"Close the window" he hollered at his assistant and pointed his finger at the narrow slit in the wall.  The gesture was only for emphasis since there was but one window in this room in the castle, the room that was the Wizard's study.  It faced almost due South which meant that it got sunlight for only a short time each day and then only in Summer.  It gave him a crabbed view of the courtyard.  More often than not his understanding of what might be transpiring below was gained from some ambient sound rather than from reliable observation.  The Wizard had become quite adept at gleaning a lot of understanding of the affairs of state by listening for these little clues.  If it was quiet he knew that he would have the day to himself to consider his craft and other serious matters.  If there was the sound of horses or wagons or both then something of note might be occurring.  The wizard had learned that if there was human chatter that accompanied those sounds then the activity was probably some mundane event like commerce or social affairs.  If there was loud shouting then the Wizard knew that soon he might be called for counsel or perhaps a potion.  He would be prepared.  If there was silence that accompanied the coming and going in the courtyard then it was serious.  When really bad things are happening, officials of state appear uncharacteristically calm, circumspect and sometimes even silent.  The Wizard knew that at these times the officials were neither calm nor circumspect but rather prickly and defensive. That was the time for him to think hard and speak carefully.

Now and then the Wizard entertained the notion of asking for a larger window.  He imagined how it might be to see the comings and goings in the central courtyard without moving from his desk.  Somehow though the Wizard never made the request.  Partly this was because of the expense.  The Wizard did not take part in discussions of money but he knew from the numerous requests for remedies for discomforts of the digestion made by the ministers of the kings financial affairs that the time was rarely propitious for such a petition.  And partly it was because the little window was a secret resource for the Wizard.  He would not infrequently impress some audience of his betters with his incisive appreciation of the matters at hand without any perceivable source of his understandings other than his wisdom and intellect.  The Wizard had his vanities too.

He pulled on his ermine collar.  It is going to be cold soon.  The window will be shut.  He wondered how he would keep ahead of events in the castle without the little, telltale murmurings and rattles from the courtyard below.   He knew that he would have to spend more time in the great hall, joining the assemblage of notables, nobles and the king himself.  And he thought to himself as he shifted in his chair that a small blizzard of snow closes his window on the world leaving him with nothing to do but sit amidst the giant blizzard of self-serving posturing and general hoo-ha of the great room.  Suddenly that slit in the wall didn't seem so small.

Some say that Starbucks management has concluded that they are at the point in their growth where they should adopt a new model of marketing and product delivery.   They reason that their core mission is the delivery of coffee.  With the increased volume of patronage, the inefficiency and expense of the small, café platform is a burden with no compensating benefit.  Modern technology can support a very efficient delivery of product to consumer, but some aspects of the traditional delivery of coffee are not supportable, at least when compared to the economies of scale offered by modern technology.  

Take the task of drawing a shot of espresso, the basis of most product.  Thousands of individual boilers provide the steam that many thousands of baristas must release into tens of thousands of small cups by pulling on a valve handle, all the time watching the pressure in the boiler and the other tasks in assembling a single drink.  All of this is going on in the age of the nuclear reactor.  Modern technology allows a few professionals to deliver enormous amounts of steam in a safe, efficient and economical manner despite the challenges of nuclear fission.  Who would want to have thousands of tiny fission heated boilers replace these large reactor facilities?  The arrow of progress points in the direction of larger, not smaller.  Modern technology supports this movement toward larger but has little capacity to support the quaint traditions and charming inefficiencies of former times.     

Along with this ability to provide large volumes of product comes the need to alter the form and dimensions of the customer interface - thus the rumored conversion to a large facility footprint for the dispensing of coffee product.  Although the details about a mass distribution center are not available some aspects are inferentially apparent.  The current face-to-face contact between vendor and customer and the use of identifiers like first names will not suit this new, large volume environment.  There are plenty of currently available public identifiers such as passports and drivers license numbers that can be used to link the consumer with their purchase.  Some critics foresee a negative response to the use of such public identifiers but others observe that with the loss of the intimacy of the small café, the consumption of coffee will join the many other public transactions which routinely utilize such methods of coordination.  Most people sacrifice their privacy several times each day as they go about consuming and otherwise trafficking in the modern style.

