You'll have to admit

It's getting better, better all the time. The last few days have been wearying. I have had a litany of SYMPTOMS! They are slowly resolving themselves and I no longer feel damned by the hubris of predicting sixty-four. I will resume walking as I have missed that very much. This is a pleasant town to walk in as there is absolutely nothing going on. There are still the trees and the flowers and the birds and the river and the waterfall. If I feel particularly sprightly, there is the farm and the canal. There is always the library and across the street from it A DOUGHNUT SHOP! Coffee, a doughnut, and a book, that is a match made in heaven. I grew up in a city that had a doughnut shop and a pizza shop in every one of the many villages of that city.
Uxbridge has a pizza shop but it is a Greek pizza shop. That means a crust like pastry and a cheese steak sandwich that has the meat chopped so fine that it seems like a beef pesto. I remember fondly the cheese steak at Jackies near Filene's in Boston. Beef and cheese and onions and peppers and tomatoes on good French bread with plenty of grease running down my arm. Ahh the memories are flooding back. The Hole in the Wall with roast brisket on a bulkie with swiss cheese and horseradish mustard and a slice of onion, followed by a grilled knackwurst treated the same way.
There is little diversity in this town. I grew up in a city that had Polocks and Guineas and Squareheads and Frogs and Limeys and Harps and Spics and Jews and Towelheads and Chinks. I don't remember any friction between the groups. They all lived their lives the same way. They worked hard and long, they lived for their children's future, and they minded their own business. Then they sat down to eat and I sat down with them. You cannot have difficulties with people who put such splendor before you.
Our capital has statues and documents and memorials that celebrate the foundations of this country. The Senate Dining Room was originally dedicated to Alferd Packer (how appropriate is that?). I would like to see a long high granite wall with the menu of America inscribed on it celebrating the real reason we can stand living with each other. The Chinese have the most wonderful way of greeting a stranger or a visitor. They open everything with "Have you eaten?". Never mind "Who are you?" or "What are you doing here?" or "What do you believe in?". "Have you eaten?", there can be no mistaking such a greeting as hostile or treacherous. It used to be the custom of the Western world to greet a stranger thus but that custom has withered under the onslaught of progress. The first holiday in America was Thanksgiving. Everyone brought something to the table and sat together and ate together. Thanksgiving is now celebrated with football, a fine symbol of peace and harmony.
I think that the only hope for America is to elect Jacques Pepin as President-for-Life. There would be celebrations in the vineyards of California, the dairy farms of Vermont and Wisconsin, the meat producing Midwest, the fisheries of New England, the Vegetable Belt of the Mid Atlantic states. New Orleans could be the nations new capital. Our needs are oxygen, water, food, and shelter. All else is wants. Imagine if the world decided to all sit down and have a good meal, a glass of wine, and mind their own business.
This line of thinking was brought on by my reading an article where the author suggested dealing with North Korea by insuring that no food be allowed to be imported into North Korea, thereby causing the people to rise up and change their government. There seems to be a consensus that their government is crazy but the people are HUNGRY. Would an Eastern intellectual, who undoubtedly espouses the concept of the Brotherhood of Man, deny his brother a meal? A Muslim, those crazy, mean, car bombing, terrorists have a stipulation in their holy book. If at sundown a crazy person is on your doorstep, you must take them in and feed them and give them shelter for the night.
We have the resouces to do such but our society is more concerned with the welfare of General Motors than we are with General Mills. A wise man once said "Feed my sheep.". He wasn't concerned about how much extra wool or lambchops he would get, he was just concerned about the wellbeing of the flock. Tell a North Korean child that the reason he is hungry is that his government is crazy and the only thing that he will remember is that you kept the food away from him. Give him a heaping bowl of rice with a small American flag embossed on the bottom of the bowl and he might remember something else. How much control does a starving Korean child have over his government? About as much as a hungry Latino child in Los Angeles does.
So we put a new inscription on the Statue of Liberty. "Have you Eaten?".