What the world needs is a highly contagious, non-fatal, fast-spreading virus that erases memories. To be really effective, the disease needs to also infect books, dissolving those pages with records of historic conflicts.
Last week I was watching Ted Koppel on The Daily Show. He was talking about his new reportage on Iran. One of our primary bones of contention with Iran can be traced back to the taking over of our embassy in Tehran and the holding of American hostages for 444 days. Go back a bit further, to 1953, and the Iranians remember when we overthrew their democratically elected government and replaced it with the Shah - a brutal dictator. That's a relatively recent problem that some amnesia could help fix.
When I turned off the TV I turned to my reading: William T. Vollmann's Rising Up And Rising Down. (I'm most of the way through volume five "Studies in Consequences.") That night I read the opening chapters of the section on the wars in the former Yugoslavia. The grievances that everyone is fighting over in that part of the world go back to at least 1389. There was a slaughter. Then a retaliatory slaughter. Then one in revenge for that and so on up into the "modern" era when the ancient animosities led to everyone choosing up sides against each other in the Second World War and it's all still going on. (Okay, so there's a lull at the moment, but I would not take odds that it will last forever.) They could use some deeper amnesia in their part of the world.
The next morning I read the newspaper. The Israelis and Palestinians were swapping killings again in Gaza. Who the hell even knows who got to any of those places first? Israelis will tell you that they did; it's the promised land that Moses led them to and they've been there ever since. Palestinians will tell you that they were there when the Israelis showed up and they've been there ever since. Either the Israelis or the Palestinians and Arabs - depending on who you're talking to - tried to drive the others out of their homes when Israel was created by UN mandate. No one really knows who started it, who was there first, who killed who first, or anything that could possibly rely on history to resolve the questions of today. There's plenty of historic "evidence" to support all sides of the conflict.
Won't someone erase these people's memories and free them from the chains of their perceived histories?
There's an old saying that is all too often accepted as a truism: "He who forgets history is condemned to repeat it." But the saying itself is a good example of the problem of history. It's been attributed to Sisyphus, various French philosophers, Karl Marx, Winston Churchill and a slew of other notables. No one actually knows who first said it. It just sounds good.
But the other morning I was thinking it might be time for an update. Something along the lines of: "He who thinks he remembers history is condemned."
World Starts Fresh Day
If no one can come up with a biological fix for this memory conundrum, maybe it's time for an international holiday; the annual, perhaps bi-annual, "International - World Starts Fresh Day." At exactly 12:01am every World Starts Fresh Day, no one will be permitted to use any historical arguments to press their case about anything. They have to start fresh, as if they just woke up and found themselves, surprise surprise, in the situation that they're in, and now they have to make the best of it.
They'll be allowed to keep their history books only so long as they regard them as, and teach them as literature; no more, no less. Much as the Bible and the Koran and the Teachings of Buddha and all that stuff ought to be regarded and taught. Anyone who acts on their perception or interpretation of history will be rounded up and sent for re-education. If they fail to learn their lesson, they should be transported, isolated from the rest of us, so that we can live in peace. Australians, as a people, seem like they're concerned about world peace. They'd probably be willing to move elsewhere to make way for those who remember their history to be marooned on their island. It might even appeal to those who remember Australia's history.
Enough's Enough
Now I'm going to try and forget about what I saw, heard and read last week, other than the new James Bond movie, Casino Royale. It is the best Bond movie in a very long time. Daniel Craig is by far the best Bond since Sean Connery, maybe even as good as Connery. He has the air of menace about him that makes him seem a more likely killer. And best of all, the action is driven by stunts, not by gadgets and special effects. There's a chase scene that is worthy of the best of Jackie Chan. There's even a stunt person listed in the opening credits.
And lastly, I seem to have been getting a lot of spam email lately from people flogging bad stocks. There is one group, however, that sends them with truly wonderful subject lines. Here are some of my favorites:
Impudent statesmanship
Sadist assembly line
Manliness gratuitous
Good Book refugee
Very Woof
Realism sheepish
Protagonist detention
Garbage can voyage
Indisputable sadly
Mistook deadpan
Sticky democratic
Sickening yep
Eccentricity probe
Chicken feed alcoholic
Flatulence wide-eyed
Guy drunkenness
Insufferable champion
Strenuous vomit
Token prosperous
Perky coolness
Estranged pajamas
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Whores and Whoring and Elections, Oh My!