 Another change that can be inferred is in regard to the décor of the new, large volume coffee dispensary.  One senior manager at Starbucks suggested in a telephone interview that the whole business of what he called "the comfortable living room conumdrum" will finally be confronted.  "Most of our customers come in to purchase coffee" He said.  "They get their product and they leave.  Yet we provide chairs, tables - even sofas and lounges.  All of these things are used by only a tiny fraction of our customer base.  Typically it is the same few customers, the industry term is 'regulars', who take advantage of these accoutrements yet we invest in them as if they were a profit source.  Frankly the numbers just don't add up."  It seems likely that the new coffee dispensary will be sparsely furnished, if at all.  The emphasis will be on convenience of entry, transaction and egress, perhaps like a MacDonalds only on a massively larger scale of volume.

Most industry observers think that this rumored change in Starbucks' delivery formula will reduce waste, improve productivity and the consistency of product quality, and generally have a favorable effect on their bottom line.  Few see any downside other than the loss of some small bit of charming gentility in day-to-day life and that loss will be experienced by only a handful of coffee devotees.  So if the rumors are true it seems this change will be met with a thumbs up.  So let's try it out.  I press the button on the speaker box and:

 "Welcome to Starbucks.  Can I take your order?"

"Yes.  My order is a number 27, my VISA number is 1445-55-4557-2020  expires 12-12"

"Thank you.  Please proceed to line number 134.  And have a nice day."

Hmmm.   That went well.

1. Tell them it can't be done.
2. If they don't accept that then tell them it is easier for them to do it by hand, without software support
3. If they don't accept that then agree to make the changes and just submit progress reports every three months or so.

This worked fine back when the computer staff was able to retreat into secured areas of the facility requiring electronic pass keys and such to gain entry.  That protection is not available today and so, alas, the changes must actually be attempted. 

All of which leads me to my modest proposal.  Operating on the principle that half-way measures produce half-way success, I suggest this.  Through a serendipitous circumstance I have acquired the property rights to a World War II era infantry training facility in Wisconsin called Camp McCoy.  I served there a few months in the Army back in 1967 and am familiar with the site.  It once housed over 20,000 trainees and staff.  All of the buildings remain - the barracks, mess halls, theatres and even chapels.  All of the other infrastructure is in good condition and ready to again support such a large population.  And there is a large portion of the land that is in its natural state available for recreation and/or additional development.  What I propose is that the TPM Café be converted from a virtual community to an actual community.  Anyone who wishes to continue to participate in the Café experience would be required to physically move into this facility in Wisconsin.    

Now I know, I know, just as with this recent change in login procedures, there will be some adjustments necessary for those who wish to continue the Café conversation by moving to Camp McCoy.  Let me try to anticipate some of your concerns and point out some of the advantages of this new system.

1. You will not have to join some social networking service like Facebook or Twitter.  Thus you will avoid the myriad assaults on your privacy and free time that one incurs when signing up on these things.

1. You will no longer be required to logon.  You will now be living in the community and so logging on is a non-sequitur.  If you have something to say or you want to know what someone else has to say, you merely walk to their residence and begin to chat.   I need not explain the health benefits of walking from "post" to "post" rather than sitting in a chair for long periods reading them.

1. It follows that you will no longer require a password, thus simplifying your life a little and perhaps reducing by some small increment the paranoia that accompanies having to remember secret personal code keys.

1. What about anonymity you ask?  Well Café participants (i.e. residents) are free to use any identifying name they wish.  One might use their real name, like Dickday, or one may use a pseudonym like OverreachThis.  It has occurred to me that there might be a use for some protocol where when using a person's real name you would just say "Hi Dickday" whereas if using a pseudonym one would say "Hi citizen LisB" or "Hi comrade Clearthinker."  This can be decided in a future revision.

1. Physical anonymity can be achieved by the wearing of masks and even costumes.  It seems to me that this adds a dimension of cultural expression heretofore absent in the virtual Café experience.

