Taking refuge from "The Great American Surprise," or GAS as I prefer to call it, is for us progressives a crucial dilemma pitting sadness against vitality. What to do, is the question, its answer not readily at hand. Winter is upon us, in more ways than one. 

Taking heart by way of encouragements suitable to winter's call to the reading lamp, I've decided looking back and ahead might be just the Janus fix for January. In my case that means some Hunter Thompson and Bernie Sanders, a back and a future. 

Indeed, the late "Gonzo" Hunter S. Thompson's post-Nine Eleven "Kingdom of Fear" and Senator Sanders' post-GAS "Our Revolution" seem the right mix for refuge from the coming Right fix, particularly for we "lefty" contemporaries of theirs. 

Come spring, refuge from GAS likely shall be a search for what's left of the Left, and, dear editors, that ought to mean some reading for you in the interim. May you find more interest in Left than Right, since the mights of all-Right and alt-Right are about to part the sea as never before, hailing in-your-face evangelical conservatism's suprascripts. 

If you need some guidance on a Left reading list, perhaps the Soviet journalist from Russia you hosted during "glasnost" could help? I recall his views. You?

Bud Bray

Waterford