The novel-reading I did when a judge took a break seemed only a continuation of what I had done from the first grade, for I had been an avid reader from an early age. Even so, the mentor attorney who said read a good novel each week made me wonder if novel-reading could actually aid my professional career. I thought about conversations with the not-yet-spouse when I was in law school. She was in graduate school studying English literature, and her professors stressed the close reading of texts. Some of my law school professors recounted their conversations with those same English professors and how they discussed the similarities between the study of English and the law, both centering on the close reading of texts.

Law requires close reading. Judicial opinions are read carefully to extract the deciding principles to apply those principles to future legal disputes. Statutes and regulations and contracts have to be read carefully with the assumption that every word matters. However, I didn’t think that the mentor urging the reading of novels was referring to the similarity of the close reading of literary and legal texts. Instead, he was saying that because a trial concerned the human lives of witnesses, jurors, judges, and attorneys, the more the trial attorney understood human perceptions, reactions, motives—human psychology in general—the better the attorney could perform. As I became more experienced trying cases, I realized that he was right: The more I could understand others, the better I was in the courtroom.

Each of us, of course, learns human psychology from our own experiences, but the attorney was suggesting we needed to find ways to expand our knowledge about others beyond that gained from our firsthand observations and interactions. I found that I agreed with that.

The experienced attorney was telling us that one of the quickest and best ways to expand beyond our personal experiences was to read novels, for good novels often contain insights into human nature and behavior. Good novels imaginatively explore human behavior and psychology with sharp observations of manners and societies. Trials are always about human behavior, psychology, and societies, so reading the insights of great writers might help a trial attorney. On the other hand, I have known people who read much but remain clueless. I don’t know if novel-reading truly enlightens me or others, but I learned that trials tell stories and can make, change, rehabilitate, and destroy lives. Novel-reading certainly could not hurt a trial attorney, so, as a trial attorney, I continued to read novels. But I still did not read them while court was in session. And whether novels have aided me or not, I know that reading novels is more enjoyable than reading advance sheets.

I don’t recall how the conversation started. I do remember that the attorney, a generation older than we newbie bar members, said, “If you want to be a trial lawyer, read a novel a week.” I was not the only listener who looked quizzical. He continued, “To be good at trials you have to understand human nature, and the best way to learn human nature is to read good novels.” He repeated, “Read a novel a week.” Since he had a reputation as a stellar trial attorney, I registered his remark. My first reaction was to think that there might be something in his pronouncement, but I also quickly concluded, “It has to be better than reading advance sheets.”

Court decisions are eventually published in bound volumes, but back in the day, a considerable lag intervened between the time the court issued an opinion and the decision’s appearance in the official report. Today, the opinions are filed online as soon as they are rendered, and there is immediate access to them. When I started as an attorney, though, there was no internet. Instead, in New York, a weekly magazine-like publication was available containing a week’s worth of opinions by the New York courts. These were called advance sheets.

I spent a good part of my working day as a Legal Aid attorney waiting in the inefficient Manhattan courtrooms for a case to be called. I initially filled the time by reading books, but this brought on the ire of the court officers. I could understand that a newspaper with its rustling pages might be an irritant, but, for reasons I never understood, those officers also forbade the reading of books. I learned, however, that I could read my case files. Preparing for the upcoming hearing was acceptable to the court personnel.

Then I tried reading an advance sheet. The court officer came over for chastisement, but when I held it up, he saw what it was and walked away. I assumed that he thought the reading was preparation for a case about to be called. From then on, I carried advance sheets to court. This not only passed the time better than sitting dumbly waiting for something to do, it also advanced my legal education. The front of the advance sheets broke down the enclosed decisions into legal subject matters, and I read every decision on criminal law and criminal procedure because that was what I was practicing. Most of the opinions were mundane, but from reading them I got a thorough grounding in New York criminal law and procedure.

However, even before the advice from the seasoned attorney, I had read novels, and I continued to do so afterwards. I did read them in the courthouse, but not in a courtroom when court was in session. My memory of Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray is bound up with memories of the Brooklyn Criminal Courthouse. I was working a week of night court where the court was in session from 6 PM until 1 AM, grueling for many reasons. The judge, however, took numerous breaks, and I made significant dents in Vanity Fair. I was entranced with the character and name “Amelia,” and my difficult work was made a bit more bearable whenever I could dip into Thackeray’s created world drawing me away from the real world I was dealing with of poverty, violence, ignorance, and crime.

