Saving America one beer and college class at a time

Jim and Deb Fallows have written a book on small towns in the United States, finding a co-operative spirit and optimism that is the opposite of the discouragement and conflict we see at the national level. They spoke at Village Books in Bellingham about their new book, “Our Towns, A 100,000 Journey into the Heart of America” last Wednesday.

Jim Fallows, a writer for Atlantic Monthly and author, and a former speech writer for President Jimmy Carter, imagines that we are in a second “Gilded Age,” like the late 1800s. The “Gilded Age” was Mark Twain’s satirical term for an era of serious social p...