Deep and Wide: Book Reviews

Thirty-five years ago, air traffic controllers walked off the job and halted air traffic in the United States. President Ronald Reagan called the striking of federal employees illegal and fired eleven thousand controllers. The ripple effect almost crippled the industry. Thousands more lost their jobs with the airlines. I happened to be one of them. I had been a flight attendant for American Airlines for a year when this happened. Within weeks, I was among the countless numbers of flight attendants, pilots, caterers, baggage handlers, reservationists, gate agents, etc. who were furloughed. I lived in Chicago IL, and had several friends that worked at the Board of Trade. So, I got my license to trade futures and went to work. For a while, everything was rosy. Until I started praying for more money. Just enough to help offset the tremendous cost of living downtown Chicago. I wasn’t being greedy or asking to be rich. I just needed a little more. So what...

Orlando, Florida Like me, you’ve probably shed too many tears watching the evening news. Only a month ago Orlando, Florida was drenched in blood. Yet, it was pushed far back in the news with gunshots, screams, and explosions shattering the mundane act of checking-in for a flight at Istanbul Ataturk Airport, Turkey. Turkish Flag That has just as soon been forgotten as a large truck plows through a holiday crowd in Nice, France inflicting more senseless slaughter. These random acts of violence create loss for all of us, regardless if we personally know the name of someone murdered or maimed. We suffer the loss of peace and a sense of security. We wonder if we can dance the night away in a nightclub, go to the airport, or watch fireworks with our children without ending up in a body bag. Some call that the purpose of radical Islam. I call it pure evil. So what do we do with this universal pain?  My knee-jerk reaction is...