Letter from the Editor

seen in print in Wed., Mar. 3 Register-Guard

 

    Despite the dedication of our president and both political parties to health care reform, time drags on with no accord. The debacle has become a kidney stone the nation cannot pass.

    This perpetual development and unraveling is frustrating for all sides and painful to watch from any angle. I follow its course as I study abroad in Italy and field questions from continentals who track the debate as closely as I do.

    They wonder why, with our wealth, we don’t provide national health care. They ask further how Republicans can oppose such a humane concept. I explain that we’ve been trying for a while, and that Republicans oppose not national health care, but the extension of the federal government and the threat to business interests. These are concerns that date to our country’s infancy.

    I never convince my interlocutor, only rarely do I convince myself. I defend America because I love it, and I defend our politics because they are usually better than the disarray of Italy and of Europe. But I know our system is wrong.

    A story: Four days into the new year I jumped down a snowy slope in Tuscany. Tuscan snow is not like Cascades snow, and I severely sprained my ankle on a rock beneath the surface. At the hospital I showed my American passport, and they sent me back for x-rays (graciously negative), then wrapped me up and wheeled me out to a taxi. Only inside, speeding home, did I realize I’d received no bill. All I was going to pay for my misadventure was the cab fare.

    The Italians tell me their system has problems. People wait, access to doctors is difficult. But our horror stories border on the macabre. My hope is that we can learn something from the Old World and become the world leader as well in taking care of our citizens.◊

 

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Updates from Italy

 

27.02.10. Fun with mail.

    What I had before me was a highly suspicious package. Had it been received at the White House, it may have raised the terror alert. What bothered me was not the cheery merchandise on top, nor the bunches of crimped red paper stuffed round, but rather the vacuum-sealed pouch below that I’d torn open. Its contents: three deep-fried balls and one very green pancake. It was in fact not so much a flapjack as a lilypad. And I desperately wanted to eat it.

    For weeks, months even, I had been expecting this package. When at home, I go weekly to Addi’s Diner in Springfield for their famous turkey-platter pancake, and Addi promised me I would not have to go without while abroad in Italy. Two weeks ago she let slip that she’d finally made good on her word. … (continued here)

 

 

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JATB Newswire

 

Salad Revenues Are Dressing for Greek Wounds

by Chip Butler


    Relief has come for Greek balance sheets, and it has nothing to do with budget cuts: the Western world has gone gaga over Greek salad. Eight years after smash hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding boosted international sales of Greek olives and honey, a sudden uptick in feta sales has the country looking up and its cheese producers working around the clock.

    Feta is the star ingredient of Greek salad (horiatiki), an amalgam that includes tomato, cucumber, red onion, kalamata olives and green pepper. Abroad, the dish is especially popular in the United States, where lettuce is usually added, but has found a place on menus across the world: as Bauernsalat in Germany, as salade à la Grecque in France, as görög saláta in Hungary, and as ensalada griega in Spain. Each of these countries has reported feta sales increases of at least 12% across the last six months—almost exactly the level of Greek debt in the 2009 budget cycle. … (continued here)

 

 

Fiction

 

Good-night Mr. Bassington

a tribute to Ernst Lubitsch by Chris Bradley


    The navy bathrobe hung in the closet corner, limp and in shadow. Its sash dangled to the ground. Mr. Bassington feared to come near. Should he poke the fabric he was bound to find something solid inside. Were it not for Lawrence, Mr. Bassington would have left the silk robe curled at the foot of his bed like a terrier, to stroke or pick up as he saw fit. Dead things that lay crumpled were clearly dead. But the butler insisted on hanging it, on hanging everything, hanging even one of Mr. Bassington’s best Turkish carpets on the walls. Mr. Bassington considered this act a challenge, and spent his last minutes before sleep thinking how he might walk across it regardless, clinging to the pile with his toes.

    Mr. Bassington lunged into the closet and seized the robe—if someone were inside, Mr. Bassington would choke the life out of him. Nobody was. He held empty silk. In all the world, suddenly, there was nothing so sad as holding handfuls of empty silk. Mr. Bassington closed his eyes and slipped on the robe, a salve on his dried skin. … (continued here)

 

 

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An Obituary

 

Charles Bream
(25 Aug. 1943-15 Feb. 2010)

 

    Charles Bream died of a heart attack Wednesday at his ranch house in Madison, Wisconsin. (The Bream home is the third one down from the hardware-convenience store on Pine, the brick house that’s had a droopy gate for a while.) Charles was found slumped on the toilet with dental floss wrapped around his right and left index fingers. He is survived by his wife Beverly and his sons Jeremiah and Paul. He was 66.

    Although Charles was taken from us too soon, he lived a full life. In third grade his team earned second place in the local basketball league, and for a year after Charlie would remember the single basket he scored in the championship game, a layup six minutes into the fourth quarter that put his team up by one. Later, in his moments of leisure, he would tell Jeremiah and Paul about his exploits on the basketball court. They dribbled and swooped along with Dad as he told the tale. Perhaps they tired of hearing always about this one game, but every Saturday afternoon they joined Dad in reenacting the third grade championship in their driveway while Mom brought out hot chocolate or grape juice popsicles. Charles rarely made a layup when playing with his sons, but Jeremiah and Paul were quite good and may now be seen playing on Sunday and Tuesday nights in the A-level recreational league. … (continued here)

 

 

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Where can I find more from the author?

 

-Exploring Troubled Romance: A Collection of Stories (just the stories, ma'am)

          •or, with critical introduction

-Unbound Online Literary Magazine

          •Fall 2009: short story "Jasper Pines," and poem "Converging Cumuli"

         •Spring 2009: short story "The Perfect Housewife," and poem "Beauty-Bearing Shoulders"

-Oregon Voice issue 2.5