According to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report released on December 6, 2013, for the month of November, there are officially 11 million unemployed American workers, over 4 million of whom are considered long-term unemployed. There are also officially 8 million involuntary part-time workers who can't find full-time jobs, and officially 800,000 discouraged workers who have given up looking for work after concluding there are no jobs available for them.

Adding up those numbers means there are officially about 20 million unemployed and underemployed American workers, 1.3 million of whom are going to exhaust their unemployment benefits as of December 28, 2013. The official unemployment rate remains at a high 7% of all Americans who want to work. And the labor participation rate of Americans who could work is near a record low.

And the unemployment rate is 10% for post-9/11 veterans. For veterans! It's 12.5% for African-Americans, and 18.6% for teenagers seeking work. The official unemployment rate is 35.8% for African-American teenagers seeking work. That's an outrage.

Over 47 million Americans, about 1 in 6, qualify for and receive food stamps, including many of those counted as employed at full-time jobs, because they can't earn enough to get their families above the poverty level.

President Obama tells us that rising income inequality is tearing at the social fabric of America. He calls inequality "the defining challenge of our age", and pledges to make it a major focus of his remaining time as President.

A widely-publicized economic study from the University of California at Berkeley tells us that in President Obama's first term from 2009 to 2012, incomes of the top 1% of American households grew by more than 31%, while the incomes of the bottom 99% of American households grew only 0.4% on average, confirming what seems obvious, that many American families are losing ground even as the stock market hits record highs.

How does President Obama think unemployed and underemployed Americans will find better jobs if millions of illegal immigrants are legalized and able to compete openly with Americans for jobs? How will they manage if in addition the number of legal immigrants is tripled from about a million each year to about three million? How realistic are their hopes for higher wages if the pool of labor in which they compete is expanded through additional immigration as the President advocates? Is income inequality reduced or enhanced when millions of additional low-wage immigrants are added to the legal labor pool?

The moral argument for keeping legal immigration at current levels and enforcing existing laws to reduce illegal immigration is that we first have to be concerned about the welfare of American families struggling to survive at or below the poverty level. Just as when a member of our immediate family is seeking a job, we hope that family member gets it rather than someone else, so it is understandable that if jobs are available we hope they can be had by our extended family or by our larger community of fellow Americans.

Here's an important point: If so-called immigration reform is rejected and we are left with the current immigration system, we will continue to have the most generous legal system for immigration in the world. The U.S. continues to admit each year more permanent legal immigrants with a clear path to full citizenship than all the rest of the nations of the world combined. As I testified to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on March 20, 2013, that is an immigration system worthy of American values.

And as President Bill Clinton said in a commencement speech at Portland State University in Oregon on June 13, 1998, "It is wrong to condone illegal immigration that flouts our laws, strains our tolerance, taxes our resources. Even a nation of immigrants must have rules and conditions and limits, and when they are disregarded, public support for immigration erodes in ways that are destructive to those who are newly arrived and those who are still waiting patiently to come."

We all need to pay more attention to immigration history as it colors the perpetual debate over legal and illegal immigration. For the first century of the American republic, there were no limits on immigration. Anyone from anywhere in the world was free to come here. Indeed, our labor needs were so great that people who didn't want to come here were forced to come here against their will in grotesquely cruel circumstances in the first half of our first century.

The first legal restriction on immigration to the U.S. was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. It excluded only Chinese immigrants, initially for 10 years, but was renewed regularly until made permanent in 1904. The earliest challenges to the power of Congress to regulate immigration were to the Chinese Exclusion Act. When the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of the Chinese Exclusion Act, it ratified the vast power of Congress to regulate immigration even to the point of discriminating on the basis of race and national origin.

With Congressional power over immigration now clear, Congress turned its attention after World War I to limiting immigration from Europe. The First Quota Law went into effect in 1921 setting immigration quotas by countries of origin based on the existing U.S. population determined by the census of 1910. The base year for setting national origin quotas was later moved to the 1890 census in order to reduce the quotas for immigrants from southern and eastern Europe.