I guess it's an old cliche to say that as a writer, I'm a whore. I sell myself for money. Or at least I try to. Parts of myself at least. My readers, read "customers," get to buy what's going on in my brain. My body's off limits, usually.
The more traditionally acknowledged sort of whore, doesn't usually sell what's going on in their brain. If they do, they ought to think about getting out of the business.
Now this is on my mind today because of what I did a couple of nights ago. I drove 67 miles round trip to spend an evening with a book club. On the drive there, through rush hour traffic, I was thinking: "The things I do to sell my books. Am I out of my fucking mind?"
On the drive home, singing along with the radio, happy as a clam (I've always wondered how happy clams can be, really) I was thinking: "Hey, that was great. I oughta find more book clubs to hang out with."
What happened, of course, was that my ego got stroked and it was also an interesting, thought-provoking evening. There's an old saying about how whores shouldn't come (an aside here: most porn writers spell this "cum," but in my Oxford American Dictionary of Current English it is spelled "come") with their customers. In a sense I violated, happily, that maxim. (Or in my case perhaps, that canard.)
I spent the evening with 14 or 15 (I lost count) women, ranging in age from about my age to, perhaps, 80, all, or at least most, of whom had read my book THE LIVING ROOM OF THE DEAD and were intrigued enough by it to want to know more about me, the story I told and the issues the book raised. It's a privilege to spend an evening like that, one of the perks of getting a book published. Last night I was one very happy hooker.
Speaking of which, one of the questions that came up, since the book deals with prostitution, was what do I think of it? Is prostitution good or bad? What should be done about it? Since this is my blog and an election is coming up in which prostitution isn't an issue, at least in terms of anything we're voting on, I'll answer that question here:
I think that whether prostitution is good or bad is irrelevant. It exists. It has, near as anyone can tell, always existed and in all likelihood it always will. Even in societies where it is punishable by death, it has continued to exist. Even in societies that aren't terribly impoverished, where women have full rights and where there are opportunities for other types of work, it continues to exist. So, it must, in some way fill some very elemental human needs.
To me it all boils down to issues of consent, coercion and exploitation. I think that every adult has the inalienable right to do with their own being, mental or physical, whatever they damn well please just so long as it doesn't harm or interfere with anyone else. I think they have the inalienable right to do whatever they please along with other informed, consenting adults so long as it doesn't harm anybody else. I think that right extends to things that other people might find morally reprehensible, just so long as they don't force those other people to watch what they're doing. That's a matter of privacy.
If a person, of their own free choice, decides to sell their sexual services, I think that should be just as much their right as it is mine to sell the fruits of my brain, fingers and computer keyboard. If you don't want to buy and read my books, that's your choice. If you don't want to go down to the corner massage parlor and have some sex along with your shiatsu, that's your choice too.
But this all depends on choice, and informed choice at that. Too much of the prostitution in the world is coerced. It is engaged in by people who have been kidnapped, enslaved, tricked or bullied into it. That sort of prostitution is, and ought to be, criminal. But it is not the prostitutes who have committed those crimes, it is the people who have trafficked them, tricked them or bullied them and those people should have the full force of the law brought against them.
Laws against prostitution get in the way of enforcement of the laws against the people who enslave and exploit prostitutes, the victims of those crimes. A woman who has been smuggled into the U.S. and bought and sold by pimps and is now working in an apartment brothel in Los Angeles, is afraid to go to the police because what she's doing is illegal. She's told she'll be arrested and deported and get in even worse trouble than she's already in. And for the most part, that's true. She has few, if any, legal rights or protections.
It is rare, nearly impossible, for prostitutes to get the services they need: health, social, police, financial, etc. Criminalizing their profession contributes to the AIDS and other STD statistics, helps to keep them impoverished, makes it difficult if not impossible for them to get police protection in matters such as rape and physical abuse and generally victimizes the victims, rather than the real bad guys.
In Thailand and China, where prostitution is rampant, open but technically illegal, the men and women engaged in it are fiercely oppressed by the legal authorities, pimps, traffickers and their customers, all of whom rely on the laws to assist their exploitation. The same goes on, less obviously but just as much so, in the U.S., with one notable exception.
