The Boy from Shopton

 Wendall -- every other Thursday

Last week was the 5th anniversary of my father's death, so I thought I would re-post this tribute to him. Miss you, always, Grady.

Until four years ago, Father’s Day was one of my favorite days of the year. My late dad, Grady Thomas, never really liked a fuss, but on Father’s Day, as far as I was concerned, he just had to put up with it. 

 

My dad, the audiologist, monitoring me, which he never did in life.

 

I didn’t get to spend as many of those holidays with him as I wish I had, but I’ll always be grateful I was able to take him out to lunch on Father’s Day the year before he passed away, when these pictures were taken. 

 

Father's Day lunch

Now, the day is bittersweet. I miss his advice, I miss his wit, I miss the smell of Sir Walter Raleigh pipe smoke curling through every room in the house. 

 

This is the look I got when I mentioned one of my hare-brained schemes.

 

My Dad was a natural athlete and a great singer. He was even part of a traveling quartet called the “Gospeleers.” He loved liver and onions. And thunderstorms. 

 

High school football. But baseball was really his game.

 

One of my most vivid memories is sitting on his lap on our screened in porch and hearing the suck of his pipe between claps of thunder. He was never without his pipe, even in his last days, where he snuck out of his medical facility so he could smoke in the parking lot with my brother and sister.

 

Dad with pipe, 1960s

Dad with pipe, 2019

I keep one of those pipes on my desk and wear the silver bracelets engraved with Lost Luggage and Drowned Under he and my step-mother gave me when I published my first two books. 

 

You'll never find me at a reading without these

In many ways, I take after him. I have his squinty eyes, his passion for music, movies, and driving, his need for regular bouts of solitude, and a penchant for “pantsing,” in work and in life.

 

Off to rent Sargent York or Patton, AGAIN

 

One of the last conversations I ever had with him was about fate and opportunity. He grew up the youngest of six on a farm outside Charlotte, N.C., with no running water or electricity, but complete with an outhouse (as a child, he was famous for locking neighbors in and making them sing to get out...). He told me that the whole trajectory of his life, which he thought he would spend as a minor league baseball player or a mechanic, came down to his willingness to veer off course and say yes to random opportunities. 

 

 

This is a kid who would lock someone in an outhouse

I loved how he—the scientist that he was—saw the patterns of the last eighty years which had led him from that outhouse not only to the first college degree in his family, but to a PhD.

 

As kids, we don’t always know about our parents’ accomplishments. And Dad was never one to brag about what he was doing. I don’t think I appreciated the full picture until I was well into my forties. Among other things, he was the first clinical audiologist in the state of North Carolina and became the Head of the Speech and Hearing Department at the UNC Medical Center. He was Chairman of the Medical Advisory Council for OSHA, and his expertise on  the vestibular system led to frequent work with NASA investigating causes of space sickness. He worked in diving medicine as well, and is listed in Who’s Who in American Science.

 

I did know, however, that he was a generous, hilarious, tolerant, and kind man, and that’s what I remember, more than any accolades.  

 

 

Always cracking me up

He was great at the “Dad” stuff. He sat by my bed when I was sick, taught me to ride a bike and to drive, bought me my first transistor radio and my first album—The Monkees’ Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, and Jones, Ltd. But more than that, he always encouraged me to be independent and to do what I loved. When I decided I wanted to play the guitar, he got me my first inexpensive one, then told me he’d pay for half of the serious, Guild G-37 I really wanted, if I worked for the rest. After I did three hundred hours of babysitting (!), he kept that promise. 

 

Only a great dad would involve himself in this nonsense

 

And when I got my first paying gig at 15, at a pizza joint that served beer, my mother said I was going to hell. Dad came and ran the soundboard. He was like that for my whole life, no matter what I got up to.

 

Before he died, I’d encouraged him to write down at least some of his experiences growing up and, although it is unfinished, the few pages of his memoir, The Boy from Shopton, are precious to me and say a lot about him, and a lot about my grandparents as well. There were a few things I didn’t know, like this.