The system of quotas became overlaid with another system of preferences specifying which kinds of immigrants had first claim to the limited number of immigration visas available. Chinese exclusion was repealed in 1943, though exclusion of other immigrants from Asia continued until 1952. Quotas based on national origin were nominally repealed in 1965, though an overall numerical limitation on annual immigration and the system of preferences remain.

At the root of the current debate over immigration policy is the question of whether immigration to the U.S. should be unlimited, as it was in our first century, or whether we should enforce a numerical limit on immigration every year, as is required by current laws enacted by Congress. Our reluctance to clearly choose between those two choices, unlimited or limited immigration, is why our immigration system seems so messed up.

We recognize the problem of unlimited immigration, but we are reluctant to enforce our limits on immigration by vigorously trying to deport immigration law violators. The Obama administration keeps looking for a third way. How about this: We keep the legal limits on the books, but we don't enforce them. We practice prosecutorial discretion to avoid deporting illegal entrants. And whenever illegal immigrants reach a large number, we throw up our hands, say there's nothing we can do, and grant everyone amnesty. But don't call that unlimited immigration! We don't want that!

Vice President Biden's claim of having illegal immigrant ancestors is typical of misinformation being spread by the Obama administration to cause confusion about our immigration choices, and to justify the latest proposed immigration amnesty.

Someday Republicans may control both the Presidency and the Senate, as the Democrats do now. And then Republicans could confirm appointees without regard to minority opinion. So what? If any party can elect a President and a majority in the U.S. Senate that party should be able to confirm presidential appointees, as the Constitution provides.

There's no filibuster in the U.S. Constitution. In fact I'd suggest that the filibuster, requiring a 60% supermajority in the U.S. Senate is actually unconstitutional.

The U.S. Constitution does require a supermajority in the U.S. Senate for specific reasons like the ratification of treaties and amendments to the Constitution itself. But in all other cases including legislation and confirming presidential appointments, Article I provides that in the event of a tie vote in the U.S. Senate, the vice president of the United States should cast the deciding vote.

Why would the Constitution specify a tie-breaker if a supermajority of 60% or more was required to enact legislation or confirm appointments?

The custom of the filibuster, allowing unlimited debate as long as any member wishes to speak, reflected the courtesies of the 18th century, and was the practice in both houses of Congress at the time of the founding of the republic. But as the House of Representatives increased the number of its members, its rules were changed to limit debate and insure a vote despite minority opposition.

The U.S. Senate retained the custom of unlimited debate in its rules until 1917 when its rules were amended to cut-off debate by "cloture" upon a two-thirds vote. As recently as 1975, the U.S. Senate again changed its rules to reduce the number of votes required for cloture from two-thirds to three-fifths, or 60 out of the current 100 senators. And now the rules have been changed again to require only a simple majority for cloture to confirm appointments (except for Supreme Court justices), to insure a vote on appointees despite minority opposition.

Our Constitution provides for a system of checks and balances. Both houses of Congress and presidential approval are required to enact legislation into law. But only the U.S. Senate is required to confirm presidential appointees, suggesting that appointees should be expeditiously considered and voted upon without the delay of a separate vote in the other house of Congress. All actions of the Congress are subject to constitutional review by the federal courts.

Allowing the U.S. Senate to act by simple majority, except as otherwise specified in the Constitution, seems like the essence of constitutional democracy. The practice of simple majority rule in the U.S. Senate should be expanded to include enactment of legislation and the confirmation of Supreme Court justices.

Yes, it could result in appointment of judges you don't like just because one party controls both the Senate and the White House. Yes, it could result in enactment of a law you oppose just because one party controls both houses of Congress and the White House.

But that's what the Constitution provides, including judicial oversight of congressional and presidential acts. And at least that would end the continuing clown show in the U.S. Senate where a minority of senators can hold the majority hostage on legislation and appointments to the Supreme Court.