Prostitution is legal in most of Nevada's counties. Prostitutes in that state are licensed and regulated. They work in safe environments. They are given weekly health checks. (More than 10,000 legal prostitutes have been tested for HIV in Nevada and not one case has been found. That's a much lower percentage than the general population.) Their money is not stolen from them by corrupt cops and pimps. They have access to social and financial services that in many cases have helped women to get out of the business.
In nearly every place that prostitution is legal, the people who work in the trade are better off, healthier and have greater opportunities to get into other work if they choose.
People don't become prostitutes because they are bad people. They aren't like bank robbers. They get into the business because they dont have an alternative; because someone has forced them into it, or poverty has made it seem like a better choice than other work, or their society doesn't value women or gay men and makes outsiders of them in any event so why not. (There are undoubtedly a few who get into it because they actually enjoy the work or are curious to try it out, but my guess is that that's a pretty small minority.)
Laws against prostitution victimize people who circumstances have already fucked over. We ought to be voting to get rid of them.
We also ought to be voting to tax religious institutions. I just paid my property tax and it was a lot higher than it needs to be. One of the reasons is that the Catholic church is the largest private property owner in the County of Los Angeles. Throw in other churches, Jewish temples, mosques, etc, and there is an enormous amount of untaxed property in this county. That leaves the rest of us to pay for everything.
Recently, October 11, there was an article in The New York Times about the tax breaks given to religious institutions and their employees. For all kinds of things, even paying state unemployment or workers compensation benefits or sales taxes on religous books.
The whole thing disgusts me. Separation of church and state should mean that everybody, even religous leaders and groups, should share equally in the same rights and responsibilities. I wish we were voting on that too.
But we aren't. Instead we're voting on the usual passle of crooks, cretins and assholes and in California we get to pass judgement on the latest round of badly written, confusing and undoubtedly ineffective initiatives and referendums. I'm a great lover of democracy, but it sure does take a lot of work to maintain the relationship.
The more traditionally acknowledged sort of whore, doesn't usually sell what's going on in their brain. If they do, they ought to think about getting out of the business.
Now this is on my mind today because of what I did a couple of nights ago. I drove 67 miles round trip to spend an evening with a book club. On the drive there, through rush hour traffic, I was thinking: "The things I do to sell my books. Am I out of my fucking mind?"
On the drive home, singing along with the radio, happy as a clam (I've always wondered how happy clams can be, really) I was thinking: "Hey, that was great. I oughta find more book clubs to hang out with."
What happened, of course, was that my ego got stroked and it was also an interesting, thought-provoking evening. There's an old saying about how whores shouldn't come (an aside here: most porn writers spell this "cum," but in my Oxford American Dictionary of Current English it is spelled "come") with their customers. In a sense I violated, happily, that maxim. (Or in my case perhaps, that canard.)
I spent the evening with 14 or 15 (I lost count) women, ranging in age from about my age to, perhaps, 80, all, or at least most, of whom had read my book THE LIVING ROOM OF THE DEAD and were intrigued enough by it to want to know more about me, the story I told and the issues the book raised. It's a privilege to spend an evening like that, one of the perks of getting a book published. Last night I was one very happy hooker.
Speaking of which, one of the questions that came up, since the book deals with prostitution, was what do I think of it? Is prostitution good or bad? What should be done about it? Since this is my blog and an election is coming up in which prostitution isn't an issue, at least in terms of anything we're voting on, I'll answer that question here:
I think that whether prostitution is good or bad is irrelevant. It exists. It has, near as anyone can tell, always existed and in all likelihood it always will. Even in societies where it is punishable by death, it has continued to exist. Even in societies that aren't terribly impoverished, where women have full rights and where there are opportunities for other types of work, it continues to exist. So, it must, in some way fill some very elemental human needs.
To me it all boils down to issues of consent, coercion and exploitation. I think that every adult has the inalienable right to do with their own being, mental or physical, whatever they damn well please just so long as it doesn't harm or interfere with anyone else. I think they have the inalienable right to do whatever they please along with other informed, consenting adults so long as it doesn't harm anybody else. I think that right extends to things that other people might find morally reprehensible, just so long as they don't force those other people to watch what they're doing. That's a matter of privacy.
If a person, of their own free choice, decides to sell their sexual services, I think that should be just as much their right as it is mine to sell the fruits of my brain, fingers and computer keyboard. If you don't want to buy and read my books, that's your choice. If you don't want to go down to the corner massage parlor and have some sex along with your shiatsu, that's your choice too.