 

For a while, his nickname was "Flash"

 

“In order to get the job at the A&P, I had to have a Social Security Card. I went to the Records Dept. in Charlotte to get a copy of my birth certificate, but they could not find it. They had a Richard Grady Thomas with the correct parents and birthday, but no William Grady Thomas. As I have indicated earlier, I was born at home. My mother gave our family doctor, Dr. Richard Querry, the name she wanted on the birth certificate. Dr. Querry told my mother that he was going to name this boy after himself. Of course, mother thought he was kidding, but for the first twelve years of my life I was Richard Grady Thomas. It was terribly expensive to have my birth certificate changed, a whopping 50 cents.”

 

And this story says so much:

 

“In March of my sophomore year in high school I turned 16 years of age. My brother-in-law, Hudie Moser, took me to the Driver's License Bureau and I got my driver's license on my birthday. That evening I took the family car out to visit some friends. Neither my mother nor my father asked where I was going or when I would be back. I knew to stay out of trouble and when to return home. As indicated previously, my mother and father tended to teach by example instead of threats.”

 

Last time I saw my Dad, still cracking me up

 

My Dad was the same. He trusted us to follow his example, and that has made all the difference. Families are complicated and these kinds of holidays can bring up feelings we might not welcome or that we stuff down most of the year. Thankfully for me, I’m happy to remember Grady anytime. 

 

--Wendall

The Brain on Conspiracies: Understanding the Neurological Differences Between Believers and Non-Believers

 

Introduction

As the election season is upon us, conspiracy theories are taking on new importance, influencing public opinion and voting behaviors. Conspiracy theories are no longer fringe ideas—they’ve become widespread across social media and public discourse. But what makes certain people more likely to believe in them? Emerging research from neuroscience and psychology suggests there are physiological brain changes in conspiracy believers compared to those who dismiss such theories. 

The Amygdala: The Fear Center of the Brain

The amygdala, an area of the brain associated with processing emotions like fear, plays a significant role in conspiratorial thinking. According to a study in Nature, heightened amygdala activity has been observed in individuals who tend to focus on perceived threats, a core element in many conspiracy theories. This overactivity could explain why conspiracy believers are more prone to anxiety and suspicion, as their brains react more intensely to the idea of danger or deception.

A tiny structure with a big job

The Role of the Prefrontal Cortex

While the amygdala governs emotions, the prefrontal cortex—responsible for higher-order functions like reasoning and decision-making—regulates logical thinking. A study from CellGate reveals that individuals prone to believing in conspiracy theories show reduced prefrontal cortex activity, which may impair their ability to analyze information critically. This diminished activity weakens their capacity to question dubious claims or resist emotionally charged, irrational ideas (Sanfey et al., 2003).

Need for Closure vs. Need for Cognition: Two Personality Types

A recent NPR podcast highlights two psychological profiles that might explain why some people are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories. According to research, people needing closure seek certainty and precise answers and tend to feel uncomfortable with ambiguity. Delusion-proneness was associated with a need for closure. This preference makes them more susceptible to black-and-white explanations, a hallmark of many conspiracy theories (Kruglanski & Webster, 1996). Conversely, individuals with a high "need for cognition" are more open to complexity and uncertainty, making them less likely to accept conspiratorial claims at face value.

Election Season and the Rise of Conspiracy Theories

As election season approaches, conspiracy theories become even more prominent. From allegations of election fraud to unfounded claims about political candidates, heightened amygdala activity in conspiracy believers is more easily triggered by politically charged misinformation. According to a report by The Washington Post, rampant misinformation during election periods has a profound impact on voter behavior, with conspiracy believers being particularly vulnerable to manipulation. This makes understanding the brain's role in conspiracy thinking more important than ever during such critical times.

How the Amygdala Influences Conspiratorial Thinking

The heightened activity in the amygdala fuels emotional responses and triggers a greater tendency to perceive the world as threatening. This threat-detection bias makes conspiracy theories—often built around fear and hidden dangers—especially attractive. 

Susceptibility to Conspiracies: A Brain Balance

The balance between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex is crucial for regulating emotional responses and applying rational thought. Emotional reactivity can overwhelm logic when this balance tips toward amygdala-driven fear and suspicion, as in conspiracy believers. A Harvard Medical School study underscores how reduced adolescent prefrontal cortex activity results in impaired reasoning. 

Conclusion

The neurological and psychological differences between conspiracy believers and non-believers provide valuable insights into why some individuals are likelier to fall for misinformation. Studies show heightened amygdala activity, reduced prefrontal cortex function, and personality traits like a high "need for closure" are key factors. As election season amplifies the spread of conspiracies, understanding these brain changes becomes critical for developing strategies to counter misinformation and promote critical thinking.

