Mary Newsom

I didn't go into newspapers because I wanted to crusade for anything - not sunshine laws, or streetcars or sidewalks - or because I wanted to spend years interviewing politicians and police. I just wanted to become a famous novelist someday.

In Mediterranean countries you often see a phenomenon that, to American eyes, is amazing. In many towns, at about 5 or 6 p.m. the downtown streets suddenly fill with people. Elderly couples amble arm in arm.

It was the same old-same old Tuesday as I walked to work. Cars turning into my path. Crosswalks that you'd think would exist that didn't. Pedestrian signals that, no matter how many times you pressed the button, just kept showing you the big red hand.

This week my daughter had to phone Live Nation about some concert tickets. As she worked her way through endless voice-mail menus and critiqued the different “on hold” songs, I told her a story about the olden days.

Politicians do it.

“Lowly, unpurposeful and random as they may appear, sidewalk contacts are the small change from which a city's wealth of public life may grow.”

Sure, the economy is still tanking, your house is worth thousands less than two years ago, and you're seeing any possibility of retirement before age 80 fade to black. Time for some positive news:

This time of year editorial boards across America labor under a crush of candidate endorsement interviews – so much democracy, so little time. But we emerge keenly aware of what politicians think voters want. And this year what

I got my hair cut this week, and we did not talk about “American Idol” or new diets or even Paul Newman. We talked about John McCain and Barack Obama, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden.

So many Americans are focused on whether our government can keep the financial system from swirling down the drain, that they might not have seen this: In China thousands of children are sick, and four are dead, because of contaminated milk.