The unconstitutional filibuster and its resulting gridlock in the Senate makes us the laughing stock of other democracies with parliamentary governments, where national leaders can be held accountable for their actions without the political cover of being able to blame their minority opposition. The unconstitutional filibuster should be abolished entirely for all matters before the U.S. Senate.

Many more of us remember the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which were equally shocking, tragic, and totally unexpected. But in some ways the Kennedy assassination was even more deeply painful than 9/11.

Most Americans did not personally know any of the thousands of victims of the 9/11 terrorists. But by November of 1963, most Americans felt some level of personal relationship with President Kennedy and his attractive family.

John F. Kennedy was our youngest ever, and most media-savvy chief executive up to that time. He made skillful use of television to vanquish his Republican opponent Richard M. Nixon in the first televised debate between presidential candidates. His campaign and White House made unprecedented use of photography to present the public with intimate pictures of the First Family. He and the First Lady, whom everyone just called "Jackie", gave the first televised tour of the White House.

President Kennedy's voice became so familiar that he was successfully parodied by the comedian and impersonator Vaughn Meader, who won the 1963 Grammy Album of the Year award for his recorded cornball comic impressions of the President, which millions of American families, including mine, bought and played in their homes.

President Kennedy worked hard and successfully at creating an impression of "vigor" to characterize his presidency and inspire Americans about our common future. Americans felt they knew the First Family intimately. Everyone knew the name of Caroline Kennedy's pony, "Macaroni".

So the assassination of President Kennedy was not just a national tragedy, it was for millions of Americans a deeply personal tragedy, like the unexpected loss of a very close and beloved family member.

I was in 10th grade, the first year of the three-grade high school I attended in Dearborn, Michigan. Late in the afternoon on Friday, November 22, we were changing classes. As I walked down a flight of stairs, a girl in my grade looked up at me and shouted, "President Kennedy is dead! I'm not kidding!"

We were quickly informed of what was known. My last class of the day was "Health", and the teacher insisted on proceeding with the class as though nothing unusual had happened. We squirmed even more than usual until dismissal. On the school bus riding home, some of my classmates had transistor radios, and we listened to the unprecedented live coverage which confirmed the unbelievable events we had previously heard only by word of mouth.

My mother, though qualified as a registered nurse, stayed home while raising my sister and me. She had heard nothing when I burst through the door shouting, "Turn on the TV! Turn on the TV!"

Like most American families, we watched television continuously for four days, including the murder of the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald broadcast live as it happened, through the state funeral on Monday, sharing the grief of the Kennedy family.

There followed a dark and fearful end of the year. What did this mean for America? Was there a conspiracy? Were the Communists behind the assassination? Would we ever enjoy anything again?

In late December, I first heard about an English musical group called, I thought, the "beetles". In January their recordings took America by storm. They arrived in New York in February and performed live on the Ed Sullivan Show on CBS television. America decided to breathe again, relax, and have some fun. Little did we know.

It didn't work, as evidenced by the more than 11 million illegal aliens believed to be in the U.S. today. One reason that IRCA resulted in increased illegal immigration was that border controls alone are insufficient to prevent increases in the illegal alien population, both because it's hard to control the border, and because as many as half the illegal alien population is believed to have overstayed temporary visas rather than crossing the border without inspection. And employer sanctions proved to be completely ineffective in preventing the employment of illegal aliens by employers determined to profit by paying the lowest possible wages.

I've always said that the 1986 Act had a fourth leg to its stool which was wishful thinking. And that pattern of a four-legged stool was copied in the failed attempts to enact a second and bigger general amnesty for illegal aliens in 2006, 2007, and in the current year 2013.

Each time the proponents of another amnesty argue that this time will be different. This time, unlike in 1986, the border controls and employer sanctions will work to deter future illegal immigration. I'm reminded of the philosopher George Santayana who famously said that, "Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them."