These are just a few of the advantages and issues that my modest proposal attempts to address.  I just wanted to introduce the concept.  I know that there are many fertile minds here at the virtual Café that can flesh out the skeleton I have presented.  Change is in the air here in America and like the man said, "Yes we can."

(From citizen LarryH with kind regards to the future mayor of New Café Wisconsin, JMM) 

 "I have another question for you Wizard" said the king.

 "Yes My Lord?"

 "What about Eternity.? I mean eternity would actually mean that there is no time at all. That there can be no past and there can not be any future because time would be meaningless."

 "The short answer or the long answer?" the wizard asked himself.

 "Well My Lord it is true that Eternity means that there are countless minutes in the span of time.  However it does not mean that each minute is without its value.  In eternity there is an endless supply of wine but the council of the Round Table still drinks, one grail full at a time.  And eternity means that there are countless fair maidens but surely Your Grace has not ceased to enjoy the chance encounter with yet one more princess.  Eternity means that there will always be more problems but still the council sits and debates what is to be done, each matter in its own time."

 "This is true.  This is true." Responded the king. 

 "There is a distinction between the theoretical and the practical.  Just last week if you will remember, Your Grace and the Lords addressed the worry over the shortage of leeches for curing ills.  Now in theory there is an infinite supply of leeches.  Nevertheless Your Great Council struggled mightily over how to have enough leeches at hand for every ill."

 "I see." Said the King.  "And when I mandated that every citizen bring ten leeches to Camelot each year or be whipped, I was being practical."

 "And wise" added the wizard who thought to himself "Wise in the sense that the people are not likely to ask for any more help from the council after this."

 "And since my Royal Mandate I have heard no more worrying about leeches."  The king said.  "There you go" the wizard murmured to himself.

 "I think the people have learned a great lesson from your actions Royal Sir. Namely.."

 "How do you know so much Wizard?" the king interrupted.  "Do you sit in your chamber and think all the time?"

 "My Lord.  Like any man if I sit and think I quickly fall into a slumber.  I have determined that it is better if I get down on my knees, on the cold stone floor, and only then proceed to reflect upon weighty questions such as the one you have just raised."

 "How long do you stay on your knees Wizard?"

 "Well, I am a man who has many ideas Your Highness.  I am often likely to have more than one answer to any question.  My musings can tend to become compounded and if  permitted would go on for, um, well, eternity.  Once a few years ago I was on my knees in such a state of compounded reflection when I suddenly smelled cheese.  I had left a small morsel on a plate and after some time the scent of it wafted thoughtout my chamber.  I had felt hungry for several hours but it was the smell of the cheese that caused me to determine to choose from among my thoughts and end the session on the stone floor."  Since that time I always place a small wedge of cheese on a plate at one end of my chamber.  When I can smell the cheese I know it is time to choose."

 "I see."  The king sounded bored.  "Well anyway you were about to tell me what the people learned from my new mandate."

 "Yes.' Said the wizard.  The wizard struggled to find a way to phrase the reality that would please his Liege Lord.  What the people had learned is that the only thing worse than having a problem is having a solution from the High Council. "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." The wizard intoned in his gravest tone of voice.

 "Hmmmm." Replied the king.  "Knee-cheese-wisdom. It's beyond me."

 "What isn't?" thought the wizard.

The door to the wizard's study flew open and the huge brass inside handle slammed against the wall with a crashing report.   The servant stumbled on his miserable robe and slid across the cold stone floor, coming to a stop with his nose no more than an inch from the knee of the seated magician. 

"The King has the plague.  The King has the plague. Oh woe." and he began to weep.

The wizard leapt from his chair and ran out the open door, down the hall to the king's bed chamber.  He found the queen, alone, sound asleep and snoring as she does - a sound matched only by the chortling of a charging wild boor.   The wizard continued on, through the passageway that led from the bedroom to the throne room.  There he found the king sitting upright and fully dressed, chatting with a few knights who appeared remarkably sober for this late in the evening.  The wizard tried to gather himself as the king looked his way.

