Sure, Everything Is Ending," Jules Said, "but

Rebecca Was An Academic Star. Her New Book Was On The Phenomenon Of Word Casings, A Term She'd Invented For Words That No Longer Had Meaning Outside Quotation Marks. English Was Full Of These Empty Words--"friend" And "real" And "story" And "change"--words That Had Been Shucked Of Their Meanings And Reduced To Husks. Some, Like "identity" And "search" And "cloud," Had Clearly Been Drained Of Life By Their Web Usage. With Others, The Reasons Were More Complex; How Had "american" Become An Ironic Term? How Had "democracy" Come To Be Used In An Arch, Mocking Way?

Americans Are Less Selfish Than Some Of Our Politicians Believe And Will Respond With Reason And Resilience To Passionate Clarity.

I Think Ethical Ambivalence Is A Kind Of Innoculation, A Way Of Excusing Yourself In Advance For Something You Actually Want To Do. No Offense.

I Grew Up In The 70s, When People Talked On The Phone - And Just Talked More. I Remember The Phone Was The Epicenter Of Our House. I Spent Hours Every Evening As A Teenager Waiting For The Phone To Ring And Talking To My Friends. Before The Age Of Technology, It Was Also Easier To Just Disappear From The Face Of The Earth.

It's Turning Out To Be A Bad Day, A Day When The Sun Feels Like Teeth.