Thank you J.R. Murray for sharing your experience with us. I too (no specifics) have had contact with the other side, as powerful as to dissolve any skepticism about the afterlife away. But this is a personal experience: it is not useful in an argument to convince anyone of life after death. We are among the fortunate, to have all doubt removed, that’s all. In a way, it doesn’t matter what anyone knows or believes, so long as an individual lives the best life possible, giving and learning in equal measure.

Liz, do you think the Bear Stearns debacle is an anomaly, due to that institution’s hubris? Are there other vulnerable financials?

Oh god - relocation? Funny to read this while packing boxes.

Calf fries? Bollocks.

It would be nice to have, for a change, a Republican out there working for the environment…

I was so bored as a kid I turned to writing. Thank God I was bored! My 22-year-old daughter says she and her friends have trouble sticking with anything, focussing, because they are wired for multi-tasking. They’re more than a little at sea. On the other hand, they’re better informed than we ever were at their age.

The universe is change. Take nothing for granted, but revel in the bittersweetness of all things passing.

Liz, I’m really looking forward to your updates. It challenges me to understand your vocabulary which in turn helps me to speak with more confidence to the people managing my small - and vulnerable - life savings. As to the flattening of wages: wages haven’t kept pace with inflation for some time! And now workers are being laid off. I feel like the middle class has been gang-raped for 8 years.

Well, now I just HAVE to get sick in France!

Thanks for this invaluable perspective. Will this be a regular feature? And I have a question: what is your feeling about the other looming danger, inflation? This is a powder keg when combined with unemployment and credit crises.

I believe the balance swung to the militant blacks, and Black Power. Non-violence as a strategy died. In my own life, I lost some black friends who felt that they shouldn’t be hanging with whites. They needed to experience their solidarity and heritage by separating completely from whites - and in some cases declaring revolution and war. It was a heart-breaking time. Witness what happened to Leroi Jones’s wife: he had to dump her and two daughters - completely and cruelly - because she was a white Long Island Jew and he needed to take his place as a political leader of the black community.

Geraldine Ferraro was completely out of line - and it may be true that she is simply addled. To say Obama got where he is because he’s black is absurd. He is the frontrunner in spite of being black - and indeed, in the South, it may cost him the presidency! Being black is not an asset - times have not changed that much.

Pamela too bad you can’t cotton to Sondheim. My life changed when I saw Sunday in the Park With George. It wasn’t my first musical, but it was my first musical-as-revelation. They can be more than just entertainment.

Thanks for the tip! It’s true Frownies are too expensive.

I agree with Liz: amazing conclusion to this piece. Re: violence in movies, Hollywood is having a lot of trouble designating villains these days - almost any segment of people are (thank God) politically incorrect as baddies. They’re getting a free pass for now with Muslim terrorists but eventually the Muslim community will mount a loud protest, as they should. It may explain why they’re doing so many comic books. There the villains are safely imaginary and the favored color is green! And about your African ancestry: apparently we ALL have this in common!