"Good evening Wizard.  Why the hubbub?

"I'm sorry Your Grace.  My servant told me you were not well which is clearly not so.  I think my servant will not be well himself after I administer a beating of him for causing me to interrupt you so rudely."

"Not at all Wizard. Join us. I was just chatting with these fine knights about a subject dear to your heart - natural philosophy - I think you call it "de rerum naturem." I call it "de rearum nocturnem" which is Latin for sitting on your arse at night  and daydreaming" and the king laughed. "Come. Sit with us."

The wizard moved to a chair near the throne and sat down, while at the same time taking the measure of the king's demeanor in search of any signs of illness.

"Your servant rushed out just as I began to tell the company here that I had found a reason to admire old King Reagan.  You remember him Wizard."

"Reagan."  "Admire."  Not two words that the wizard ever thought of using in the same sentence.  However the wizard's reaction was relief rather than dismay.  Dementia, even full blown insanity is not a symptom of plague and so the wizard was relieved, perhaps as much as anything because it meant that he could forgo a physical exploration of his Highness and all the Royal knarly bits in search of a telltale lump or worse, a pustule.  

"Stupid is not even a category of disease" the wizard thought to himself as he smiled and nodded acquiescently "Of course your Grace.  King Reagan of the golden tongue." "..and leaden brain" the wizard thought to himself.

"Yes" the king continued.  "Do you remember his idea for an impermeable suit of armor made from diamond encrusted solid gold? What a dreamer we all thought. ( "Dreamer" the wizard thought to himself. "This was the king who thought that a stone catapulted against a castle wall could be recalled harmlessly with the simple chant 'Nevermind.'  The man was a loon.") "Well it seems that a Prince of Reagan's realm has demonstrated that Reagan's idea was no dream.  He created such a suit of armor for a mouse and then beset it with six cats and try as they would the cats could not eat the mouse.  Amazing huh?"

"Amazing is right" the wizard thought.  Amazing who can become king sometimes.  The wizard did a quick calculation and concluded that there was not enough gold and diamond in all the world to armor the mice in Camelot alone.  And even if there were so what?  This whole enterprise would result in a lot of very hungry cats who would likely turn to other forms of sustenance, perhaps their owners.   But the wizard prudently left the folly of politics to those more able to bear its costs and so he replied in the gentlest of tones.

"My Lord, I thought that we had agreed long ago that this was a bad idea in principle because of its crippling expense and, more importantly, because it would create a group of invincible knights who might turn their energies to establishing their own suzerainty over the land including our own."

"Yes. Yes. I remember.  But it is such a marvelous experiment.  I mean a truly invincible mouse is noteworthy in itself.  Don't you agree?" and the king looked down at the wizard.

"I am not wise in these matters Your Grace.  I was only recalling your own words and if those words are now encomiums to a Prince from the land of Reagan then I bow to your wisdom.  I am so overcome with relief that you are well that I can offer no more at this time.  By your leave I will withdraw.

"Good night wizard.  I appreciate that you always place my best interest first.  Pleasant dreams and don't worry.  There are no invincible mice here at Camelot.  At least not yet. Ahahahahah.

The wizard withdrew and as he walked the hallway back to his study he thought that maybe the king had a little bit of the plague and had been made tired. It was unlikely the king would decree to impoverish the whole kingdom just to create the impossible - a knight who once made invincible would not seek to rule the world.

 Wait a minute.  No one is singing except me.  And this isn't an instrumental piece.  And where is the strumming guitar? Those are violins I hear.  Oh god it is 101 Strings playing "The Times They Are a-'Changin." 

 Thus ends my critique of last night's SOTU.   

For those of us who had to suffer Muzak in the workplace we know that there were a finite number of Muzak tapes and thus a finite song list.  Eventually you would hear the same tunes again and, if you had a secure job, then again and again and again.  But worse even than this monotony was the pain of that one song, the one that really grated on your nerves.  Maybe it was because you hated the original or maybe it was because you loved the original and it was maddening to hear your beloved refrain turned into a string of Major chords without a hint of the dissonant tones and the romantic pace that made you love the original.  Try as you might there was no mechanism it seemed to have that song removed from the play list.  

