every distance is not near
So I remember every face
Of every man who put me here

I see my light come shinin'
From the west down to the east
Any day now, any day now
I shall be released

They say every man needs protection
They say that every man must fall
Yet I swear I see my reflection
Somewhere so high above this wall

I see my light come shinin'
From the west down to the east
Any day now, any day now
I shall be released

Now, yonder stands a man in this lonely crowd
A man who swears he's not to blame
All day long I hear him shouting so loud
Just crying out that he's been framed

I see my light come shinin'
From the west down to the east
Any day now, any day now

I shall be released 

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Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Wednesday Diary -- How Math Determines the Fate of Democracy

For many weeks now, I’ve been tracking the polls and writing regular reports outlining possible outcomes based on polling averages, relying on a combination of my own methodology combined with that used by the most reliable statistical site, 538.

So you might say I’ve been writing about the polls, but I would prefer to say that I’ve been writing about the math of American democracy.

Now a new documentary, “Counted Out,” explains why that matters.

In an interview with the filmmaker, Vicki Abeles, the Times explores the politics of math and its consequences:

  • When we limit access to the power of math to a select few, we limit our progress as a society. 

  • In civic life, decisions are increasingly driven by data, by algorithms, by statistics. Without the ability to understand or even grapple with the numbers and their implications, people are easily disenfranchised and manipulated.

  • Many of our electoral and legislative systems are mathematical — collecting and tallying votes, allocating legislative seats, deciding sizes of legislatures, drawing district maps.

  • (Voters) are upset to learn that there is a path to win the presidency with only 23 percent of the popular vote, that gerrymandering is rampant, that the system silences and disenfranchises millions of people.

  • Plurality voting, which is the method we use to elect all but a handful of our 520,000 officials, is rife with problems. In plurality voting, the voter selects only their top choice. That approach doesn’t take in very much information, so math can do very little with it and therefore makes mistakes. 

  • Ranked choice collects more information, so math can do more with it.

  • (We all need) to feel empowered to … ask questions when things don’t make sense, and to start to engage with the math that is all around (us).

This film takes on directly what I’ve found to be an extremely daunting challenge — how to overcome the barrier that too many Americans put up when they say, “I’m no good at math.” 

They are good enough, but allowing one’s inner, fourth-grade voice to end the conversation freezes them from seeing how we could reform our system by using the power of math to achieve fairer, more equitable results, and thus democratize our future elections.

Meanwhile, the most basic reform to our electoral system would also reduce everything to the simplest math problem of all — the winner in presidential elections would be the candidate who gets the most votes. Currently, I project that will be Harris by a margin of 2,268,000 votes nationwide.

Further Readings: 

How Not to Be Wrong — The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg. 

How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff.

On the Edge by Nate Silver.

Spies, Lies, and Algorithms by Amy B. Zygart.

Everything Is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World by Tom Chivers.

The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail--but Some Don't by Nate Silver.

***

(Thanks to T for pointing me to this interview.)

HEADLINES:

  • Why Democracy Lives and Dies by Math —A documentary filmmaker and a mathematician discuss our fear of numbers and its civic costs. (NYT)

  • What to know after ballot box fires in Washington and Oregon (CBS)

  • Autocracy and ‘enemy from within’ are thrust to center of campaign’s final days (WP)

  • Harris gives closing argument speech at the Ellipse, offering "a different path" than Trump (CBS)

  • Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post Op-Ed Is a Remarkable Document (NR)

  • The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media (WP)

  • Washington Post cancellations hit 250,000 – 10% of subscribers (Guardian)

  • Supreme Court allows Virginia to purge suspected noncitizens from voter registration rolls (CNN)

  • Adam Schiff, Not Yet a Senator, Deploys to Bolster Potential Future Colleagues (NYT)

  • Trump calls MSG rally ‘lovefest’ as polls show Harris tie (Al Jazeera)

  • Puerto Ricans in must-win Pennsylvania say Trump rally joke won’t be forgotten (BBC)

  • Trump says vulgar New York rally was a "love fest" (Axios)

  • The Memo: Trump campaign struggles to contain Puerto Rico October surprise (The Hill)

  • Israel passes laws to restrict the work of a UN agency that is a lifeline for Gaza (AP)

  • What the US election outcome means for Ukraine, Gaza and world conflict (BBC)

  • Israeli strikes in northern Gaza kill at least 78, officials say (AP)

  • This Toad Is So Tiny That They Call It a Flea (NYT)

  • Oceanographers record the largest predation event ever observed in the ocean (Phys.org)

  • Teri Garr, star of ‘Young Frankenstein’ and ‘Tootsie,’ dead at 79 (CNN)

  • New Cyber Attack Warning—Confirming You Are Not A Robot Can Be Dangerous (Forbes)

  • Arcade, a new AI product creation platform, designed this necklace (TechCrunch)

  • The AI boom may unleash a global surge in electronic waste (WP)

  • NASA Discovers Potential Life On Mars After Giant Eyeball In Middle Of Planet Looks Directly Into Telescope (The Onion)

 

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Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Tuesday Diary -- One Week Before 'What Happened' Happens

The world can be a cold and unforgiving place, but it is through empathy and compassion that we find our humanity. — Berlin Diary

There is a relatively obscure little book I like to read at times like this called Berlin Diary by William L. Shirer, who is much better known for his immense volume, “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.”