Border control is difficult because we have long borders. We can strengthen border security in sectors of the border, but doing so in California only moves more illegal traffic into the more difficult terrain of Arizona. Strengthening border security in Arizona moves more illegal traffic into south Texas. It's like trying to squeeze a water balloon, difficult to squeeze everywhere all at once. Throwing money at the border does nothing to stop holders of temporary visas from illegally overstaying.

The latest manifestation of employer sanctions is called E-Verify, an on-line service provided by the federal government by which employers who choose to do so can quickly verify whether those seeking work are legally authorized. The Senate-passed immigration reform bill would make E-Verify eventually mandatory for all employers. This should be done independently of amnesty, but it, too, is not a silver bullet to solve the problem of illegal immigration.

One result of the 1986 IRCA amnesty is the growth of a huge, profitable, and highly sophisticated counterfeit documents industry in the U.S., from which anyone can purchase false birth certificates, social security cards, and any other documents required for a false identity as someone authorized to work in the U.S. That problem is not going away. Many job applicants presenting high quality counterfeit documents to an employer will not be caught by E-Verify. And some U.S. employers will continue to have as their business model hiring the cheapest labor they can find regardless of immigration status.

Illegal immigration is not a problem only for the United States. Australia and many countries in Europe are overwhelmed by the large numbers of foreigners seeking to enter and work in their countries illegally. In a globalized world with easier means of transportation, increased knowledge of the world, and instantaneous communications among immigrants, the reasons for the migration of large numbers of people seeking to improve their lives are completely understandable.

The basic choice for us in the United States is whether to accept all who want to enter and work here without limit, or alternatively to enforce some sort of numerical limit on how many immigrants we will accept every year. I think a coherent, intellectually defensible argument can be made for open borders and accepting all who wish to enter regardless of how many. But I believe that the majority of my fellow citizens would prefer to enforce a numerical limit on immigration as we do now.

Enforcing a numerical limit on immigration, however, is not easy. Someone must decide on the number and what kinds of immigrants should be preferred. Currently that's our elected Congress. However despised and ridiculed, Congress is still the most legitimate authority for making those decisions on our behalf.

But the biggest problem in enforcing a numerical immigration limit is the inherent corollary that we say no to millions of would-be immigrants who remind us of our ancestors. They are not criminals or national security threats, and only want to work hard for a better life for themselves and their families. We have to say no to them not because they're bad people, but simply because admitting them would exceed the numerical limit we have enacted. And if they enter illegally, we have to try to remove them if our numerical limit is to mean anything.

It's a hard choice. But it's a binary choice. No limits or limits. The reason our immigration system seems so unsatisfactory is actually because we are unwilling to make that hard choice. We keep searching for a third and easier way. Like keeping the numerical limits in our law, but not actually enforcing them, and instead enacting immigration amnesty whenever the number of illegal immigrants becomes large. I call that a formula for permanent dysfunction.

If there's no numerical limit on immigration that you would be willing to enforce against people like your own ancestors, then just admit that you're for open borders without a limit on immigration. Don't pretend to be for a four-legged stool that doesn't work.

As Senator Marco Rubio, a sponsor of the four-legged stool, on April 23, 2013, correctly noted, "We are the most generous nation on earth to immigrants, allowing over 1 million people a year to come here legally." The U.S. actually admits more permanent legal immigrants with a clear path to full citizenship than all the rest of the nations of the world combined, every year. That doesn't sound like a "broken" immigration system as Senator Rubio and President Obama claim. That sounds like an immigration system worthy of American values.

I conclude by quoting what President Bill Clinton, now a supporter of the four-legged stool, said in a commencement speech at Portland State University in Oregon on June 13, 1998: "It's wrong to condone illegal immigration that flouts our laws, strains our tolerance, taxes our resources. Even a nation of immigrants must have rules and conditions and limits, and when they are disregarded, public support for immigration erodes in ways that are destructive to those who are newly arrived and those who are still waiting patiently to come."