 Actually there was a way to have a song removed and removed quickly.  If you contacted the Muzak provider that told them that there was a song on their list that you really liked and you wished to know how to obtain a recording of it, the provider would remove the song almost immediately.  You see the whole point of Muzak was that it was NOT to be noticed.  What the provider was providing was background sound.  Noticing, or worse, liking, the music was the opposite of the intention of the Muzak service.

And so it was with last night's SOTU.  There was nothing in it that I really liked and I suspect there aren't too many others who found something they really liked.  Many like Obama.  I like Obama.  I don't like him as much as I disliked George Bush.  I have considered that I may have a personal problem in that I somehow have become addicted to the stress of living under Bush, but then I think "privacy, Habeas Corpus, the rights of citizenship, Guantanamo, Afghanistan, ..." and I realize that if anything I am the model of patience.  I have read a number of reactions to the SOTU that are complimentary and praiseful.  As I read them though I find that these commentaries are more statements of what the commentator holds to be worthwhile, not something that can be found in the speech itself.  And so I say that there aren't many others who found something they liked.  I find no consensus on key phrases or themes or initiatives - just a couple of million people kicking the old world around for an hour or so.   

The SOTU address was a masterpiece of political muzak.  It would have been so easy to say something that would have been noticed and been liked; something of substance that would be debated and discussed with energy the next day.   Of course it would also have been disliked but as the real Muzak people knew, if you don't like something you tune it out and it becomes background.  It is in the liking of something that it moves from background to foreground and then, of course, something must be done.  In the industry of background music the likable thing is simply erased.  In the political industry the likable thing must then be provided or the voters will look to another candidate.  Better to never present a likable thing.  It just distracts the people from their work.

There were loose threads to the story of course and third and fourth and fifth explanations that had merit. Today I came across this summary by Mike Whitney: Lehman Died So TARP and AIG Might Live. Whitney asserts:

Lehman was a planned demolition (most likely) concocted by ex-Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson, who wanted to create a financial 9-11 to scare Congress into complying with his demands for $700 billion in emergency funding (TARP) for underwater US banking behemoths. The whole incident reeks of conflict of interest, corruption, and blackmail.

A few weeks ago Paul Krugman wrote an eight page op-ed in the NYT in which he tried to describe an explanation for why economists had so totally missed the largest downturn since the Great Depression. It is somewhat contrite in tone. The op-ed meanders around the subject with just enough inside baseball references to give it the tack of substantiality but after reading it I was left without a clue as to what was his point. I am temped to say it was something along the lines of "Well Economics is unreliable but we have already printed the class schedule so we might as well continue to teach the courses. And we don't want to just add to the unemployment problem." Toward the end of his op-ed, Krugman speaks about "salt water" economists and "fresh water" economists. I did take away from this that even the most notable experts in a field like Economics or Anthropology must reduce the blizzard of details to some simple formulation for the purposes of understanding and communication. The danger of course is that "the devil is in the details."

For me then the devil has the upper hand. As someone not erudite in these fields, I can at least imitate this one practice of the cognoscente and contrive a simple formulation. To wit: This economic crisis of our time may be profound or it may be a hoax. Either way I'm screwed and should concern myself with solving the problems of my nano-economic world. I wonder how much Powell's Books will give me for my copy of William Greider's "Secrets Of The Temple"?

"But even if Obama fails, there is an art to losing, too -- in a way that can tee up the issue for future presidents."

"An art to losing." If your art is losing doesn't that just make you a "bum?" I want to write more but I can't get past this movie scene. I'm sorry. I'm no Dickday. But for the record I am not a bum. This is a conversation I want to have with the Democratic Party: It was you Charlie.

Well maybe I can say a little more.

My cat knows when her bowl is empty and she knows what to do about it. What I wouldn't give for just a moment of that kind of clarity.