(Concluded on August 3)

“Dreams of God and of gold (not necessarily in that order) made America possible.” Jon Meacham, The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels.”

“It takes three men to pull the body from the water.” Christine Mangan, Tangerine

“Cola Pesce was always playing in the sea and one day his mother said in exasperation she hoped he’d turn into a fish.” Peter Robb, Midnight in Sicily.

“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.” Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God.

“My father, Oswald Jacoby, was an unquestioned mathematical genius.” Oswald Jacoby and James Jacoby, Jacoby on Card Games.

“The summer my father bought the bear, none of us was born—we weren’t even conceived: not Frank, the oldest; not Franny, the loudest; not me, the next; and not the youngest of us, Lily and Egg.” John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire.

“This book was born on a cold, drizzly, late spring day when I clambered over the split-rail cedar fence that surrounds my pasture and made my way through wet woods to the modest frame house where Joe Rantz lay dying.” Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

“’Now what I want is, Fact.’” Charles Dickens, Hard Times.

“The first news story appeared on the morning of April 6, 1987, when the Charlotte Observer reported that a barge filled with New York garbage had been turned away from a privately owned port near Morehead City, North Carolina.” Benjamin Miller, Fat of the Land: Garbage of New York the Last Two Hundred Years.

“In that place, where they tore the nightshade and blackberry patches from their roots to make room for the Medallion City Golf Course, there was once a neighborhood.” Toni Morrison, Sula.

“My first indication that food was something other than a substance one stuffed in one’s face when hungry—like filling up at a gas station—came after fourth grade.” Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly.

I was taken aback by the headline: “Burton Richter, a Nobel Winner for Plumbing Matters, Dies at 87.” I was amazed that the Prize was awarded for, perhaps, developing a laser guided snake for the commode. Then I thought again.

The TV ad for the drug Repatha told me not to take that medicine if I am allergic to it. How do I know if I am allergic to Repatha if I never take it?

          Was he right? A distinguished academic who had spent most of his career in New Haven had moved to New York. He stated that in New Haven he saw lots of movies because there was little else to do. Now he seldom had time for them, partly because his wife had mapped out an extensive social life for him. He indicated that sometimes it seemed a bit too much, but still he said, she is filled with all this energy, and she knows lots of interesting people. His luncheon companion agreed that his wife knew lots of interesting people, but there was a failing in the people she knew.  The companion continued, “You would think better of the social life if she knew more twenty-eight year olds with cleavage.” The academic laughed and laughed and said, “Twenty-eight with cleavage.  What a great movie title.”

The acknowledgements by the best-selling novelist started: “I would like to express my most sincere thanks to the following:” He gave no explanation for why he could not thank them.

“The Sicilian language is the only one in Europe that has no future tense.” Albert Mobilio, “Introduction” to Leonardo Sciascia, The Wine-Dark Sea.

The server was new. She said that she served at the restaurant a few days a week. She also worked for a service that cleaned rental cottages. The cleaning work had taken a turn for the worse. The cleaners had been allowed to take the food and toiletries left behind by the renters, but no longer. She said that some renters had come early and stocked the place before the cleaners had arrived, and the cleaners did what they had always done and took home what they had found in the pantry and refrigerator. The renters were upset, and the police were called. That got worked out, but now the cleaning service forbade the workers from taking anything out of the rental cottages. This was a blow. The half loaf of rye bread and the leftover deli ham had been important perks for the cleaners.

“I like to think that I’m an honest man, but in the modern world you can’t carry honesty very far without taking a break from time to time.” Walter Mosley, Charcoal Joe.

In addition to recommending the Foxfield Inn, we also highly recommend the nearby Ivy Inn Restaurant for dinner. It was as good a meal as the spouse and I have had in long time—innovative dishes carefully prepared. For me, it is not spring until I get some ramps, so I was especially happy to see them during the menu on our springtime visit. The spouse had shrimp and grits, and the grits were special not just because they were a local product, but also by the addition of two cheeses—I think a mild blue cheese and mascarpone—and the shrimp were perfectly cooked.

