Quote of the Day (Franklin Roosevelt, on the ‘War for the Survival of Democracy’)

“In this world of ours in other lands, there are some people, who, in times past, have lived and fought for freedom, and seem to have grown too weary to carry on the fight. They have sold their heritage of freedom for the illusion of a living. They have yielded their democracy.

“I believe in my heart that only our success can stir their ancient hope. They begin to know that here in America we are waging a great and successful war. It is not alone a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization. It is more than that; it is a war for the survival of democracy. We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.”— U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), Acceptance Speech for the Renomination for the Presidency, Philadelphia, Pa., June 27, 1936

That “war” continues, though in our country the prospects for victory look increasingly uncertain.

Quote of the Day (Theodore Roethke, on a Landscape Wearing ‘An April Look’)

“Soon field and wood will wear an April look.
The frost be gone, for green is breaking now;
The ovenbird will match the vocal brook,
The young fruit swell upon the pear-tree bough.
 
“And soon a branch, part of a hidden scene,
The leafy mind, that long was tightly furled,
Will turn its private substance into green,
And young shoots spread upon our inner world.” —Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Theodore Roethke (1908-1963), "My Papa's Waltz" (1942) from Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke (1961) 

Quote of the Day (Anna Stolley Persky, on an Alarming Note Received in April, 40 Years Ago)

“Esther opened the first note on a Tuesday, on a breezy April afternoon in Northern Virginia. The note—off-white paper, folded twice, addressed in capital letters to ‘The Jews on Elm Street’—had been slipped into the mailbox underneath several bills and a Sears, Roebuck catalog….Sliding the rest of the mail under one arm, Esther opened the note. Inside the note was one thing, just a symbol, and yet not just a symbol, not to Esther and certainly not to her grandmother, who had barely escaped the war. Inside the note was a swastika, intended just for them, the only Jews on Elm Street.”—American lawyer, journalist, and essayist Anna Stolley Persky, “The Jews on Elm Street,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September-October 2024

With all the things requiring my focus these days, I don’t have the time to take in all the detection fiction I want to read. But this short story by Anna Stolley Persky called insistently for my attention from its first few paragraphs.

It’s not just a crime story, but a coming-of-age tale involving 14-year-old Esther, forced to confront mounting, insidious terror few would believe possible in the Northern Virginia suburb Cherry Tree. And—especially relevant now—it’s about the persistence of antisemitism, decades after the US defeated its most dangerous exponent in World War II, and about the ordinary people—even those, like Esther’s beloved grandmother Orly, waning in physical strength—called upon to defend against it again.

The threatening notes in the initial paragraphs of this short story escalate until Orly pieces together the clues to determine who was responsible for sending them. Though it is set in the mid-1980s (there are references to Columbo reruns and to Murder, She Wrote, “a newer show Orly had started watching”), it is all too applicable to America in 2025:

“Here, Orly thought, was a life lesson for Esther. The authorities were not necessarily there to protect THEM. Here was the lesson she never wanted, but always needed her granddaughter to understand. Maybe things changed a little. Certainly, this country was better than others, but eventually it all circled back to the same idea: They would always be struggling against the same prejudices, over and over, generation after generation.”

I greatly enjoyed this, Ms. Persky’s first published fiction—and evidently, I’m far from the only one. It has been named a finalist for the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award for Best First Mystery Story, to be given in early May. I look forward to more work by this fellow Columbo devotee who, like me, believes, as she noted in this guest post for the “Something Is Going to Happen!” blog, in the importance of “character-driven” detective novels.

Quote of the Day (Jeff Greenfield, Proposing a Different Kind of Morning News Show)

“With some 315 million Americans living in homes with TVs, there is clearly a huge market inefficiency here [in morning news shows] that is waiting for a visionary network TV executive to fill. How? With a morning program that fearlessly embraces the morning misanthropy that defines the emotional state of so many of us; that provides an offering that lets us embrace the sour spirit with which we begin the day.”—American author and longtime political, media and culture reporter Jeff Greenfield, “How About a Morning Show for the Sullen and Sleepy?” The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 8-9, 2025

The image accompanying this post, showing Jeff Greenfield talking about his book, Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternate Histories of American Politics, was taken Oct. 3, 2011 by and at the Miller Center of Public Affairs, Charlottesville, VA.

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Ernest Hemingway, on Visiting Pamplona Cathedral)

“At the end of the street I saw the cathedral and walked up toward it. The first time I ever saw it I thought the façade was ugly but I liked it now. I went inside. It was dim and dark and the pillars went high up, and there were people praying, and it smelt of incense, and there were some wonderful big windows. I knelt and started to pray and prayed for everybody I thought of, Brett and Mike and Bill and Robert Cohn and myself, and all the bull-fighters, separately for the ones I liked, and lumping all the rest, then I prayed for myself again, and while I was praying for myself I found I was getting sleepy, so I prayed that the bull-fights would be good, and that it would be a fine fiesta, and that we would get some fishing. I wondered if there was anything else I might pray for, and I thought I would like to have some money, so I prayed that I would make a lot of money, and then I started to think how I would make it, and thinking of making money reminded me of the count, and I started wondering about where he was, and regretting I hadn’t seen him since that night in Montmartre, and about something funny Brett told me about him, and as all the time I was kneeling with my forehead on the wood in front of me, and was thinking of myself as praying, I was a little ashamed, and regretted that I was such a rotten Catholic, but realized there was nothing I could do about it, at least for a while, and maybe never, but that anyway it was a grand religion, and I only wished I felt religious and maybe I would the next time.”—American Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, short-story writer, and memoirist Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), on Pamplona Cathedral, Spain, in The Sun Also Rises (1926)

Quote of the Day (David Brooks, on Moderates Vs. a Narcissist Who Will ‘Reap a Whirlwind’)

“Moderates don’t operate from the safety of their ideologically pure galleons. They are unafraid to face the cross currents, detached from clan, acknowledging how little they know. If you have elected a man who is not awed by the complexity of the world, but who filters the world to suit his own narcissism, then woe to you, because such a man is the opposite of the moderate voyager type. He will reap a whirlwind.”—Opinion columnist David Brooks, “What Moderates Believe,” The New York Times, Aug. 22, 2017

Very interesting to come across this, nearly eight years later. Sadly, it hasn't dated a bit.

Photo of the Day: Saddle River County Park, Ridgewood, NJ

The Northeast has had its share of low temperatures and damp conditions since the official start of spring. But warmer days (think: high ‘70s) have alternated enough with these periods to lure out the buds on at least some trees.

That was certainly the case the other day when I walked in Saddle River County Park, not far from where I live in Bergen County, NJ. I was especially taken with the landscape in this image, with cherry blossoms springing to life with the park’s wild duck pond and fountain in the background.