Does the farmer sit on the edge of his field and mull interminably whether to plant wheat or corn, beans or squashes, food or fodder? Does the fisherman sail out upon the ocean only to drop anchor and meditate on the vast largess of the sea and never drop his net? Does the hunter sit quietly with his weapon in his lap and marvel at the variety of fauna that surrounds him in the forest? No. The farmer farms and the fisherman fishes and the hunter hunts. He does so because his bowl is empty and he knows what to do about it.

Lately the marvelous Mr. Dickday has been quoting Lao Tzu as a way to launch discussion of some current affairs. Big Zu, as I affectionately call him, is hard for the Western mind to understand. We read him as we would read Socrates but while they were almost contemporaries they had a much different approach to wisdom and understanding. Socrates admitted himself that he had no ideas and that his only intent was to be a "gadfly" who stimulates ideas in others. In the end he hoped to engender some body of wisdom unknown even to him. Big Zu was all about a body of knowledge which he summarized with the title The Tao, The Way. "He who knows the Tao does not speak the Tao and he who speaks the Tao does not know the Tao." How could these two men be more different?

This difference reminds me of my youthful considerations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Each man appealed to me but for entirely different reasons. I so admired the rigorous rationality and manly firmness of Malcolm. Martin was less appealing to a callow youth but the spiritual power of his "way" was undeniable. In the end it turned out that in the morning, when you are buttoning your shirt and thinking about the demonstration that you are about to take part in, the rigors of reason and the manly poise are unsustaining. Doubt and fear will invade and distract and dissuade. There is a need for clarity if this thing is to be done. Martin offered that clarity.

When my cat can sees the bottom of her bowl, she knows what to do. At first she comes to me with what I deem as affection which I return by petting her head. Determined as she is she continues these friendly gestures until I come to say to her "I love you too but I am busy thinking about something now so go away." She persists and eventually begins to speak, first quietly and then more firmly. And persist she does until I finally realize that she is not overcome with kind regard for me but rather she has seen the bottom of her bowl and she knows she must move me to answer her need. Finally I get it.

And in this way I am approaching my moment of clarity. I am beginning to see the bottom of the bowl. I know what to do. I will ask, I will insist, I will demand that those who hold the scepter of authority respond to my need and if they refuse then I no longer have any use for the relationship. I will plow other fields, fish other waters, hunt other forests and forget them and all their disputations.

Richard Mellon Day:  A retired billionaire who is seldom seen in public and is reputed to have the most extensive collection of loungewear since Louis XVI.  He lives mostly in flight in a luxuriously appointed Boeing 767, landing only to purchase his favorite brands of cigarettes and a custom version of Cheese Doodles prepared under contract by a gourmet bakery in Minnesota.

Day's articles characteristically focus on his lifelong love of tyrannical leaders from the Early Middle Ages whom he memorializes in what can be only characterized as romanticized versions of these historical despots.  He is particularly fond of using the barely historical character, Archibald the Merciless, a semi-mythical Welsh king whose court and kin were renowned in their time for their mendacity.  Richard celebrates this ethic of self-indulgence in allegorical stories about Archibald that examine and enthusiastically promote such autocratic sentimentality. Day also writes about contemporary issues in which he consistently argues that it is the few wealthy and well placed who must dominate the masses of untermenschen.    

Phyllis Godsend:  TheraP as she is affectionately known is a televangelist and head of the largest mega church congregation in Southern Montana.  Her extraordinary fund raising ability allowed her to launch her own telecommunications satellite using Chinese aerospace assets.  She has her own cable network and appears daily for several hours advising and counseling her teleflock. 

Godsend's contributions to the Café are sporadic but the theme is always the same.  "I will share your pain with you if you will share your cash with me. Pass it on."  There have been several attempts to prosecute Ms. Godsend for this as being a classic "Pyramid scam" but all were settled out of court or were dropped after the untimely deaths of the complainants.

Angelina Beau l'Homme:   Angelina uses the handle LisB in honor of her lifelong relationship with Liz Cheney. 

Angelina writes as a staunch defender of the stay at home stay-at-home.  She is the only woman elected President of the all-male Promise Keepers because of her tireless efforts promoting the notion of "Equality In Subservience", that women can rule by acquiescence. 