The spouse loves her Manhattans, but she is a traditionalist, and I was surprised when she ordered a specialty one at the Ivy Inn. She was wowed. It had the now-trendy one large ice cube, which chilled the drink without over-diluting it. The Manhattan had rye (craft, of course), black walnut bitters, sweet vermouth, and the surprise ingredient, Art in the Ages: Root, something we had never heard of before. Our server told us it was a liquor using ingredients that often find their way into root beer. Because we liked the Manhattan so much, we went looking for Art in the Ages: Root and found that the small Philadelphia distillery that made it no longer does so. An internet search, however, found a few stores in New York City that still had some bottles.

The trip to Virginia had the added bonus of getting me to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, when we got back. A liquor store’s website said that a Greenpoint liquor store had some Art in the Ages: Root. Greenpoint borders the ultimate hipsterish part of Brooklyn, Williamsburg, and I was told that hipsters were spreading into Greenpoint, but the liquor store’s environs were untouched by the new Brooklyn. It was still a Polish neighborhood as it had been for decades or longer. I saw butcher shops with extensive displays of sausages and hams. Bakeries were on every block. Still having delayed the start of my diet, I went into one and heard only Polish until I ordered a delicate pastry stuffed with cream and a bread with a poppy seed filling. The liquor store itself was not the usual Brooklyn liquor store that has an extensive wine selection. Wines here were minimal. Instead a thirty-foot long wall eight-feet high of more liquors than I never knew existed.  Facing these shelves was refrigerated case after refrigerated case of more kinds of vodka than I had ever seen before. The woman running the place looked hard at me as if no one but regulars came in. I asked for Art in the Ages: Root. She said that she had never heard of it and was sure that they did not have it. I told her that it was on the store’s website. She went to the computer and said in a surprised tone that they did stock what I wanted. She dragged a ladder over and ascended to the highest shelf and hand me a bottle and said they had two more. I told her I would take all three giving me what I assume will be a lifetime supply for the spouse since little of the drink is used in the Manhattans.

The Ivy Inn, besides teaching us a new way to make a Manhattan, also had a good wine list that offered a fair number of local wines. I am not sure that I had ever before had a Virginia wine, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted one–I had doubts that they made even barely palatable wines in Virginia (a lesson extrapolated from once drinking a Pennsylvania wine), but some Virginia stuff could be had by the glass, so I reasoned, what the hell. The server said that while Virginia made some good reds, the region was more known for whites. The spouse and I each ordered a glass. Mine was a passable chardonnay, but the spouse loved hers listed as “Chardonnay and Viognier.” We looked for it unsuccessfully afterwards at our various stops, but as we drove around outside Charlottesville, we now noticed how many wineries the area had. We even saw a sign for a winery that said “Trump.” We did not even slow down.

We recently stayed at a gracious Bed and Breakfast, the Foxfield Inn, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Our room and bath were beautifully furnished with a comfortable bed and luxurious linens with even a rubber duckie available for the spa tub.  No TV in the room. It was good to get away from my usual diet of too much CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and ESPN.

Although there were five guestrooms, we were the only guests the first night with two other couples the next night. (We were there midweek in less-than-high season.) There was a pantry for the guests, with coffee, tea, water, sodas, and very good cookies—I postponed the start of what I said to myself would soon be a diet.

The Foxfield Inn had two public rooms and, of course, a breakfast room. And that breakfast was something. Three courses of innovative dishes featuring local ingredients. I loved that bacon.

On that first day and morning, without other guests, there were opportunities to chat with our hosts, Dan and Kathryn, and I learned why the breakfast was so good. Kathryn had a degree in food science and spent the bulk of her career in the food service industry developing products for the likes of Cadbury. The spouse asked for a recipe for one of the dishes we were served, but Kathryn said that it was a variation, with seasonal ingredients, on something she had made many times without a recipe. Dan proudly stated that she was working on a cookbook. Bring on that book, Kathryn!

Dan was a chemical engineer and entered what he no doubt expected would be his lifelong career at Kodak. He worked on specialty films used for DNA fingerprinting. I don’t know how long this valuable work lasted, but soon this important product was in the bin with buggy whips as digital camera technology emerged.  Kathryn soon said to him, “Let’s do something different.” I have heard many people over the years propose something similar, but few ever acted on it. Forty years ago, I even heard a number of couples say—in those years before the second Bob Newhart Show—that they planned to open a New England bed and breakfast. Dan and Kathryn fell into the small numbers that actually followed through. They started looking for a bed and breakfast, and after an extensive search, they bought the Foxfield Inn nine years ago. The spouse and I are glad they did. We highly recommend it.

