If he were alive, Thomas Jefferson would consider Friday, October 3, 2008 a black day for Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. This is not just because the news is so bleak for America and the world as a whole, but because in Bethlehem we have finally come to the end of the era of daily newspapers. The Morning Call is furling its banner, closing its Bethlehem office, and retreating to Easton. The Express-Times, half of which was our former proud Globe-Times, has long since left town and gone to Easton as well.
This leaves a three-year-old weekly, the intelligent and feisty Bethlehem Press, the only newspaper game in town. In the interest of full disclosure, I am very proud to write for this paper, whose scope is truly astonishing. It is like a weekly magazine for the Bethlehem Area School District, and is as interesting and varied as Bethlehem itself.
Weeklies may be the only future newspapers have; and maybe we'll be around for a while. I hope so. But the end of newspapers as a major force makes me very nervous--as, I am sure, it would make Tom Jefferson.
Although I am aware that massive lies can be told on paper, I have believed in the efficacy of words on paper all my life. At least, you can cut out a newspaper article and check its facts. This is harder to do with television and radio--even my own favorite, National Public Radio, which is no more perfect than other media. As for the internet, it is full of all manner of opinion, but I have not found it to be a reliable source of news.
A democracy needs to feed on news it can believe. We will need to see what the future sources of that news will be.

L and I talked by phone last night and we had our usual battle of ideas. It involved politics, as usual; politics being an idea that can kill you. I don't think our political ideas are so different; it's just that he seems to take it upon himself to clarify my thinking. Nice of him...
Well, here's a clarification--but I'M clarifying what EVERYBODY ELSE should be thinking. (Although this election year many people seem to be thinking less than ever.)
My clarification is that experience is a non-issue in this or any campaign for President. Not even George Washington started out with experience. What we need to be looking for, and what intelligent people ARE looking for, although they may not know there is a word for it, is temperament. What is a candidate really like? How steady, how unshakable? What is his/her understanding of America and its traditions? Of how a President should lead?
I'm sorry, but looked at from that perspective, the McCain-Palin ticket should not be anywhere in the race. I will skip the ever-tempting Palin-bashing, although I will say she's finally converted me to feminism. It is McCain whose temperament I really fear; he is the one who chose Palin for the Republican ticket, no doubt with the aid of such masterminds as Karl Rove. Can she have been chosen for HER wise and judicious temperament? Not likely. More for her shock value.
No sooner had the dust settled on the Palin shock itself than the long-mishandled economy finally imploded. And what did our calm, collected McCain try to do about it? Why, he tried to cancel a long-scheduled national debate, no doubt fearing that questions about the economic disaster and his role in it might come up.
Jeez, what will he do next?
And what would Lincoln think?

Despite the proliferation of "books" that say nothing, or nothing worth saying, there still is nothing like a real, hold-in-your-hand book to make its writer feel good. I guess it is because, despite all the evidence that there is no guarantee of immortality, authorship of books seems to come close to promising everlasting life. As in, someday explorers from another galaxy will visit our burnt-out planet and will discover our name, our very own name, on a singed scrap of book cover.
It isn't much, but it's something.
I am not immune to such basically forlorn longings for forever, as I remembered when I finally held a complimentary copy of my most recently published book in my hands. This is true even though I hope for more than the dessicated eternity I have just depicted for my work and my memory. "Not marble, nor the gilded monuments of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme..."
My book, "Jerusalem Journal," is not a sonnet by Shakespeare. It should be so lucky. It is not in any way, shape, or form a great book. It is a good read, and I hope people enjoy it.
It also is a print-on-demand book, which means it is produced one copy at a time, as readers order it. This is a controversial technique; but I like it. It means I don't have to store hundreds of copies around my apartment. It means I don't have to PAY for hundreds of copies; and that is an excellent thing.
"Jerusalem Journal's" emergence on the market came about only after some research. Essentially, I had no money to spend. I learned that several organizations, notably lulu.com and wordplay.com, would let you put out your books absolutely free. That's if you had the savvy to design them yourself, which I don't. If not, you could hire help from the specialists who advertise on their sites. That will usually run into four figures. If you have money, or can do it yourself, I can only say that I've seen beautiful books put out using both these programs.
I was lucky to discover publishamerica.com; or at least, after holding my newborn book this afternoon, I consider myself lucky. PA took care of all the formalities, like cover design and formatting. It charged nothing, although here too you can buy all sorts of extra services, stock up on quantities of books and the like. It expects the author to help with the promotion--but this is a learnable skill, and any author who does not wish to promote is foolish to do a book in the first place.
"Jerusalem Journal" definitely is a niche book, although I have some trouble defining the niche. I guess it is a historical travel memoir.
So, it's not "The DaVinci Code." Thank heavens. I believe it will bring pleasure and a measure of understanding not to millions, but to some thousands of people over the years. Who could ask for more than that?

I continue to think about my memory lapse at the party. It's easy enough to explain, I think. A couple of years ago I found myself comfined for the most part to a wheelchair, to my apartment, and to the visits of some dedicated friends, for which I remain most grateful. It took a long time for me to begin to pull out of deep invalidism.
Meanwhile, I knew that all those other people were out there--but I had not known them well, and in some cases I did not see them for literally years. So my forgetfulness meant that I once again had to bring a name and a face together. Understandable but still embarrassing. As I get out more it will happen less often.
In general, my schedule is getting busy once again. I have more to think about, and more to do. For one thing, after a 30-year wait, my book "Jerusalem Journal" is making its publication debut with almost dramatic suddenness. I had expected it to come out closer to the end of the year. The fact that the publisher is early means I have to do some promotional things sooner rather than later.
Also, I am looking for an opera composer and librettist to do an opera about Gisi Fleischmann, the Holocaust heroine of Slovakia, who was the subject of my book "In The Lion's Mouth." She deserves an opera--one of the most daring and conspicuous Jewish leaders of that terrible time.
AND, I think I have an idea about a possible composer. But we shall see.

A few days ago I sat down and worked on a post for over an hour. Just as I had finished it, it was expunged. I have not had any explanation from Blogstream, although you can bet I asked for one.
But I am not especially blaming Blogstream, either. Inventors and designers of Internet software seem to be convinced that writing is not a "real" activity. My own theory is that most of them could not do it.
My schedule precludes my writing posts that long in the near future. I am trying to get around more in the community, especially since I went to a party a few days ago and found I didn't remember many of the people there. They remembered ME, all right; and I found it highly embarrassing. Other than that, the party was wonderful. It was a "160th birthday party" for the distinguished regional architect Albert Wolfring Leh, and in celebration of the book our friend Ken Raniere is writing about him. Ken was among those who rediscovered Leh; and the book he is doing (with magnificent photography by John Kish, and perhaps some others) should be ready by this time next year. I am glad to have played a role in helping Ken get the moral and financial backing he needed. A lot of things had to fit together. When push comes to shove, they did.
It was a pleasure to have this party in a restored Leh building, a former drugstore at 310 W. Broad St. where I myself once shopped. Now it is the Ambre Gallery, wonderfully redesigned by my old friend Christine Ussler. Chris is a fine architect and preservationist whose talents and integrity are a great asset to Bethlehem right now. Like many great assets, she's overworked and underappreciated. She also was a board member of the South Bethlehem Historical Society, in the days when she had time and the Society had a bright future.
(It's about to have a new president, a person for whom I have a lot of regard. But even Tom Mohr does not seem to recognize how much of the neighborhood tradition has been lost, and how important it is to ACT.)