Nancy Luntz: Aka Stratofrog: A retired CIA cryptologist and speech writer for Republicans like President George Bush; considered by Conservatives as the dean of political rhetoric and phrasemaking.  William F. Buckley Jr. said in his auto-obituary that he always wished he could write like Stratofrog. 

Her most notable contribution was when she worked tirelessly with Sarah Palin to train her to end every sentence with "and also."

Quintilius Bubkes O'Hare: Writing as Quinn Esq. is the scion of a wealthy dynasty of Canadian Seventh Day Adventists.  His grandfather, Sean Caligula O'Hare, served as a missionary to the King of Siam in the late Nineteenth century where he convinced the King that the excrement of a rare species of Canadian raccoon had aphrodisiac properties.  The subsequent trade agreements made the O'Hare family enormously wealthy.

A recluse, Quinn bursts on the Café scene unannounced from time to time in defense of inherited wealth.  His unique style of discourse is partly the religious fervor of a preacher and partly the circumspection of a man whose wealth is the product of trading in animal poop. 

This is just a small example of the caste of characters that I imagined might populate the TPM Café if it wasn't so liberal.

(Author's note: Caffeine is an amazing drug.)

In the legendary science fiction movie "Forbidden Planet," the plot is very simple.  A highly evolved race of beings (the Krell) on a far away planet mysteriously disappeared without explanation.  This species had evolved to such a state of knowledge and technical skill that they were able to harness immense  power to materialize their every want and need using only telepathic control of that immense power - "without instrumentality' as the movie explains.  The mystery of why they disappeared is unraveled when a group of human astronauts arrive on the planet to rescue another group of humans who found the planet years before.  The rescuers are at once attacked by some impossibly powerful "creature."  It seems that the last surviving human from the first landing, Morbius, had tapped into the system that the Krell had created.   He had the telepathic command of that great creative power.   The rescuers puzzle out that, as the dialogue reads:

Rescuer to Morbius: Like you, the Krell forgot one deadly danger... their own subconscious hate and lust for destruction.

Morbius: The beast. The mindless primitive. Even the Krell must have evolved from that beginning. And so those mindless beasts of the subconscious... had access to a machine that could never be shut down.  The secret devil of every soul on the planet... all set free at once to loot and maim... and take revenge and kill!

My poor Krell! After a million years of shining sanity... they could hardly have understood what power was destroying them.

- - -

I submit this for your consideration as you and I try to puzzle out the phenomenon of Bush, Cheney, the torture policy and the rapid collapse of the foundational precepts of our culture.  Of course we can continue to diligently examine the thoughts of those who wrote our Constitution and review the history of our past treatment of enemies and even look to religion, philosophy and ancient history to find clues; but perhaps we need to step back and see that Bush and Cheney may be  hard to fathom because they reside inside each of us.  They are the "mindless primitive" that most of us conquered in our formative years and placed under the firm control of our higher selves.  Control it we did, but we could never destroy it.  It is always there, in the shadows, and now in our forgetfulness we have allowed it access to the power of our civilization. 

It may not then be a problem of us vs. them.  Rather it may be a matter of one part of us saying "No" to another part of ourselves.  Growing up the first time was not easy.  This will not be easy either.

The wizard hurried down the corridor with his heavy robes rustling and his heavy breath panting. "It is never wise to keep the king waiting" he thought as he pushed on the heavy doors of the king's reception hall.  "Ah wizard.  I almost forgot I sent for you."  The wizard was relieved.

"Tomorrow is the Lord Narrator's birth remembrance day and I would like you to conjure up a special potion as a gift from all of me to him.  Something he can use and enjoy."

The wizard, never slow to appreciate the politics of any situation, began to quickly compose a list of possibilities in his thoughts but not yet speaking them to his liege.

"My Lord" the wizard said slowly as he bowed in a symbolic obedience.  "My god" is what the wizard actually was thinking.   That Lord Narrator needed a potion all right.  He could use about a hundred. He needs one for:

His abysmal taste in clothes:  Does the man even own anything but bed clothes?

