...And the Pursuit of Happiness

It's unfortunately easy to think of history and politics and civics and government and such as a bit of a drag. Luckily, it usually takes just a bit of personality, a dash of color, and a pinch of perspective to make it all hit home. Perhaps you visit our nation's capital. You make your way to the Jefferson memorial, and read the marble-etched quotations. Some remain etched in the back of your brain, artifacts of a 4th grade presentation on Liberty, while others never made it into the Exploring Our Nation's History textbook. But either way, there's just something about those troughs of missing marble which someone once carved away to immortalize the words that someone else once wrote. They make it all seem real. It's something you're a part of in a real way. History. Government. Civics.

But since, sadly, you'll only find yourself at a national monument, or a voting booth, or a sewage treatment plant, every so often, you may as well tag along with Maira Kalman on her little explorations of American Democracy. A illustrator and author of a dozen children's books, Kalman currently produces "...And the Pursuit of Happiness," a monthly column for the New York Times in which, through words, illustrations, and photographs, she weaves loosely narrative musing on America, infused with a subtle sense of humor and a whole heap of warmth and humanity. And yes, she manages to make a sewage treatment plant feel like a bastion of civic pride.