What is Peggy Engel Thinking About?

Headlines of the Past Year

• The euphoria of upheaval and a fresh start for America has left me
  energized but surprised and puzzled, too. I wanted momentum to carry
  past the inaugural and spark a more specific call and response between
  our new president and an election-buzzed electorate. We had all this
  pent-up energy, which has dissipated back into not quite business as
  usual, but still a very passive America, waiting for one slim set of
  shoulders to do it all for us.

• All the new symbols and personnel are encouraging, but we in the
  populace have stepped aside. We should be taking self-help efforts to
  correct America's ills and help this new president move our gigantic
  oil-tanker of a government. The problems are urgent and the citizens
  who want him so strongly to succeed are now bystanders. My wish is for
  Obama to use the bully pulpit. Don't just send emails from your former
  campaign director asking for voters to send letters about health care
  reform --- tell the citizenry to lose 30 pounds for Obama. Now THAT
  would be a seismic shift that is worth real money and could jump start
  health care reform. Ask half of America's retirees to partner with a
  second-grader and turn every American child into a reader. The other
  half should partner with a 9th grader and make sure there are no more
  drop-outs from American high schools.

• The counterintuitive near-relief of a compulsive society finally
  told they had shopped until they dropped. There's so little rage about
  the recession because we all knew about the Club of Rome excesses we
  worshipped. They have been replaced with a guilty course correction
  that has dusted off frugality and limits. There's appalling human
  misery as the result of this highly unequal course correction. But we
  are all guilty for enabling the $240 million a year CEOs and the mania
  for mergers, fees, and compensation committee dramas rather than
  genuine American business output.

What I'm Grappling With

• The suicide of an industry (journalism) that does not need to die.
  Trying to stem the brain drain. Trying to support the now thousands of
  reporters without newsrooms. Trying to rouse a society that doesn't
  seem to care that it is losing the watchdogs and the reporters who
  actually sit through school board meetings so they don't have to.
  Dealing with the sadness of extreme talent shutting their notebooks
  and leaving the best profession on the planet. Sorrow that their
  achievements and breakthroughs appear to be so little appreciated or
  valued. Fear at how much more unknowing we will become.

Big Moments for Me

• Standing with a million others on the National Mall for six hours
  of freezing cold in the warmest comraderie and joyous disbelief that
  an election miracle had occurred.

• Writing my first play (about journalist Molly Ivins) and finding
  out that it will be produced by Arena Stage in Washington, DC and will
  star a major Broadway and Hollywood actress.

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