Distractions

Annamaria on Monday

All we MIE bloggers, from time to time, run into situations when the available time is consumed with what we might call "real life. This is one of those times for me.  Distractions have consumed the time I would otherwise have devoted to sharing thoughts of a some more or less amusing or informative nature.  One of those distractions was completely wonderful.

Miriam Anderson Hall

Kimmel Center

Philadelphia

Thanks to an invitation from fellow music lovers in Philadelphia, I had an opportunity to attend a concert performance of the Verdi Requiem.  It is a brilliant, enormously powerful piece of music that I have long enoyed in recordings, but that i had never heard in its entirety in a live performance. Conducted by Ricardo Muti, it was splendid.  So much so that it took me a couple of hours into the night for me to fall asleep.

Here is a taste of the music, not by the great Philadelphia Orchestra, but one available on YouTube, by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

The other distraction was of a far less welcome nature.  It came to my attention the following morning, Sunday morning while listening to the news, that Mr. Trump would be holding a political rally at Madison Square Garden at 5PM.  Thing was, i was schedule to take a train home from Philly arriving at 7PM.  My train would be arriving into a the teeth of a maelstrom of ProTroump and Anti-Trump activists.  My friends and I altered our plans.  I would be robbed of a walk in the local arboretum with them and instead take an earlier train in the hopes of avoiding getting struck in the crowds.

As it turned out, as I exited Penn Station at 1:30 PM, 8th Avenue was at a complete halt, with bumper to bumper cars five abreast.  Every possible spot was chockablock with people and to the east, all ways were blocked  with barriers. The police lieutenant guarding one told me that the Secret Service had closed off the movement in that direction.

It's good to know the ropes.  I found my way around it all and arrived at home in time throw this report together.  A big regret is that I did not take more pictures. But readers, I am sure, know what a traffic jam looks like.

I really wish I had conservedf more energy to make this post more lively.

It's Political Cartoon Peak Season

 

Jeff-Saturday

 

With the US Presidential Election ten days away, feelings in the US (and around the world) are running high. Thankfully, this time around we’ve only had to put up with three months of head-to-head madness---though it seems a lot longer.

 

Frankly, I’m about done with it all (especially the incessant pitch by all parties for $$$$$$), so I turned to political cartoonists for a bit of lighter insight on where and how they see the election going.

 

Considering the times, I’m not surprised there’s an awful lot of decidedly partisan stuff out there, but I decided not to head in that direction. Instead, I went looking for bigger picture approaches and found common ground on some basic principles.  But before I turn to those examples, I thought I’d give you a taste of the partisan sort of cartoons our there…and believe me when I say these two are among the mildest.

 

To those two I’ve added a third cartoon, not because I see it as partisan, but because there nothing about the subject it critiques which strikes me as justifiable in free elections. 

 

Having said that, let’s move on to a plethora of jibes taken at the rarest of all voters still out there.

 

And for those who suffer from undecided extremis, these next two cartoons are for you.

 

For those who enjoy the rough and tough world of political haggling over competing beliefs, have no fear. Just keep in mind this cartoon’s message.

 

And for those who see election day as a welcome end to neighbor-against-neighbor bickering and belittling, I offer you this cartoon.

 

But no matter how things turn out, make sure you turn out to VOTE.

 

––Jeff

Putting a foot on the handbrake

I was at an event yesterday that involved a very cold ferry, some very nice pasta, a bottle of 19  Crimes wine and a very nice bookshop.

And cake.

Him indoors decorating a cake in the digital age.

The usual suspects were involved - me, Michael Malone and Douglas Skelton. Dina, who runs the bookshop, was getting a train to Paris that night on her way to holiday in the south of Spain. The most difficult part of the journey was getting the ferry back to the mainland. Well, not really the mainland, cause it's not an island. But it is a very long drive round.

I use the term 'long' in a Scottish way, bearing in mind that last week we were calling a 35mph wind a 'hurricane'. Although other weather types are available we do only excel at rain.

Scottish yearly forecast

 

During the chat Douglas used the phrase  'the handbrake moment', which is when something happens in the book which is neither plausible nor probable. I presume it’s the same point that I throw the book across the room. It’s a more extreme reaction than the phrase 'that pulls you out of the narrative' when you hear the author’s voice intruding.