We shared a breakfast table on our second morning at the Foxfield Inn bed and breakfast with a couple driving from their Florida home in The Villages to their home in Rochester, New York. The woman did not work for The Villages, but no one who did could have been more enthusiastic about that development near Ocala. I had heard about the place before, but I learned a lot more from her. I had assumed that it was not a place for me, but her infectious excitement about The Villages made me wonder about it.

In the small world department, he, too, had worked at Kodak, but what I found most intriguing about him is that he played in a band. I asked him what kind of music, and he said, “Eighties rock.” When I asked what kind of bands he was in when a kid and did they play anywhere, he said he had only learned to play the guitar when he was in his thirties. He, like the hosts, had said to himself, “Let me do something different.” He had. There was a lesson somewhere in there.

The other couple was younger, both divorced, and living in New York City. She reminded me of a young Bette Midler, and that made me like her immediately. He had gone to the University of Virginia business school and was back to attend some sort of college event that was held down the road from the bed and breakfast. We had passed the site–a large field that stretched out of sight over a hill—coming and going to the Foxfield Inn and learned that horse races of the steeplechase variety would be held there just after we left. She had trepidations. She did not like to see animals get hurt and cited some statistics about how many horses had been put down during a race meeting at Saratoga, New York. He, on the other hand, was excited about the event and said that the section where the undergraduates congregated was always good for laughs. I asked “Why?” He replied that the undergrads got very drunk and it was “so funny” watching them throw up and fall down. I did not know how to respond, and I remained quiet.

(Concluded on July 25.)

The People of 1787 chose a system that effectively binds us on how our president is to be chosen, but that method most often resulted in a president who has received the greater support from the voters. The People of 1787 also chose a national legislature that is not representative of the majority of the country’s people. And the People of 1787 expressly forbade later generations from changing an essential component of the legislature so that our national laws might truly reflect the consent of the governed.

Both the House of Representatives and the Senate must pass a bill for it to become law. The Constitution chosen by the People of 1787 provides that the House must be apportioned according to population. While this apportionment and the resulting House elections may be imperfect, we can say that the House represents the People. The governed have given a consent when the representatives act. But what about the Senate? Each state, no matter the number of people in that state, gets two Senators. In essence, the citizens of Wyoming, the least populated state, has sixty times the representation in the Senate as do the citizens of California. There were understandable reasons why the People of 1787 chose this constitutional construction, but would the People of today do so?

If we were setting out to form the government today, we might opt for the direct election of the president, and while amending the Constitution to reach that result is almost impossible to accomplish, it is theoretically possible. It is harder to conjecture what the People of today would choose if they wanted to change the basic composition of the Senate. But there is no point in even contemplating it. Under our Constitution, we are forbidden from changing equal representation in the Senate for each state.  Article V of the Constitution, which defines the amendment process, prohibits altering the Senate by stating “that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the senate.” Wyoming can always have representation in the Senate equal to California. Delaware can always have the same number of Senators as Texas.

The People of 1787 made it impossible for the People of any later time to reconsider this basic aspect of the Senate that gives more powers to some citizens than others.. The People of the eighteenth century prevented the People of today from deciding for themselves how the consent of the governed should be determined.

When we take pride in announcing that the United States is a government of “We, the People,” we should realize that the extolled People are often not us, but those from long ago. In crucial ways, the sovereign of this country may no longer by King George III, but it is the Americans of George’s time who are sovereign over us. We may not be controlled by a live King, but we are controlled by a dead generation of centuries ago.

And now conservatives seek to interpret the Constitution in ways that magnify the sovereignty of the People of 1787 over us. But that is for another day’s discussion.

If “We, the People” of the present United States were going to frame a government, would we really choose our present structure? Is it the best method for obtaining a constitutional goal–consent of the governed? We certainly would want to re-consider some key structural elements that can prevent the will of the People from prevailing. For example, we would think hard about the Electoral College.

