I Am Not Hamlet

If we are to have a democracy at all, it seems obvious that we must have a State populated not by anonymous economic units, but by men and women who can know, and be known by, one another.  The anonymous man is in a sense no man at all.   --Willis Fisher, "Small-Town Middle-Westerner" from Who Owns America?

I love autumn.  Inevitably, when September cools down my thoughts turn to Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Puritans.  The colorful chlorophyll withdrawal, the migrations, the difference in the smell of the air: all of these contribute to my favorite season, capped off by the high holy day of Thanksgiving.  The one drawback (that I can think of) to fall, in Michigan anyway, is the shuttering of farmers' markets.  The growing season comes to near standstill in Michigan by late December, but the markets have been closed since the beginning of the month (I believe Ann Arbor's is open through December) and that means the end of humanely slaughtered meats free of hormones and other Big Ag commodities.  No more fresh lettuce, peppers, squash, and apples.  No more diversity in size, taste, smell, and shape of the same kinds of produce.  Even though I might be able to find "organic" produce in grocery stores, it just isn't the same.  The majori