For me, two of the  most powerful books on the Holocaust are The Winds of War and War and Reremembrance.  Reading about Aaron Jastrow, and his niece Natalie, being sucked into, eventually, the  Auschwitz concentration camp is excruciating even though it was not the main plot, as I recall. or is it real. But there is something about giving a face and a personality to one -OK, two in this case – poor, doomed soul that packs an  immense punch.

I remembered reading that Margret Meed once said in an answer to a question on what can one person do? Can one person or a small group of thoughtful people change the world? Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. (It tuns out that is not exactly what she said but it is pretty close.) I was reminded of that when I read a comment to a ta-nehisi-coates blog. The comment said

One of the most sobering things I've seen here in Germany hasn't been at the concentration camps. It's on the streets of essentially random cities, towns and villages. The paving stones in front of certain houses have been engraved to acknowledge that the residents of the house were taken away to X concentration camp. One stone per person, often several generations of a family. Birth dates are given as are dates of death . . . if known. One simply can't walk past something like without thinking what . . . how . . . shit.

The pavers are called stolpersteins and they are by a German artist, Gunter Demnig. Each brass paver – really a brass cap made by the artist – has the name of  a woman, man or child who was  deported by the Nazis. By himself, at first but now with others helping, Deming came up with the idea of turning the millions and millions of people killed by the Nazis – primarily Jewish people, but also, Roma, homosexuals, retarded people -  back into real people. Back into neighbors that lived next door or, even, in your home.

For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in cars – loved cars, really.  And the best month for car lovers, when I was young, was October. It still is. October is the month that the new cars for next year hit the showrooms.

When I was a young teenager, before I could drive, we would walk down to what was then known as Auto Row and visit each dealership. It was thrilling and I still remember it today. Then the dealers were all American except for one small dealer, British Motors, that sold Jaguars, MGs, Triumphs, and, I think, Alfa Romeos. Cars like Chevrolet, Plymouth, DeSoto, and Oldsmobile each had their own dealer and we would spend an afternoon looking at all of them. Now, according to Auto Week, there are 340 cars and trucks on the market and no way to walk each dealership. Even more thrilling.

My first actual car getting experience was when I was fourteen. My mother asked my advice on what car to get and I suggested a Buick Century. That was 1954 and the Buick Century was a hotrod with the small Buick body and a big Buick – the awesome Roadmaster – 322 cubic inch V8 that put out 177 raging HP.

My mother agreed – I was the family car expert after all -  and bought a white (with a bluish cast so, in some lights, it looked pale, pale blue) brand new, hardtop convertible.

Two years later, I got my first car or, more accurately, collection of car parts. A five window deuce. (Technically, a deuce is a 1932 Ford and my car was a Plymouth, but What the hell; it was close enough to call a deuce.)  I also acquired, separately – I think -  a ford flathead engine with 3 Stromberg 97 carburetors, and a 3 speed Lincoln-Zephyr transmission. Eventually, the parts became a car that looked much like the car below, including the black primer and channeled body, except nowhere as good. My deuce ran, but not really good enough to get anywhere.

Meanwhile, my grandparents were getting old and had stopped driving so I bought their 1948 Pontiac 4 door sedan – what the hell, again, if it had been Italian, it would have been called a quatroporte – and that was the car that first took me backpacking.

According to a very interesting book review at Slate, Right now the wealthiest one percenters grab 24 percent of annual income in this country. That's even more than the 15 to 18 percent they hauled in during the robber baron era of the Carnegies, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts.

I think that most of us know that the rich are getting richer and everybody else is treading water or getting poorer but I had now idea that the inequality was this severe. The top one percent of the wealthiest people in America make essentially 1/4 of all the income in America. True, the Bush years were very good to the very wealthy, but the trend started way before Bush and it is still going on under that socialist, Obama..

I think that this is a big part of the reason so many people are so angry. I know that I am angry about it.