But this all depends on choice, and informed choice at that. Too much of the prostitution in the world is coerced. It is engaged in by people who have been kidnapped, enslaved, tricked or bullied into it. That sort of prostitution is, and ought to be, criminal. But it is not the prostitutes who have committed those crimes, it is the people who have trafficked them, tricked them or bullied them and those people should have the full force of the law brought against them.
Laws against prostitution get in the way of enforcement of the laws against the people who enslave and exploit prostitutes, the victims of those crimes. A woman who has been smuggled into the U.S. and bought and sold by pimps and is now working in an apartment brothel in Los Angeles, is afraid to go to the police because what she's doing is illegal. She's told she'll be arrested and deported and get in even worse trouble than she's already in. And for the most part, that's true. She has few, if any, legal rights or protections.
It is rare, nearly impossible, for prostitutes to get the services they need: health, social, police, financial, etc. Criminalizing their profession contributes to the AIDS and other STD statistics, helps to keep them impoverished, makes it difficult if not impossible for them to get police protection in matters such as rape and physical abuse and generally victimizes the victims, rather than the real bad guys.
In Thailand and China, where prostitution is rampant, open but technically illegal, the men and women engaged in it are fiercely oppressed by the legal authorities, pimps, traffickers and their customers, all of whom rely on the laws to assist their exploitation. The same goes on, less obviously but just as much so, in the U.S., with one notable exception.
Prostitution is legal in most of Nevada's counties. Prostitutes in that state are licensed and regulated. They work in safe environments. They are given weekly health checks. (More than 10,000 legal prostitutes have been tested for HIV in Nevada and not one case has been found. That's a much lower percentage than the general population.) Their money is not stolen from them by corrupt cops and pimps. They have access to social and financial services that in many cases have helped women to get out of the business.
In nearly every place that prostitution is legal, the people who work in the trade are better off, healthier and have greater opportunities to get into other work if they choose.
People don't become prostitutes because they are bad people. They aren't like bank robbers. They get into the business because they dont have an alternative; because someone has forced them into it, or poverty has made it seem like a better choice than other work, or their society doesn't value women or gay men and makes outsiders of them in any event so why not. (There are undoubtedly a few who get into it because they actually enjoy the work or are curious to try it out, but my guess is that that's a pretty small minority.)
Laws against prostitution victimize people who circumstances have already fucked over. We ought to be voting to get rid of them.
We also ought to be voting to tax religious institutions. I just paid my property tax and it was a lot higher than it needs to be. One of the reasons is that the Catholic church is the largest private property owner in the County of Los Angeles. Throw in other churches, Jewish temples, mosques, etc, and there is an enormous amount of untaxed property in this county. That leaves the rest of us to pay for everything.
Recently, October 11, there was an article in The New York Times about the tax breaks given to religious institutions and their employees. For all kinds of things, even paying state unemployment or workers compensation benefits or sales taxes on religous books.
The whole thing disgusts me. Separation of church and state should mean that everybody, even religous leaders and groups, should share equally in the same rights and responsibilities. I wish we were voting on that too.
But we aren't. Instead we're voting on the usual passle of crooks, cretins and assholes and in California we get to pass judgement on the latest round of badly written, confusing and undoubtedly ineffective initiatives and referendums. I'm a great lover of democracy, but it sure does take a lot of work to maintain the relationship.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Myopes at Bouncercon
"Myope" must be a real word, but I don't have my OED with me so I can't look it up. It was used the other night at dinner by Catherine Manning, better known to her reading public as Elizabeth Ironside, to describe herself; her vision, actually. While we may have had to fight a revolution against them, and their lawyers do look ridiculous in those filthy wigs and robes, and I must admit to cringing when confronted with all the lord and lady stuff, and the Windsors? well, enough said. The English did, after all, invent English, something for which I am deeply indebted to them. And a word as fine as "myope"? Sometimes you just have to give it to them.
Lady Catherine - I'm poking a little fun at her here because although she is apparently entitled to the honorific, it might embarrass her were I to use it - and her husband Sir David, the U.K. ambassador to the U.S. (who I think would have laughed me away from the dinner table had I called him by his title) were at Bouchercon in Madison, Wisconsin to help promote her books. The titles, previously out of print in the U.S. are being reissued by Felony & Mayhem Press, which is owned by my pal Maggie Topkis - also one of the owners of Partners & Crime bookstore in New York City.
