Hearing from long-lost college roommate prompts a life review

The other day an email arrived from an old college roommate. It was startling to hear from someone after more than half a century. It was humbling to Google her and learn that she is a retired multidegreed professor. 

Sharon and I shared an apartment on the University of Illinois campus when it was still at Champaign-Urbana rather than Urbana-Champaign. We lost contact after graduation.

She wanted to catch up by phone or email. What did I have to say for myself? I decided to be candid in my email:

Roth novel foreshadowed Trump's tyranny

“Every day I ask myself the same question: How can this be happening in America? How can people like these be in charge of our country? If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I’d think I was having an hallucination.” 

Think that’s from a recent news story? Nope. It’s from Philip Roth’s 2004 speculative fiction novel The Plot Against America, which HBO later adapted for television. 

Dear Congressional Republicans . . .

I usually don’t write about politics because I don’t have anything to say that professional pundits have not said already. But every now and then the news is so bad that to ignore it is callous.