Everybody is continuously connected to everybody else on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram, on Reddit, e-mailing, texting, faster and faster, with the flood of information jeopardizing meaning. Everybody's talking at once in a hypnotic, hyper din: the cocktail party from hell.

For two centuries, the South has feared a takeover by blacks or the feds. In Obama, they have both.

Journalism, spooked by rumors of its own obsolescence, has stopped believing in itself. Groans of doom alternate with panicked happy talk.

I feel like I owe it to the readers to try to pull back the veil and give them the honest version of what's going on. But it's not more fun. If Obama, as he does sometimes already, gets a little snippy with me about something I've written, you're thinking, 'Oh God, the president of the United States is already annoyed with me.'

It takes a lot of adrenaline and fear to make me actually write.

As a woman, I know that if I write about another woman, it will be perceived as a catfight.

Perpetual optimism is annoying. It is a sign that you are not paying attention.