So on the ferry home we were talking about the handbrake moments. Typical themes were police officers doing very silly things like getting out of bed in the middle of the night because they hear a noise in the graveyard and they ignore their baton (in the UK), their gun (other territories), the rottweiller sleeping in the corner, the mobile phone and head out unarmed into the graveyard wearing only their pants (British pants). If you have to do that to make your plot work, you should have thought about it a bit harder.

This cover is here because of something relevant to the blog- something I had to made fit to avoid a handbrake moment. It's so beautifully, seamlessly woven into the plot that I can't recall what it was.

A few others that came up were, this happening more in film than in books – the pursued running in front of the chasing car. Why do they not just jump to the side? In the TV series The Tourist with Jamie Dornan, he was running along a single track road being pursued by a car.

A dry stane dyke.

 There were dry stain dykes on either side of the road. All he had to do was jump over. And if the car tried to follow him it would come to a sorry end. Dry stain dykes can stand up to Highland Cattle being annoyed. So a Toyota Rav4 would have been pulverized. 

Others are big CGI war scenes that go on and on to increase the running time of the production and the junk morality contained therein. The other half wants me to write in here  ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ and use the word proselytize in a proper sentence.

Signing and more signing

My personal pet hatred in a film is when somebody goes to walk out the room and with their hand on the handle they turn round, they make a face as if they’ve just found a wasp in their rum and raisin ice cream and say,  'thanks'. 

There’s also splitting up to search the haunted house, never a good idea. And, running out of bullets at exactly the wrong moment. Or, indeed not using bullets when you’ve got them. If they had just shot James Bond rather than trying to feed him to the sharks, dangle him over a volcano etc the franchise would have been over very quickly.

Talking about this blog to a patient, they said that they had been reading a book by a very well known author, where a man staggers about on a broken leg for three chapters or more. This patient actually had the exact same fracture and he couldn’t stagger from the snow on to the stretcher which was six inches away.

I'm looking at self help books. Don't know what the other two are doing...

I think one of my pet hates is when the author gives a well known character a talent that they’ve never mentioned before but they have it now because the plot needs it. In the Anderson and Costello books Mulholland has a Russian mother, so he speaks fluent Russian. You know that about him in book 1, and it comes in handy in books 4 and 5. But as it’s a well established fact it comes as no surprise. The ability to lip read fluently? The ability to speak New Testament Greek? It's all just a bit suspect if its only there to make the plot work.

Me and knife... what could go wrong?

At the event somebody said 'There's two Glaswegians in here, that's enough for a fight.'

I remember flinging the book across the room when a certain well known crime fighter came across a body trapped underwater. So, they just went to the boot (Trunk??) of their car, opened it  and lo and behold their SCUBA equipment was right there. And that’s another one that comes to mind, the ability to fly a helicopter. The amount of time a man goes running towards a helicopter, jumps in and away he goes, is ridiculous.

Skippy  diffusing a bomb with her paws is more believable.

Skippy was wise.

I think I remember a reader of this blog saying that a screen full of computer code while someone types furiously was his particular bug bear.  

Occasionally,  there’s the opposite effect. When you mention something that happens a lot and you put it in a novel because it's second nature to you. The ferry we were on last night goes from A to B. Our driver was saying that most people try and take the ferry. It's not the length of the drive round that’s the problem, it’s the fact you have to go along a road called the Rest and Be Thankful. It's closed again for the fourth time this year due to yet another landslide. The military road at the bottom of the glen has never been closed for any reason because cattle drovers knew the safe way through the hills. At the moment the military road is being used, but the traffic is going through by convoy and the wait can be a very long time indeed. The latest idea, as the cages haven't  worked, is to build something like an avalanche roof over the road so the landslides go over the top--- and will probably then block the military road as well.

Michael wondering why he gets himself involved in these events.

I used this convoy scenario on that road at the start of book 5, somebody being held at the red light on that spooky road in the small hours of the morning due to yet another landslide. Big red pen from my editor down the side 'Yes, but how often does this actually happen!' It's more a case of when is the road actually open!

What’s your particular handbrake moment? 