He published his diary in 1941 just as the cataclysm known as World War II was getting under way, and two decades before the other, larger work became a best-seller.

The reason I originally was attracted to the diary, and still am, is that as an American journalist stationed in Europe, Shirer was able to capture the romantic intrigue of a moment when everyone knew we were on the verge of something immense but none among us could possibly know the scale of what was about to happen, how bad it might get, or how it would all turn out in the end.

It is in these moments that we can hope for the best and prepare for the worst but we can’t know.

The relationships with family and friends that we cultivate, solidify or reignite in these moments can be suddenly more vivid and intense than they may have been under ordinary circumstances. These connections also have the potential to help sustain us through the difficult days, weeks and months to come.

The movie Casablanca, long one of my favorites, brings those same kinds of insights into the emotional intensity of these moments to the screen, and not surprisingly in retrospect, it was released at roughly the same time as Berlin Diary.

Not to get overly dramatic about this, or hyperbolic, but it feels as if we may be at another one of those tipping points of history right now. Hopefully, this one will be far less cataclysmic than global war, but the parallels between Trump and Hitler’s rise go way beyond the heated rhetoric of a political campaign. They are palpably reshaping our lives and relationships as if we are collectively frozen in time watching a massive train wreck occur before our living eyes in slow motion.

It may prove to be at some future point that we were powerless to prevent it — that like Shirer and Edward R. Murrow we are eyewitnesses to the history unfolding before us. Alternatively, it may be that by speaking out, standing up, and reaching out that we can as yet still avert disaster even at this last moment. 

But whatever may be about to happen — or more hopefully, not happen — we’ll still all have each other, and now is a good time to acknowledge that those connections matter.

(Artwork: Bettina)

HEADLINES:

LYRICS: “Love’s the Only House” song by Martina McBride (Songwriters: Buzz Cason / Thomas Stevenson Douglas)

I was standing in the grocery store line
The one they marked express
When this woman came through with about 25 things
And I said don't you know that more is less

She said this world is moving so fast
But I just get more behind with every day
And every morning when I make my coffee
I can't believe my life's turned out this way
All I could say was

Love's the only house big enough for all the pain in the world
Love's the only house big enough for all the pain

He was walking by the other day and I said
Hey, baby how you been?
Yeah, I got me a little girl now and she's 4 years old
And she's got her daddy's little grin

And you only want what you can't have
And baby you can't have me now
I gave me heart to another
Yeah, I'm a mother and he's a father
And we've got each other
And I found out the hard way that

Love's the only house big enough for all the pain in the world
Love's the only house big enough for all the pain

You drive three miles from all this prosperity
Down across the river and you see a ghetto there
And we got children walking around with guns
And they got knives with drugs and pain to spare

And here I am in my clean, white shirt
With a little money in my pocket and a nice warm home
And we got teenagers walkin' around in a culture of darkness
Livin' together alone, and all I can

Love's the only house big enough for all the pain in the world
Love's the only house big enough for all the pain

And I can't explain it and I can't understand
But I'll come down and get my hands dirty and together we'll make a stand

Somewhere cross the parking lot some bands playin out of tune
City streets are gonna burn if we don't do something soon
And senorita can't quit cryin, baby's due now any day
Don juan left, got sick of tryin
No one there to show him the way

She came down to the grocery store
She said, I wanna buy a little carton of milk but I don't have any money
I said, hey, I'll cover you, honey

'Cause the pain's gotta go somewhere
Yeah, the pain's gotta go some place
So come on down to my house
Don't you know that

Love's the only house big enough for all the pain in the world
Love's the only house big enough for all the pain

Don't you know that

Love's the only house (big enough for all the pain in the world) 

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Monday, October 28, 2024

Bad Moon Rising

(This is a slightly edited piece from four years ago on the verge of the 2020 election. Sadly, it is still relevant today.)

When it comes to news summaries, there is one critical story worth noting these days. It’s the nightmare scenario Trump's own officials fear the most -- that he will disrupt the election and incite violence across the country.

