An old theory holds that air conditioning ruined Congress. Members no longer had to flee the Washington heat to spend the summer back home. The long vacation forced them to bond with their constituents.
I've talked to several who have been approached for short- or long-term duty in the Trump administration. The evidence of the work environment that mounts with each passing day makes them highly wary.
My mother, Nancy Dickerson, was a reporter for CBS and NBC and the first female star of television news; my father, Wyatt Dickerson, was a successful businessman. Their parties, from the '60s to the '80s, attracted cabinet officials, movie stars, and presidents.
In their day, no man worthy of the presidency would ever stoop to campaigning for it. George Washington was asked to serve. Decades later, his successors were also expected to sit by the phone.
In 2008, Senator John McCain forbid his staff from using an ad that referred to his opponent Barack Obama's inflammatory former pastor Jeremiah Wright or from raising that issue in any other way. He believed it was a sneaky way to use Obama's race against him.
If we practice hard enough, we can become thoroughly interested in even the simplest things of daily life, the way a child would. The smallest things would become so meaningful, they might even be worth a few words or a photograph, whatever method you use to capture them.
