WHAT’S HAPPENING?

A LOT OF STORIES are happening in America right now, from coverage of overseas wars to college encampments as symbols of unrest and dissent. In our opinion the chief story in this country is the widening gulf between rich and poor in America. A wealth gap of a kind that’s never been seen, not even in the robber baron days of the late 19th century. Today’s ruthless $200 billion-and-counting robber barons, Musk, Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg and company make the previous kind look like unambitious storekeepers.

As our newest featured fiction we have a short story which gives us a look at what’s happening, “The Unhoused Gift” by Peter R. West, via characters on both sides of the equation. The story is set in Southern California.

I have a sister who lives in California. She keeps me informed on what’s happening, has said the state is a model for what will soon enough happen in the rest of the country. (I tell her there already are increasing numbers of homeless where we live.) Rising rents and cost-of-living; more unhoused people. “Your state’s going to turn into Brazil,” I say, about a country long known for its extreme wealth gap. “It already has,” my sister replies. Anyway, please read the new story and see what you think!

Like a bird of prey, Stanley Newman swooped down the curvy road that connected his Los Angeles hilltop mansion to the sprawling city below. The grin on his face grew bigger as he listened to a news report recounting how his client had walked away from the tabloid-covered trial. Stanley used every trick he’d developed over twenty-five years of legal scheming in the often-sensational Los Angeles criminal scene to help another big fish escape the hooks of justice.