These are not Democrats or leftist conspiracy freaks speaking; these are those within the Trump camp.

Our country has not faced a crisis of this proportion since the Civil War.

This is where Trump's coded calls to the likes of the Proud Boys, Qanon, and the "militia" members who aimed to kidnap and execute Michigan's governor come into play. They are all "standing by," waiting for him to signal what to do next.

As he continues his desperate strategy of holding large rallies attacking or mocking anyone and everyone he perceives as not on his side, he is doing immeasurable harm to our democracy.

By promulgating his twisted form of grievance, he is abusing the very people who support him most. It is the under-educated, rural people who are being manipulated into believing they are victims of their better-educated, urban-based cousins.

This form of grievance exploits those who feel left behind by the economic and technological forces shaping the changes sweeping our society — which is a very real issue.

The much larger truth is we are dividing into a two-sided country, with opposite objectives, fighting when what we need is to be unifying. Trump may be able to convince his supporters they are victims, but he does not tell them that he -- and other wealthy people like him -- are the only ones getting ahead.

He is the Great Divider. We need a unifier.

HEADLINES:

  • Trump's Revenge Tour Goes Off the Rails — The former president’s Madison Square Garden rally featured speeches laden with untruths, racist, sexist and vulgar remarks, along with a dark vision for his second term should he be elected.(USN&WR)

  • US election: 8 days left – What polls say, what Harris and Trump are up to (Al Jazeera)

  • Trump Escalates Threats as Campaign Enters Dark Final Stretch (NYT)

  • Bezos faces criticism after executives met with Trump on day of Post’s non-endorsement (Guardian)

  • Trump’s Health, and Ours (New Yorker)

  • An elections worker wanted to serve her country. A stew of conspiracy theories and vitriol awaited (AP)

  • Why not make ranked-choice voting the norm? (WP)

  • What is the ‘red mirage’ or the ‘blue shift’ and will it happen this year? (CNN)

  • Elon Musk has made a massive mistake. (Daily Kos)

  • Conservative Assault on LGBTQ Rights Rattles Corporate America (Bloomberg)

  • Satellite images show damage from Israeli attack at 2 secretive Iranian military bases (AP)

  • Israel’s Strike Marks New Phase of Conflict, but Stops Short of All-Out War (NYT)

  • A new rule requires lead pipes to be gone within a decade. It won’t be easy. (Wp0

  • Fungal ‘Brains’ Can Think Like Human Minds, Scientists Say (Popular Mechanics)

  • How a Play About A.I. Lured Robert Downey Jr. to Broadway (NYT)

  • Even after the apocalypse, you’ll still be the most well-read person in your tribe (The Onion)

LYRICS:

Not Dark Yet

WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

Shadows are falling and I’ve been here all day
It’s too hot to sleep, time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I’ve still got the scars that the sun didn’t heal
There’s not even room enough to be anywhere
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

Well, my sense of humanity has gone down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing there’s been some kind of pain
She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind
She put down in writing what was in her mind
I just don’t see why I should even care
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

Well, I’ve been to London and I’ve been to gay Paree
I’ve followed the river and I got to the sea
I’ve been down on the bottom of a world full of lies
I ain’t looking for nothing in anyone’s eyes
Sometimes my burden seems more than I can bear
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

I was born here and I’ll die here against my will
I know it looks like I’m moving, but I’m standing still
Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb
I can’t even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don’t even hear a murmur of a prayer

It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there 

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Sunday, October 27, 2024

Which Side of History?

In what may well prove to be the best political speech of this campaign, Michelle Obama fired up a huge crowd in Michigan yesterday. 

She is trying to close the deal for Kamala Harris by focussing on those who are still undecided or thinking of sitting this election out. If you know somebody like that you might consider forwarding them this speech.

***

Today is my youngest child’s birthday. A few years ago, Julia visited me when I was in the hospital recovering from a stroke. I explained to her that I was just grateful to be alive, which indeed was a blessing, and in the spirit of the moment, I added that when I got well enough to leave the hospital I would dedicate the rest of my life to trying to make this a better society in any way I could. I told her that all of my adult life I have felt a deep anger about the social injustices I’ve seen around me.

She nodded, and we moved on to other topics, including her classes, her art and her plan to join AmeriCorps after college. A little while later, as visiting hours at the hospital ended, she leaned over to hug me, said good-by and left my room. But then, after a few more moments, she came back in to my bedside to comment on what I’d said.

“That’s the first time you’ve ever explained your inner anger about injustice,” she told me. “So now I know how I got mine. Thank you, Dad.”

HEADLINES:

(Thanks to the many friends, including Rocky, Leslie and John, who alerted me to relevant articles for my “Headlines” section this week. All tips — and comments — are welcome.)

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