 

Cold cases

 Michael - Alternate Thursdays

Why are cold cases so fascinating? Look at the popularity of all the fact-based TV series complete with interviews with the actual investigators and witnesses. One obvious reason is that because the cases take so long to solve, they tend to be twisty and surprising. Otherwise they wouldn’t be cold cases in the first place. Maybe the fact that the detectives are initially baffled and only new evidence or new technology allows them to make a breakthrough adds to the interest. Whatever the reasons, cold cases grab attention. And there are plenty of them in plenty of varieties. For a selection take a look at Wikipedia.

Mystery Fanfare's take on cold cases...

It’s conventional wisdom that a case that’s going to be solved at all is usually solved in two days. Actually, investigators say that more accurately a person of interest is identified in that time period, and a couple of weeks is all that’s required to gather enough evidence so that the person can be arrested. (Generally, Forensics needs longer than a few days to process all the evidence, and DNA may take longer still.) A Washington Post examination of 8,000 homicide arrests across 25 major U.S. cities since 2007 found that in half of the cases an arrest was made in ten days or less.

Still, in a murder case, the police would expect the case to stay “warm” for about a year before it gets relegated to the cold-case division. That would be another group of detectives (maybe just one) who will go over the casefile again in detail and try to see the evidence from a different perspective and throw a wider net to pick up suspects. Unsolved murder cases never close, but their probability of being solved rapidly decreases. Given the amount of effort that has already been put into the case while it's "warm", it’s rather surprising that around 30% of cold cases are actually solved in a year. However, the number of cold cases keeps growing.

 

The driving force behind solving cold cases may well be a new technology rather than a new pair of eyes. The common use of DNA testing was a huge boon and became standard at crime scenes around 2000, making the early 2000s the heyday of cold-case units. There was a huge amount of stored evidence, some of which could be DNA tested leading to connections with existing suspects or introducing new ones. However, of course, the DNA requires something to match to. If the murderer had left a DNA signature (more likely in those days before killers regarded CSI as required viewing for Murder101), then it didn’t help unless Forensics had a matching sample from an identified person. In fact, DNA was often more helpful in eliminating suspects than it was in identifying new ones. DNA analysis was (and still is) a huge boon for exonerating innocent people.

Joseph DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer
This charming old gentlemen murdered and raped at least 65 people

More recently the internet and people’s love of using it has offered a rather different sort of database – a sort of “volunteer” DNA databank. One of these is GEDmatch. Started by one man to help people find lost family members and ancestors, it allows you to upload your DNA markers, and then you can search it for various types of matches. It can identify quite distant or close relatives. So one can find a lost third cousin or perhaps fill gaps in a family tree. In the wide open world of social media, there’s no downside. But there is one of course. Other people can also search and discover you as a relation. Even the police can search by uploading the DNA of an unknown suspect. Zoe Sharp explained how it was used to catch the Golden State Killer in 2018 in one of her blogs.

At the time the owner of GEDmatch was furious that his site had been used in that way, fearing he’d lose many of his clients because of the feeling that they were being analyzed in some way by the police. Big Brother is watching your DNA. However, he was wrong. The reaction of his clients was overwhelmingly positive. Now you can opt out of being visible to law enforcement agencies, but most people don’t seem to mind. Perhaps discovering that your cousin is a murderer is not only worth a viral Facebook post, but may be a useful safety feature! Then again, perhaps people just like the idea of helping the police.

The AI detective
Yes, it does exist. No, it doesn't look like this.

So where will the next cold case breakthrough technology come from? The AI detective? I wrote a science fiction short story along those lines fifty years ago, maybe I should dust it off…

LOTUS FOR POTUS: Election Canvassing in Pennsylvania

Sujata Massey

 The air was warm, and the sky so blue. Tall trees showed off crowns of red, orange and gold leaves as I cruised along Interstate 95 last Sunday morning.

Despite it being prime leaf-peeping time, I wasn't taking a scenic route for idle pleasure. Pennsylvania is a swing state in the coming national election; some say it's the state that Vice President Kamala Harris must win in order for the electoral college to line up in her favor. I’d heard about a massive canvassing day in Montgomery County, an area north of Philadelphia with slightly more Democrats than conservatives. My intention was to wind my way into North Wales, a town within the county, to deliver literature and perhaps a few words to possible voters.

