A short list this week. The snow storm that kept me away from home for a night also slowed some of my regular reading. As always, when you read something worth sharing, please let us know. Have a great weekend.
- An article in The New York Times highlights the growing percentage of Americans who cannot identify with any one race or ethnicity. The crop of students moving through college right now includes the largest group of mixed-race people ever to come of age in the United States, and they are only the vanguard: the country is in the midst of a demographic shift driven by immigration and intermarriage.
- Stanley Fish has written a new book, How to Write a Sentence, that was excerpted on NPR’s Talk of the Nation. Can you relate with Fish in his enthusiasm for the sentence? I can, despite my own lackluster collections of words. Some people are bird watchers, others are celebrity watchers; still others are flora and fauna watchers. I belong to the tribe of sentence watchers. Some appreciate fine art; others appreciate fine wines. I appreciate fine sentences. I am always on the lookout for sentences that take your breath away, for sentences that make you say, “Isn’t that something?” or “What a sentence!”
- A friend in Jordan reflects on the situation in Egypt. Of course the media plays of the fears of a radicalization of the Islamic street in Egypt. The reports of vigilante justice and mob mentality sounds pretty scary. However, one American friend of mine says he is appreciative of the club-wielders on his street. With the breakdown in police services and spread of unrest families and neighbors have been looking out for each other.
David W. Swanson 