While most often our president has been the person who has garnered the greatest number of votes, we, as has been demonstrated twice in the last generation, have no guarantee of that. Perhaps “We, the People” of today would see the electoral college as a result of understandable compromises that were necessary for the adoption of the Constitution in 1787, but we might now prefer the direct election of the President where every vote counts equally. This would produce a huge change in our presidential elections, and not just because the smaller states currently have a greater proportional representation in the Electoral College than the larger states or because sometimes the candidate with the most votes does not get inaugurated. The Electoral College in effect disenfranchises voters throughout the country.

I vote in New York, but my vote for president is, in a practical sense, meaningless. Last election, I could be confident that no matter whether I voted or not, New York’s electoral votes would go to Hillary Clinton because she was certain to get a majority of the state’s vote. The same can be said for California and other states. Similarly, voters in Texas and Alabama were casting meaningless ballots. Whether Trump or Clinton got more or fewer votes in most states simply did not matter. Voters in these states did not have much incentive to vote for President. Instead, the truly important voters throughout the country were in the “swing” states. Each swing-state voter, and non-voter, in effect counted much more than those in the safe states. When one person’s vote counts more than another’s, do we really have a government of the People?

This is not said because I thought Clinton should have won because she garnered most votes. No one should assume that if we had had the direct election of the President that Clinton would have been inaugurated. We can’t know that. With a direct election, all voters throughout the country would have had an equal incentive to vote because all votes would have mattered equally. An additional 50,000 votes for Trump or Clinton in New York or California or Texas would have changed nothing, but in a direct election, each of those votes would have mattered as much as the votes mattered in Wisconsin and Michigan. In all likelihood, with a direct election of the president, more people would vote than do now.

We also can’t assume that Clinton would have won in 2016 with a direct election because direct elections also would make campaigns different. If each vote in Alabama would matter as much as each vote did in Michigan, the candidates would have had to, shall we say, pander to every voter in Alabama as much as was done to get the Michigan votes. With equal appeals to every voter no matter the happenstance of residence, with an increased number of citizens voting, and with the majority determining the outcome, we might conclude that a direct election would more likely produce the consent of the governed than does the Electoral College system.

Today, in any presidential election, even when the candidate with most votes wins, can we really say that “We, the People of the United States” of today have chosen our national leader?

We have an electoral system chosen by the People of 1787, and those eighteenth century voters chose an amendment process that makes it almost impossible for the People of today to change our Electoral College. There is little point in even debating whether it is the best, or even a good, method of selecting a president. “We, the People United States” of today don’t really have a choice in this. Instead, the choices of the People of 1787 control us. If the People are sovereign, it is the People of 1787, not the People of today, who are the sovereigns on this matter.

(Concluded on July 20)

A seat on the Supreme Court is vacant. This means a season of idolatrous praise for the Constitution. We can expect the expression of a demanded fealty to our founding document. We may not ever say that the Constitution has the status of Holy Writ, but we know that it comes darn close. And just as we often hear the Bible’s initial words recited, we can expect to repeatedly hear the Constitution’s beginning passage: “We, the People of the United States, . . . do ordain and establish the Constitution of the United States of America.” Even though we hear these words, we don’t often consider  who the People are in “We, the People of the United States.”

We, the People of the United States do ordain” announced a radical concept. The “People” were creating a government. Elsewhere sovereignty resided in God-ordained rulers. In a momentous change, the Constitution rejected that. The People in adopting the Constitution were now the sovereigns, and the Constitution came to be seen as (nearly) God-ordained. The constitutional scholar Edward S. Corwin noted in The “Higher Law” Background of American Constitutional Law: “The Reformation superseded an infallible Pope with an infallible Bible; the American Revolution replaced the sway of a king with that of a document.” Under the Constitution, power would not run from the top down, but from the People up. The government did not have inherent powers or ones given by a god; instead, the government would only have the powers granted by the People.

The radicalism behind “We, the People” had already been announced in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their Just Powers from the Consent of the Governed. . . .” Rights were not granted to the people by the government; instead, rights were embedded in the individuals forming a society. The People do not exist to serve a sovereign monarch or government; instead, the government exists to serve the People.

This was radical stuff. Today we may point out the voting restrictions that existed in eighteenth century America to denigrate its limited notion of the People, but still “We, the People of the United States” was announcing a new concept in sovereignty, one that we feel still exists. Now women can vote and hold office; African-Americans can vote and hold office; people without real property can vote and hold office. We believe that our government now even more fulfills the promise of “We, the People of the United States” than it did in 1787. But our self-congratulatory pronouncements seldom truly examine whether “We, the People of the United States” of the twenty-first century have sovereignty. In important ways, the sovereign over our present country are not the People of today but the People of 1787.