 

The last time I canvassed was in Minnesota during the 2008 election on behalf of Barack Obama. During that long-ago fall, I carried a paper list and door-knocked in the tightly knit neighborhoods of Minneapolis, and the suburb of Eden Prairie, where the distance between houses was greater. I had chatted with Democrats and Republicans alike, because sixteen years ago, people were more relaxed about speaking with strangers. And we weren’t so polarized. Would canvassing work, in this day and age?  And now it was so much more complicated, involving data entry into a smartphone. 

 

The night before my drive, I’d received a text with instructions to add a voter canvassing app called Minivan. Now, It’s one thing to double-click an app onto your iPhone, but quite another to use that app skillfully. Minivan’s video tutorial showed how a map of houses would pop up when I was on the street, and how I’d be able to key in information such as whether I made contact, dropped literature, and any details the residents voluntarily shared about their voting plans. Minivan also had a built-in geographic tracker of where the phone was, something that made me feel a little more secure about the unknown encounters ahead. 

 

I reached the Montgomery Mall in North Wales in less than two hours, faster than Apple thought it would take. And walking into this vintage suburban mall, I realized I’d visited here twenty years earlier with friends to take our children to a Harry Potter movie. The suspenseful opening credits and thundering film score brought my daughter to tears, so we all fled the mall’s AMC theater and soothed the miserable at a candy stand, which was still there. I hoped this memory was not an omen that I'd once again back out of the mall without fulfilling a mission. 

 

Montgomery Mall seemed to have few visitors on a Sunday morning, just like many enclosed malls around the country today. The Harris-Walz campaign had rented a storefront for its purposes. This former shop was filled with volunteers, signs and totebags. I signed in and was off to sit at a table where a kindly man was giving a hands-on Minivan tutorial. Just what I needed. I also breathed easier when another volunteer appeared and said she’d be glad to partner with me while door-knocking. My partner was a lovely woman who had Minivan down cold without needing instruction. She also was a Perveen Mistry reader. What were the chances?

 

My partner and me 

Well, we both had connections to India. This particular rally and canvassing effort was organized by Indian American Impact, a national organization that raises money and gathers volunteers to support South Asian American candidates up and down the ballots. 

There are certainly conservative South Asian voters who support Trump, but the majority of South Asian voters lean Democratic. Kamala Harris has both Jamaican ancestry from her father, and Tamil ancestry from her late mother, who was born in India. The name Kamala is Sanskrit for lotus flower. I bought a catchy LOTUS FOR POTUS bumper sticker from Impact’s merch table, which also had wonderful tee-shirts with expressions like Desis Decide and Kamala Ke Saath (together for Kamala). How important is the South Asian vote in this campaign? Recent articles in The Washington Post  and New York Times focus on the nation's largest and most affluent immigrant population. Close to 400,000 South Asians who are eligible voters live in the swing states. 

 

After the buses carrying volunteers from Washington DC and New York City arrived, it looked like the crowd was pushing a few hundred. The people were of all ages—from children tagging along with their parents to well-dressed gentleman in their seventies. Volunteering also was not limited to South Asians; I saw Black and Caucasian and East Asian faces in the room. Yet the vibe at the gathering was distinctly Desi—the unifying nickname for South Asia that comes from the root word “Desh,” or homeland. Being a Desi means having roots on the Subcontinent, no matter how long ago your ancestors left.

Healthy snacks included samosas and chai

 

On Indian-American Impact’s  website, I found they were endorsing 48 candidates running for political office nationwide. These people were aspiring for jobs ranging from city council positions to judgeships and congress and senate. Impact does not expressly align itself with a political party, however it mentions that its core values include advocating for healthcare, climate and environmental safety, immigration, voting rights, and racial justice. They also don’t rubber stamp every politician who has South Asian ancestry. For example, Nikki Haley, a former Republican governor and a losing candidate in the Republican presidential primary, wasn’t on the list. 

 

Among the passionate speakers at our rally was Nina Ahmad, a Bangladeshi immigrant who is both the first Muslim and first Asian-American elected to the Philadelphia City Council. Nina reminded us to tell immigrant voters leaning Republican that while in office, Trump created a de-naturalization section within the Department of Justice that enabled government to strip Americans of citizenship. Recently, Trump has spoken of weaponizing the Justice Department and actively sending away legal immigrants, starting with Haitians, through a concept called Remigration. Imagine how this tactic could be employed at will against all green card holders and naturalized citizens!

