The Weekly Wrap: October 25-31

Imagining a Different Use for Campaign Funds

I just learned that the U.S. midterm elections have set new records for advertising spending. As of October 23, the Ohio Senate race had already spent $460 million. Elon Musk alone has donated over $250 million nationally to political campaigns.

My wife and I often shake our heads at all the things those campaign funds are not spent on. Here’s one comparison you might consider.Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library provides books to children at roughly $2.20 to $2.60 per book, including shipping. Last year, they provided 40 million books globally. Using the higher cost, this would cost $104 million.

Imagine this. If this money were used for childhood literacy efforts instead of beseiging us with “ads nauseum,” the money spent in Ohio alone could fund a quadrupling of the Imagination Library’s work.

Equally, cash-strapped libraries could expand book acquisitions and programming for children and adults. Ohio, which actually spends the most per capita on library funding at $531 million, could nearly double that contribution from one race alone (and probably could double it when final figures are in).

Of course, there are many other causes on which these funds could be spent. Literacy efforts happen to be something I care about. But the point is that these efforts do not lack needed funding because the money isn’t there. The spending on this campaign reveals the fabulous wealth some in our country enjoy. And our constitution and courts have said that if they want to spend this on campaigns, they are free to do so.

But I can’t help wondering about the folly of pouring so much into political ads that disgust us all and play fast and loose with the truth. And I can’t help imagining the better uses to which it might be put.

Five Articles Worth Reading

A new book makes the case that we would likely have known little of Vincent Van Gogh, apart from his eccentricities, were it not for his sister. “The Woman Who Made Vincent van Gogh Famous” reviews Joan Martelli’s new book, The Widow Van Gogh on the efforts of Johanna van Gogh-Bonger.

It’s the most popular course at Harvard. Students have to read a hefty book weekly and write regular essays. Also, no digital devices and no pass/fail. And 180 freshman vie for 90 spots. “The Brutal Harvard Class That Suddenly Everyone Wants to Take” gives me hope.

I’ve joined my wife in painting for perhaps the last ten or so years. If nothing else, painting makes you observe–shapes, lighting color values, composition. It also makes you look differently at the art of others. “Teaching Students to See What They Miss” describes using art to teach students “slow looking.” As a result, they found it made students better listeners and more attentive in other ways.

I moved away from Youngstown fifty years ago. I returned many times, I also researched and wrote blog pieces about the town for ten years (go to On Youngstown to access these). Through all that, I discovered the values and outlook and personal history that helped form me. Platon, a photographer and filmmaker, returned to the home of his youth, Paros, a Greek island. In a photo essay, he describes “The Greek Island That Taught Me the Art of Living.”

Finally, we bought our son a set of LEGOs as a child. And we often helped him add to his collection. He’s now in his early forties, and still buying new LEGO sets. Jess Uhre Rahbek explained for me “How LEGO Engineered the Perfect Plaything.” The article even includes original patent drawings from 1961, a basic design that has not changed.

Quote of the Week

I learned on Thursday of the death of Sir Patrick Stewart. In a Washington Post interview from 2023, he remarked:

“Every single day, no matter how early I have to get up, I begin with a cup of tea and a book, not a script, not emails, a book.”

Miscellaneous Musings

Beyond his roles in theatre and on television and film, one of the gifts many remember from Patrick Stewart came during the COVID lockdowns of 2020. While we alternately washed our groceries and ranted about wearing masks, Stewart would appear on YouTube and other social media reading a sonnet of Shakespeare each day. He gently reminded us of the good, the true, and the beautiful when this seemed in scarce supply. Something we might learn from as we remember him.

Undoing Manifest Destiny by L. Daniel Hawk is a challenging book that I won’t say much more about until I review it. But one of the things I connected with is that Hawk, a native Ohioan, includes vignettes of Ohio’s history with Indigenous peoples as illustrations of key themes for each of his chapters.

I’ve always loved a good book recounting a military battle. This was a free book from Thriftbooks but Waterloo: A Near Run Thing by David Howarth is the perfect account of that battle–human interest, chronology, the topography of the battle–it’s all there in just the right amount of detail.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: The Month in Review: October 2026

Tuesday: L. Daniel Hawk, Undoing Manifest Destiny

Wednesday: Osvaldo Padilla, The Pastoral Epistles

Thursday: David Howarth, Waterloo: A Near Run Thing

Friday: Doris Brocke, Happy As Your Moose

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for October 25-31.

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page.