12 January 2011 -- Tucson, Arizona The mainstream consensus is that Jared Loughner was deranged, and the Tucson tragedy, however regrettable, is just another of those things that happen in a crowded, complicated, difficult world. What comes to mind: the Cuyahoga River of Ohio, at one...
8/9/10, a nice sequential date. From Salt Lake City I cross the vast high sagebrush-dotted desert of Nevada, with the only variant in 400 miles a roadkill ruffed grouse. As I approach California thunderheads mass over the high Sierra. I pass through Reno and, after 2000-plus...
The great inclined plain of Kansas is very impressive. The fields are emerald green as if it's spring, until near Salina I arrive at amber waves of grain that are being harvested, with combines moving back and forth, back and forth, cutting the black earth's...
I think of the vision that Mrs. Shiflett has toward the end of a Flannery O’Connor story, in which she sees all the peoples of the world blended and mixed as one, heading toward heaven in a riotous pack of shouting, writhing, unkempt cripples and...