This is all by way of saying that I had a grand time at a very small dinner party - five of us in total - with the Ambassador and his Lady - Catherine and David - who seem to embody just what you would want from diplomats. They were friendly, warm, easy going, smart, funny, well read, well travelled and well informed. The sort of folk anyone in their right mind would want to be friends with. I was very impressed when David told us about how he had gone to Dodge City, Kansas not long after being sent to Washington D.C. to become what is almost certainly Great Britain's most important ambassador. He wanted to get a sense of America away from the big, sophisticated cities. He picked Dodge because he had watched Gunsmoke many years ago and it was around the agricultural center of the country. He spent three days there, talking to everybody he could about whatever he could. He returned surprised, a bit horrified by some of what he came across and heartened by some other of what he encountered.
Perhaps it's the difference between the foreign (diplomatic) service and politicians, but somehow it gave me a vague sense of optimism that there might yet be hope for the world.
Bouchercon, the annual mystery writers and readers convention, struck me as a bit of a mess initially. No one seemed to have the slightest idea of what, where or when things were happening. There was a terrible, near-financially ruinous screwup with Maggie's new book by "Elizabeth Ironside". I was grumpy about the panel I was scheduled to be on. Overall, the early stages put me in a grumpy mood.
But then things turned around. They sorted themselves out. In large part due to the tireless efforts of Jodi and Kate - two of the organizers. Events happened as they were supposed to. People milled about and chatted each other up. Contacts were made. Books were sold and signed. People had fun in the bars. (We're writers, we drink, or we're sober drunks. It seems to be an occupational hazard.) I was almost constantly busy, on my feet a good 14 to 16 hours or more a day and found the whole thing enjoyable and useful.
It helped that this was my third one. The first one I almost swore I'd never come back. I didn't know anybody. I didn't have a book out yet. I moped in corners. This time I can't even keep track of all the people I know from previous years. It's like trying to walk down the street in Chicago with my sister Nancy - the world's most gregarious and friendly human being - it takes forever to make a block because she has to stop and chat with nearly everyone we come across.
Anyhow, it was great, just what I wanted from a conference. And on Sunday I got in the car and headed south, then west for home.
Before all that, Chicago, Barbara's Books in Oak Park was the last gasp of the Disoriented Express. It was a disappointingly small crowd, but a nice enough one as they always seem to be. I have yet to have a heckler. I'm looking forward to one eventually though. The bookstore people and the attendees seemed to enjoy the show. We had six total, not counting the bookstore employees, but counting my sister. I'd estimate them at a reasonable 1,005 lbs. That brings the tour total to a close at:
More than four tons of people, 8,915 lbs of readers (excluding bookshop employees) viewed the DisOriented Express!
From Chicago we took the back route up to Madison, along small, beautiful Wisconsin country roads, pausing to take photos along the way. What we were photographing was Colin's Dilys award: with a fish shaped mailbox, a red, white and blue cow for Bush - Cheney 2004, a refrigerator compartment of cheese, the Welcome to Madison sign and other things. Fun was had. We showed the entire slide show of our silly Dilys photos to a group of people who'd come to hear Colin at a luncheon and we had them rolling in the aisles. (The Dilys is awarded by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association to the author of the book they most enjoyed selling during the year.) Here's some pictures we took all along the way:
Driving across country, I was once again happy to be reminded of what a remarkably diverse and beautiful country this is. There are few places on the planet that offer as many different types of terrain, flora and fauna and in the Fall the color palette is just about overwhelming. That and despite all the carryings on about how America is becoming such an intolerant, fundamentalist Christian place, I encountered a whole lot less evidence of that (although I did come across some) than I did of the basic friendly, tolerant, good nature of most of my fellow Americans. I think if everyone in the country could drive across it once every ten years or so, and talk to a lot of the sort of folk that they don't usually talk with at home, there might be a lot fewer misunderstandings and fear of each other.
Does that sound Pollyanna-ish? Did Pollyanna ever drive 926 miles - North Platte, Nebraska to Mesquite, Nevada - in one day?