Evidence suggests that self-proclaimed independents are at least weak partisans, meaning that if they vote, they will vote only for one party. They may not vote, however, and getting these weak partisans to vote has become the primary task of political parties. They are not independent in the sense of being "swing" voters who could vote for either political party. Those kind of true independents are in fact quite rare.

The implications of this evidence are stark. The so-called "political center" may in fact be largely imaginary, fabricated by television networks to generate ratings and "a horse race". If there's no significant political center for the parties to appeal to, there's no need to moderate their views, and they might as well concentrate on their base and make sure as many partisans on their side as possible are motivated to get to the polls.

That may explain why political conflict between the parties seems to be increasing, and why the resulting gridlock in government is likely to continue.

I think of myself as a political independent, and have in the past and expect in the future to vote for both Republicans and Democrats. But I'm having a hard time deciding which Republicans and Democrats deserve my vote and support. My dilemma is reflected in my positions on health care and immigration.

I support President Obama's Affordable Care Act despite its manifest imperfections because the only alternative presented by Republicans is doing nothing about the millions of our fellow citizens without health care insurance. Republicans can't agree among themselves on any alternative plan. They used to say "Repeal and replace". Now they just say "Repeal". Democrats should be credited with enacting a reform that Republicans fear will someday be as popular as Social Security and Medicare, the enactment of which Republicans also opposed.

But I've described President Obama's plan for so-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform as "a formula for permanent dysfunction" in our immigration system. I was disheartened that every single Democrat in the U.S. Senate voted for its passage, and hope that as many of them as possible pay a political price for having done so.

As I testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 20, 2013, the current dilemma over immigration is caused by our unwillingness to choose between allowing unlimited immigration to the U.S., or alternatively enforcing a numerical limit enacted by Congress which excludes many immigrants who are neither criminals nor national security threats. Instead President Obama has tried to find a third way, which I describe as pretending we have a limit on immigration, leaving a limit in our laws, but simply not enforcing the limit. And under the President's plan, whenever a large number of illegal immigrants succeed in entering the U.S., we should grant them amnesty.

I regard the President's immigration plan as politically motivated and harmful to the best interests of American workers, including those currently unemployed and underemployed. Amnesty and the tripling of legal immigration over the next 10 years will allow employers to keep the wages of American workers low by expanding the pool of available labor, which is why big business and big agriculture support the President's plan. Increasing the number of low wage workers will widen the economic inequality that the President claims to be concerned about, and threaten the financial viability of the Affordable Care Act.

I think the Republicans who voted against the President's immigration bill in the Senate, and who are blocking its enactment in the House, are heroes defending American workers and our generous immigration system worthy of American values, which each year admits more legal permanent immigrants with a clear path to full citizenship than all the rest of the nations of the world combined.

So if someone in Congress supports the Affordable Care Act but opposes so-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform, they will definitely get my vote and support. But I can't identify a single member of Congress who takes those positions. Can you?

Members who oppose the Affordable Care Act but support the President's so-called immigration reform, like Senators McCain, Graham, Rubio, Alexander, Corker, Flake and some others, will never get my vote or support, and I'd consider supporting their opponents.

But what should I do about members who either support both pieces of legislation (like most Democrats), or alternatively oppose both pieces of legislation (like most Republicans)? Those of us who actually think independently and are not merely partisans in denial, have a hard time in finding politicians to support. Should we vote for the lesser evils? But who are the lesser evils?

Sometimes it seems like only single-issue voters get respect from politicians. Immigration is the harder issue to understand, so the politicians who do understand it deserve greater credit. In a race between an amnesty supporter and an amnesty opponent, I'll support the opponent. 

When I came to Philadelphia to work at the Pepper Hamilton law firm in 1975, one of my female law school classmates went to work at Morgan Lewis becoming, as I recall, only the third woman lawyer working at that firm, then the largest law firm in the city. Both of our large law firms, along with several others, were located in the old Fidelity Bank building on Broad Street between Sansom and Walnut, across from the Union League. Both of those buildings were featured in "Trading Places", the great 1983 movie starring Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd set in Philadelphia. The name on the Fidelity building has since had to be sandblasted repeatedly as it changed owners, to First Union, then Wachovia, and lately Wells Fargo.

