How to know when it’s time to leave the country

One of my guilty pleasures is reading advice columns. I’m sure I must have mentioned this before… at any rate, one of my favorites is Cary Tennis, over at Salon. He’s very good at sorting out what’s important and what’s not, and dealing with the human story and how it goes. Some of that might be due to his being a novelist. Dunno. I can’t wait for his first actual novel.

At any rate, sometimes, rarely, he addresses his audience directly, and the column dated 10/13/2004 is one of those times. He says, in part,

…I have been getting letters asking “How do you know when it’s time to leave the country?” and I can only say yes, it does feel a little fascist in here, could someone please open a window, please? Should you leave the country? Well, yes, you probably should. And so should I. But you probably won’t, and neither will I. Booking passage is such a hassle. And the queen has her spies everywhere.

The rest of his columns can be found here (you’ll need either a paid subscription or a day pass to read them).