New York in July, hot and breezy, the smell of pizza and coffee in the air, and on the subway one is surrounded by women in light summer dresses, the bare shoulders of elegant young urban women whose shoulders tell you they never toted barges or lifted bales, never laid eyes on a barge or a bale except for someone barging into their office and giving them a baleful look.

My urologist gives me a long learned lecture on the prostate of which I cannot now recall a single thought, only remember the honor of being treated as an intellectual equal. To me, this is the wonder of city life – I find so much that exceeds my provincial expectations . . .

A peaceful and profound place at night where you imagine you might discover the elusive secret of your life
(Brace for unconscious self-revalation!)
(you're a writer because you're lazy and you don't get along with people), or maybe God would sit down next to you and confess His own doubts as to His existence . . . “

but almost nobody goes there because it feels unsafe because almost nobody goes there. Why does a great city surrender this beautiful turf to predators real or imagined?

And why should we Americans surrender our beloved country to the predators who've plundered our sacred institutions in the name of conservatism?

In a democracy, however, it is possible to take a sharp turn, whoosh, and in one majestic moment, the bums are dumped out on the street, the cronies of cronies who rigged the system and the bulbous blowhards wrapped in Old Glory and nihilists in golf pants—they have to sell their Washington condos and move on and find some other line of work. Glory, hallelujah, the truth is marching on.

Ancient crones from FDR's time are still walking the halls, kept alive by anger at what has been done to our country. Old conservationists, feminists, grizzled veterans of the civil rights era fight off melanoma, emphysema, Montezuma, thanks to the miracle drug of anger. Slackers and cynics abound, not to mention nihilists in golf pants and utter idiots.

Another paradise day in our old river town and we linger over supper in the back yard and talk about the dry weather and bats (Do they eat three thousand mosquitoes per night? No, says the family biologist.) and cousin BruceÂ’s truck farm besieged by suburban yards and of course BarackÂ’s audacious trip to Iraq and Europe, meanwhile the sun goes down and little candles come out a fresh pot of green tea and nobody feels the urge to get up and go.