I would occasionally hear from my law school classmate about the challenges of being a woman lawyer at Morgan. Her most harrowing experience was rushing to a firm meeting at the Union League, and being physically restrained at the front door and ordered to use a different entrance, as was required of female guests at that time. When she complained to her firm about being subjected to this indignity, the firm's response was in effect to either accept the local custom or find another job. Morgan was not going to give up using the convenient Union League for its meetings.

Even in 1975, the Pepper Hamilton law firm where I worked had many women lawyers, including partners serving on the executive committee. As a joke, members of the firm announced in the Legal Intelligencer that a women lawyer's field hockey league was being formed, along the lines of the popular lawyer's softball league, knowing that our firm was the only one in the city with enough women lawyers to put together a team.

At that time, as I recall, Pepper Hamilton never had firm events at the Union League despite its convenient location, because of the League's discriminatory policies towards women. The firm's chairman, Augustus "Gus" Ballard, told me that had not always been the case. He recalled heading to the League for a lunch meeting with summer associates, only to find the group standing together on the front steps. He was advised by the associate in charge that the women in the group refused to use the alternate entrance. Upon announcing that everyone else should proceed to lunch, he was further advised that the men in the group also refused to enter the Union League if their female colleagues couldn't enter through the front entrance. That incident resulted in a different firm policy regarding the Union League.

Times have, indeed, changed. And Jami Wintz McKeon's ascension to chair the Morgan Lewis & Bockius law firm puts an exclamation point on those changes.

The only plan so far in Philadelphia for closing the funding gap for the school system is forcing teachers to accept reduced pay and benefits!

Deliberately embarking on a war of choice destroyed the promising presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. It destroyed the promising presidency of George W. Bush. And it will destroy the promising presidency of Barack H. Obama. Maybe that's why Republicans are going to support it!

The best case outcome for an attack on Syria is that the American taxpayers for years will be stuck paying the bill for reconstructing Syria after we attack it. The worst case scenario is that young Americans will again lose their lives in a widening war.

U.S. wars of choice in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have driven the booming American economy of the mid-20th century into the current doldrums. While the official white unemployment rate remains high at 6.6%, black unemployment is nearly double that rate at 12.6%. The official rate of unemployment for white teenagers seeking work is 20.3%. For black teenagers seeking work, the official unemployment rate is 41.6%.

Those estimates don't even count discouraged workers who have given up seeking work after concluding there are no jobs for them. They don't reflect the reality that millions of those counted as working have involuntarily accepted part-time jobs, or minimum wage jobs without benefits for want of any better opportunities.

Bombing Syria will inevitably generate new hatred of America among the families of our victims. It will create new waves of refugees throughout the Middle East, some of which will end up in the United States as legal and illegal immigration, further limiting the job prospects for unemployed and underemployed Americans, and threatening homeland security.

Terrible crimes have been committed against innocent civilians in Syria, as in Sudan, the Congo, and many other countries. For the U.S. to unilaterally try to bring the perpetrators to justice, without the support of the United Nations, will require enormous sacrifices by our citizens over many years of war.

Mere gestures of disapproval like dropping a few bombs and missiles are worse than meaningless. They create positive harms. They make a bad situation worse.  No attack on Syria!  Build American schools, infrastructure and jobs!

Now along comes Susan Cain, a high-achieving introvert, with an exhaustive examination of what we know about the introvert/extrovert spectrum in her much-praised, best-selling book "Quiet", which is subtitled "The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking".

In Part One of her book Cain explains how extroversion became the cultural ideal through such influential programs as the Dale Carnegie course in "How to win friends and influence people." In today's world we encourage students and job seekers to get out there and "Network, network, network!" But she observes that creativity most often occurs when individuals work alone. Successful organizations need to facilitate and reward individual creativity.

In Part Two of her book Cain explores the research suggesting that biology or genetics may be factors pre-determining individual temperament and place on the spectrum.

