The Atlantic Wire highlights in the red right upper side of the page the five best recent articles by the 50 most influential opinion makers. They'll have some good articles and to go to the bottom of the section for the full 50 can be informative. Today, I particularly liked Fareed Zakaria's article Don't Scramble the Jets. The Israeli Defense Minister apparently agrees. Peggy Noonan's article was also good.

Following a discussion of the draconian taxman here. The lack of perspective exhibited by this government agency may have had something to with people not wanting to see mandates in health care. That system would grow on Medicare which is unfair in that it prevents you from any negotiation with a physician.

Re: McQueen

A focal point in the linked article is the psychological meaning, which had never occurred to me, of the dance contests of the thirties where two people would probably ultimately have to cling to each other to be the last couple dancing, exhausted and desperate, surviving to win something they could very much use. A sign of those times and one ideal I guess. You may find that in Bonnie and Clyde too.

'Democracy in America' needs some help.

NPR had an interesting interview with a then college kid who wanted to dramatize The Catcher in the Rye and sought JD Salinger's permission. He even went to visit the author and did get invited into the house and into Salinger's space as it were. As part of this, Salinger offered him a ride to the station as Salonger was taking his son to a soccer game. The acolyte demurred thinking that he would have to come back to pick up his car. In the Financial Times obituary a quote from divorce proceedings form Salinger's second or third wife, he married her when she was a student at Vassar, quotes her as saying she needs a divorce 'for her emotional health.' Also, he is quoted in another article that he continued to write 'for his own pleasure.' His father, the son of a Rabbi, had taken him to Poland as part of teaching him the business of selling hams in 1937.