Neil Makhija and Padma Lakshmi

 

Neil Makhija, a vibrant young man who was elected as the first Asian-American Montgomery County commissioner (there are three), also got us fired up with a discussion of local politics. Makheja had been sued three times already by the Pennsylvania Republican party for organizing a voter registration van and ensured voting information was printed in eight languages. “They sued me for making it possible for people to vote!” he said. His New York Times editorial about the importance of voting and the ironclad security around ballots is excellent.

 

Washington State Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal was on hand to push us into motivation, including the now-famous chant, “We’re Not Going Back.” We heard a moving song performed live by the Broadway composer/singer Ari Afsar, backed by a talented South Asian student acapella singing group from Penn State. Padma Lakshmi, who celebrates foods and diverse cultures on her Hulu series, “Taste the Nation,” explained why she supports Kamala Harris, and also why she thinks Donald Trump is so dangerous for the country. 

 

A volunteer meets Pramila Jayapal

Padma Lakshmi in action

Forty minutes after arrival, my new pal and I headed to her car, loaded with some election literature, and with our phones playing Minivan. 

 

The first two households were apartments on the back of a restaurant building. Nobody answered the door, so it was a rather anticlimactic feeling. Had we even reached the correct doors?  We continued on to a townhouse community. Here, on a street called Susan Circle, we had a list of 58 households. All close together, all well-numbered; excellent.

 

Going with a companion from door to door in the sunshine was quite a bit of fun. We saw great Halloween decorations, containers planted with fall chrysanthemums, and windows that were sometimes opened for conversation with us—or used as a way to see what we were up to. I understand that solicitors aren’t welcome on most doorsteps, including my own. Therefore, I felt very grateful for the people who were brave enough to open their doors and listen to our spiel:

 

“Hi, we’re here to check if you are planning to vote…that’s great, will it be early voting or on election day? Do you feel comfortable telling us who you’re planning to vote for? …That’s wonderful…And will you also support Senator Bob Casey?”

 

When we met people who said they hadn’t made up their minds, one of us might ask, “What issues are important to you in this election?” We’d both listen and reflect back to them what they had expressed. “That makes sense. Did you know…”  We were careful not to make speeches.

 

In this neighborhood, we chatted with many Asian Americans, many first or second generation immigrants. We had a conversation with a white woman who said she was grateful her boss made it clear to all his employees that they could take time on a workday to vote; she was voting for Kamala, and so were most of her co-workers. We also met a young white man who opened the door and held a whispered conversation with us because of conservative people nearby. He said he was voting for Kamala because of his girlfriend, and the importance of women’s rights over their bodies. I thanked him for it, just as many of the residents thanked us for volunteering. 

 

Those were very heartening moments. There were also some laughs. We couldn’t even begin to ask questions when an East Asian lady (probably in her eighties) opened her door, took one look at the two of us, and shouted: “No, no! I don’t want that. I’m voting Trump!” 

 

We had another humorous encounter when we rang the doorbell on a nearby house. Eventually  a second floor window was raised, and we saw the sliver of the face of a friendly boy who looked and sounded under age eleven. 

Boy: “I can’t open the door because my parents aren’t home.”

Us: “No problem, we understand. Is it OK if we leave a piece of information at your door?” 

Boy: “Go ahead.”

Sharp unknown adult voice: “No! Don’t leave anything!”

 

As we crisscrossed Susan Circle, Minivan cheered us on: “You’re 25% done!” until we completed our list. It turned out that we had made personal contacts with 26% of the households on the list, something to crow about because the Indian Impact volunteers told us that a10 percent rate of personal contact was typical. I suspect the sight of two women made people more curious than wary.  Although--as my partner pointed out--the Amazon delivery truck did roll through and help us get people to the doors during our last half hour of service. 

 

Would I canvas again? I am signed up for next weekend, canvassing for Angela Alsobrooks, the Democratic Senate hopeful in Maryland. A slow stroll for three hours seems a small effort to make in exchange for some memorable encounters. And if these meetings will encourage a few uncommitted people to think more about making a choice—and knowing the importance of voting—I’m very satisfied. 

Sujata will mail a free signed book to anyone in the US who door-knocks for Kamala Harris before November 5. Visit her website, sujatamassey.com,and email her with subject line Canvas for Kamala. In your email to me please include a selfie of you at the canvassing headquarters; your home street address;book of choice and optional personalized inscription. Thank you!