Midlife Meditation

Then-candidate Trump gestures to a crowd during a rally last September. What did you do during the war? My generation grew up asking that question of our parents and grandparents, and all of them had answers. Many of our fathers served in the armed forces. Some of our mothers were also part of the military. But you didn't have to be a soldier, a sailor, a pilot, or one of the many behind-the-lines support personnel to have stories about the war. Everyone was impacted in some way: much of the American economy pivoted to support the American role in the war, with major industries retooling to produce tanks instead of cars, guns instead of appliances. Those who stayed behind learned to get by with what they had, nursing older cars along at lower speeds to conserve rationed gasoline; or simply to do without. I can't begin to imagine what it was like to try and live a normal life during this time. It's not that I haven't had to live with things hanging over my...

Too soon! As in so many other things, Donald Trump has defined the impending era for us via Twitter. Trump was commenting on an incident involving an American drone submarine being impounded by the Chinese navy. He called it "unpresidented." The tweet was later corrected to read "unprecedented," and there's at least a chance Trump knew that was the correct word, and just slipped up and used a nonexistent homophone instead, something I've done myself in the heat of passioante writing (both with a keyboard and a pen). Merriam Webster spun it into a "not" joke with its own tweet, saying "unpresidented" was NOT the word of the day, as that honor was reserved for the word "huh." Social media seized on the neologism, and it's been everywhere, as the nation tries to come to grips with what's going to happen on January 20. The scrambling to correct the Freudian slip--and the ironic glee with which it's been welcom...