The people of 1787 chose the government as defined in the Constitution. In 1787, the majority of the delegates to the state conventions controlled whether a state assented to the proposed Constitution. Since all the states adopted the Constitution, we can say that the People of the United States–as represented by a majority of the voters–formed the country.

But have the present People of the United States truly chosen this form of government? What have you done to select it? If you are like me, the answer is “nothing.” I was born into it. I suppose I could reject the government by becoming a citizen of another country, but I have taken no action to choose it. In some sense, only naturalized citizens have affirmatively chosen our government, and perhaps that is why they should be seen as more American than the rest of us. I live under a Constitution that the People of the eighteenth century and naturalized citizens have opted for, but not one chosen by the majority of Americans of today.

Perhaps we can say that present Americans choose the Constitution by not changing it. If we aren’t satisfied with it, we can amend it as Americans have done twenty-seven times. But can the People really modify the Constitution? It cannot be changed by a majority or even by a straightforward supermajority today. A tiny fraction of our citizens can prevent any amendment. That is because the People of 1787 chose a restrictive amendment process that prevents the People of the United States of future generations from truly governing themselves.

A constitutional amendment is proposed only if two-thirds of each House of Congress votes for it (or if it comes from a convention called for by two-thirds of the states for the purpose of proposing amendments, which has never happened.) The proposal becomes part of the Constitution only if it is approved by three-quarters of the states, with each state having one vote. Wyoming has one vote as does California, even though California’s population is sixty times greater than Wyoming’s. The nine largest states have a majority of this country’s citizens, but these people cannot control this amendment process. The sixteen largest states contain about two-thirds of the population, and the twenty-two most populated have about three-fourths of all Americans, but those twenty-two don’t even comprise a majority of the states, much less the three-quarters that are needed for an amendment.

When it comes to amending the Constitution, a Wyoming voter in effect counts as much as sixty California voters. Is that government by the People of the United States? Can we really say that the People of today control the process when a tiny fraction of the populace can prevent an amendment? Can we really say that the People have consented to the Constitution by not changing it? Isn’t it more accurate to say that the People of 1787 have forced an amendment process on us that prevents the People of today from being truly sovereign? And thus, at least in this instance, “We the People of the United States” means the People of 1787 are our sovereigns.

(Continued on July 18)

Good news and bad news. The good news is that even with my accumulated years I can still change a car tire in a chilly rain. The bad news . . . .

I am so old that I never got a participation trophy.

“There is a saying that every woman should have three daughters because that way there will be one to take care of her in old age.” Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible.

It is the time of year for Adirondack chairs. Has anyone ever found them comfortable?

Pele did not like to be called “Pele.” Hank Aaron did not like being called “Hank.”

Patrons at the restaurant registered complaints about the server with tattooed arms. I understood because I don’t like tattoos, but then I thought back to when I was the server’s age and some reviled me simply because of the length of my hair and a beard.

“You always dread the unfamiliar.” Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451.

The driver is lost. He stops the car, and he or a passenger lowers the window, yells to a pedestrian, and motions him to the car. The pedestrian comes over and bends down to talk to the person in the car. Since it is someone in the car who is asking for a favor, shouldn’t that person get out of the car and walk over to the pedestrian? Or will this rudeness disappear because of smartphone apps?

I don’t own a smartphone.

No one was home. The delivery service left the package on the stoop. It was stolen. The package contained Nutrisystem food. Was this thief dieting? Or was the thief grossly disappointed?

The teen-aged Anne Perry along with her friend brutally murdered the friend’s mother in New Zealand. The crime and its trial garnered much attention. The girls because of their ages served five only years in prison. Perry, after much struggle, later became a successful and prolific author of mystery stories and historical fiction. She became a devout Mormon. (The person who committed the crime with her became a devout Roman Catholic.) Christians proclaim a belief in redemption and forgiveness, but it has always been hard to extend charity to those who have done a terrible thing even when the rest of their lives has been admirable. If you met Anne Perry, wouldn’t you be fascinated by the fact that she had bashed in a woman’s skull with a brick? What would that say about you? What does it say about me thinking about this?