Lady Catherine - I'm poking a little fun at her here because although she is apparently entitled to the honorific, it might embarrass her were I to use it - and her husband Sir David, the U.K. ambassador to the U.S. (who I think would have laughed me away from the dinner table had I called him by his title) were at Bouchercon in Madison, Wisconsin to help promote her books. The titles, previously out of print in the U.S. are being reissued by Felony & Mayhem Press, which is owned by my pal Maggie Topkis - also one of the owners of Partners & Crime bookstore in New York City.
This is all by way of saying that I had a grand time at a very small dinner party - five of us in total - with the Ambassador and his Lady - Catherine and David - who seem to embody just what you would want from diplomats. They were friendly, warm, easy going, smart, funny, well read, well travelled and well informed. The sort of folk anyone in their right mind would want to be friends with. I was very impressed when David told us about how he had gone to Dodge City, Kansas not long after being sent to Washington D.C. to become what is almost certainly Great Britain's most important ambassador. He wanted to get a sense of America away from the big, sophisticated cities. He picked Dodge because he had watched Gunsmoke many years ago and it was around the agricultural center of the country. He spent three days there, talking to everybody he could about whatever he could. He returned surprised, a bit horrified by some of what he came across and heartened by some other of what he encountered.
Perhaps it's the difference between the foreign (diplomatic) service and politicians, but somehow it gave me a vague sense of optimism that there might yet be hope for the world.
Bouchercon, the annual mystery writers and readers convention, struck me as a bit of a mess initially. No one seemed to have the slightest idea of what, where or when things were happening. There was a terrible, near-financially ruinous screwup with Maggie's new book by "Elizabeth Ironside". I was grumpy about the panel I was scheduled to be on. Overall, the early stages put me in a grumpy mood.
But then things turned around. They sorted themselves out. In large part due to the tireless efforts of Jodi and Kate - two of the organizers. Events happened as they were supposed to. People milled about and chatted each other up. Contacts were made. Books were sold and signed. People had fun in the bars. (We're writers, we drink, or we're sober drunks. It seems to be an occupational hazard.) I was almost constantly busy, on my feet a good 14 to 16 hours or more a day and found the whole thing enjoyable and useful.
It helped that this was my third one. The first one I almost swore I'd never come back. I didn't know anybody. I didn't have a book out yet. I moped in corners. This time I can't even keep track of all the people I know from previous years. It's like trying to walk down the street in Chicago with my sister Nancy - the world's most gregarious and friendly human being - it takes forever to make a block because she has to stop and chat with nearly everyone we come across.
Anyhow, it was great, just what I wanted from a conference. And on Sunday I got in the car and headed south, then west for home.
Before all that, Chicago, Barbara's Books in Oak Park was the last gasp of the Disoriented Express. It was a disappointingly small crowd, but a nice enough one as they always seem to be. I have yet to have a heckler. I'm looking forward to one eventually though. The bookstore people and the attendees seemed to enjoy the show. We had six total, not counting the bookstore employees, but counting my sister. I'd estimate them at a reasonable 1,005 lbs. That brings the tour total to a close at:
More than four tons of people, 8,915 lbs of readers (excluding bookshop employees) viewed the DisOriented Express!
From Chicago we took the back route up to Madison, along small, beautiful Wisconsin country roads, pausing to take photos along the way. What we were photographing was Colin's Dilys award: with a fish shaped mailbox, a red, white and blue cow for Bush - Cheney 2004, a refrigerator compartment of cheese, the Welcome to Madison sign and other things. Fun was had. We showed the entire slide show of our silly Dilys photos to a group of people who'd come to hear Colin at a luncheon and we had them rolling in the aisles. (The Dilys is awarded by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association to the author of the book they most enjoyed selling during the year.) Here's some pictures we took all along the way:
Driving across country, I was once again happy to be reminded of what a remarkably diverse and beautiful country this is. There are few places on the planet that offer as many different types of terrain, flora and fauna and in the Fall the color palette is just about overwhelming. That and despite all the carryings on about how America is becoming such an intolerant, fundamentalist Christian place, I encountered a whole lot less evidence of that (although I did come across some) than I did of the basic friendly, tolerant, good nature of most of my fellow Americans. I think if everyone in the country could drive across it once every ten years or so, and talk to a lot of the sort of folk that they don't usually talk with at home, there might be a lot fewer misunderstandings and fear of each other.
Does that sound Pollyanna-ish? Did Pollyanna ever drive 926 miles - North Platte, Nebraska to Mesquite, Nevada - in one day?
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