Most interesting to me was the research on how babies react to certain negative stimuli, and suggesting that high-reactive babies tend to become conflict-avoiding introverts, while low-reactive babies tend to become fearless extroverts.

Part Three of Cain's book explores the role of culture in affecting individual temperament. She primarily focuses on Asian-Americans who manifest higher incidence of the characteristics of introverts, while also sharing a culture valuing those characteristics such as appreciating quiet time, individual effort, social harmony, and conflict avoidance.

In the final Part Four of her book, Cain offers advice to both introverts and extroverts on how to communicate and interact with each other, and how to raise our children.

Introverts can and do achieve success in many and varied fields. Our introvert President Barack Obama is regularly criticized for failure to "schmooze" with members of Congress and his big money donors, preferring to spend time with his family and a small circle of personal friends. In sharp contrast, see Vice President Joe Biden and former President Bill Clinton who are classic extroverts who actually seem to enjoy the process of making new friends and influencing people.

When I walk or ride my bike on Northern Delaware's scenic Greenway, I enjoy the quiet and the time to think. But I observe my fellow regular exercisers who are constantly talking on the phone, or who are constantly plugged in with earphones, as if they can't stand the silence or the waste of time just thinking to themselves.

The best advice I received from my immigrant father was to take up public speaking in high school. My father observed that success in life is not achieved only through education and hard work, but also through the skills to communicate ideas through speech and writing. So I can do formal presentations before audiences large and small. It's the small talk at cocktail receptions that I find most difficult and challenging.

Thank you, Susan Cain, for the best explanation to date of why that is.

The bicentennial of the War of 1812, fought for three years until 1815, is passing with only local commemoration in the United States, although that war resulted in thousands of American and British deaths from both combat and disease, as well as the invasion and burning of the national capital in Washington, D.C. by the British, after its abandonment by the U.S. government.

Most Americans know little about the War of 1812, although the national anthem was written by Francis Scott Key when he observed "The Star Spangled Banner" still flying after the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor in 1814. Baby boomers may vaguely recall the 1959 popular song "The Battle of New Orleans" by Johnny Horton, which celebrated a major American victory at the end of the war.

Conversely, the war bicentennial is being nationally celebrated in Canada which was invaded by U.S. armies during the war. The U.S. invasion forged a sense of Canadian identity clearly different from that of the Americans, despite a common culture and language.

Last year, Canada produced commemorative coins for circulation to honor British-Canadian heroes and victories in the War of 1812.

A two dollar coin celebrates the bloody victory of the British frigate HMS Shannon in capturing the American frigate USS Chesapeake outside Boston harbor in 1813. Sixty Americans were killed including the captain whose famous final order was, "Don't give up the ship!"

A quarter dollar coin was issued for the heroine Laura Secord who, overhearing plans for an American military advance, walked 20 miles through forest and swamp, warning the British troops and their native allies, helping to stop the Americans.

Another quarter dollar coin honors the Shawnee warrior and chief Tecumseh who lead native warriors of many tribes to fight alongside the British and capture Fort Detroit from the Americans. Other quarter coins honor British General Sir Isaac Brock who died leading the charge to repulse the American invaders, and Charles-Michel de Salaberry who organized and led French volunteers to defend Montreal from the Americans.

Quite a contrast with the more recent U.S.-Canada friendship portrayed in the recent Hollywood movie "Argo".

In Philadelphia a vestige of the War of 1812 is the 142-foot high Shot Tower at Front and Carpenter Streets in South Philadelphia, clearly visible from the I-95 expressway. The Shot Tower was built in 1808 to produce lead shot for firearms after an embargo in 1807 prevented importation, and ended up producing lead shot for the U.S. military throughout the War of 1812.

British raiders of the American coastline routinely freed slaves, helped them flee, and welcomed freed slaves into military service with the Royal Marines. One reason Americans fought so hard to repel British raiders was fear of retribution from freed slaves with guns.