It is a rare advantage to live with a working librarian. Mariner’s home is a sub-branch of his town library. Mariner’s wife maintains a steady stream of contemporary works moving on and off their library shelves. One book that has just come and gone is Lisa Genova’s popular book, ‘Remember – The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting’.[1] It is an easy-to-read book with a conversational style of writing. One tip she provides:
“Let’s start with what you eat and drink. Several studies have now clearly demonstrated that people who eat foods from the Mediterranean diet and MIND diet (helps hypertension) cut their risk of Alzheimer’s disease by anywhere from a third to a half.”
Another book in mariner’s personal library is the late U.S. Representative John Dingle’s book, ‘The Dean, The Best Seat in the House’[2]. John holds the record for longest continuous service as a Representative, sixty years! His book recounts his memories and the many historical moments between 1955 and 2015. John was a centrist liberal, very much driven by the human rights of American citizens. He was the first among many who have decried the imbalance of the Senate in terms of its representation of the U.S. population. He died in 2019 at age 92. Mariner recommends the book for its easy to read documentation of the United States through several notable periods of historic change.
Someone who took up John’s lamentation about the Senate and proposed a solution is Eric W. Orts. In the January 2019 edition of the Atlantic, he proposed a redistribution of Senate seats. Mariner reproduces the distribution below as information to ponder, “What would happen if . . .”.
Each state has one Senator by default.
26 states have only that one Senator.
12 states have 2 Senators, as they do now.
8 states gain 1, perhaps 2 Senators.
California has 12 Senators; Texas has 9; Florida and New York have 6.
One example: Wyoming would have one Senator representing 580,000 citizens while California would have twelve Senators representing 39 ½ million people.
It is mariner’s firm belief that the future success of the United States is based entirely on the redistribution of the Senate.
Ancient Mariner
[1] Remember, Lisa Genova, © 2021, Harmony Books, ISBN 978-0-593-13795-6
[2] The Dean, John Dingle, © 2018, Harper Collins, ISBN 978-0-06-257199-1