His interminable laughter: His "Ahahahaha" that continually interrupts the serious affairs of state that he is forever sticking his nose into.

And that nose:  It has poked into so many places where it didn't belong that it has become a common epithet. "By Dickday's nose" as the commoners now say when they mean to voice some objection to the wise policies of their betters.   

His happy demeanor:  Does he not realize that we are in the darkest of the dark ages?  It is a time of dragons and plagues and black knights.  This is no time for his frivolous injections of humor and, worse, sympathy. 

His irrepressible impulse to talk:  The man has more stories than a Prince has vices.  None of them are quite true and none of them ever end exactly and none of them make any sense to the august assemblies of the royalty or the clergy.  Only the servants seem to understand him.

The wizard realized he didn't know how long he had been thinking about this.  He looked at the king whose head was nodding slowly and whose eyes were half closed.  The wizard decided it was time to speak.

"Since Your Grace places such value on the contributions of the Lord Narrator I will conjure a potion that will energize him in his efforts for the benefit of all."

"Well thought wizard" responded the King. "A balm for my Lord Narrator it is.  Make is so."

The wizard bowed and retreated from the chamber.  As he strode down the corridor, the wizard already knew the two ingredients he would use:  viagra that is taken from the sweat of a rutting hedgehog and caffeine from the coffee plant.

 "And what will I call it? mused the wizard.  "How about just "Dickday." 

"Ah this wizard stuff is just too easy" he thought to himself and began to improvise on a favorite old tune on his way back to his chamber.

It's been a hard day's night, and I've been working like a dog
It's been a hard day's night, I should be sleeping like a log
But when I get home to you and  that bottle of goo
"Dickday" will make me feel alright

(Happy Birthday old darling)

I recently suggested in a post that the U.S. may be about to jump the shark.  Then I asked, "Are we rapidly becoming a parody of ourselves?" Perhaps I should have said Paraguay and not parody.

As I listened to President Obama's speech on national security I kept asking myself "Who is the audience for this talk?"  It was an unfocused and unstructured effort.  There was no central theme that might be taken for a new "doctrine." If those in attendance were national security experts then there was nothing in the speech for them on which to hang their powdered wigs and compose detailed analyses.  It was a lump of words like a lump of clay.  You can't really dissect something this amorphous and discover any hidden detail. References to "Rule of Law" described a "ruler," in this case "the Law," that seems a weak monarch whose suzerainty comes only at the pleasure of other interests.  Moreover the language was undisciplined and a most un-ambitious effort to explain. Our principles are our strength he says but we may at times follow other principles to secure that strength, or something like that.  The speech had a plaintiff mood more suited to a New Year's resolution than a statement of Executive policy.  And then there were all the references to the prior administration's misjudgments that had such a sound of excuses.  

All of these flaws can be found in just one sentence from the speech. "There is also no question that Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America's strongest currency in the world."   First of all it ducks the issue.  Ask former vice-President Richard Cheney. There is in fact a raging political question.  It is weak. "Set back?"  More like "broke" I think.  And using a term like "Guantanamo" is just plain evasion of the whole subject. 

In the entertainment world, when a TV series is said to have "jumped the shark" it means that the producers have exhausted the premise of the series and are proceeding to go over the top on their way out.  The series is then canceled and the viewer is left to look to other cable channels for new distractions.  I am beginning to wonder if the U.S. is not about to "jump the shark" and leave the citizenry to find another way of understanding their commonweal, their social contract.  If so then how exactly does one "surf" for a new social understanding?

Two things I have noticed here in the past few days at TPM have led me to this thought.  The first is that the Café, led by the indomitable Mr. DickDay,  has been having some fun with demented speculations.  That in itself is not such a surprise since there are a lot of talented and imaginative contributors here.  The other thing I noticed is the dominance of "deep thought" entries and other snarky headlines on the front page.  It is as if both the creative spirits here and the diligent experts have come to some mutual realization that perhaps the U.S. as a whole has as they say "jumped the shark."  Are we rapidly becoming a parody of ourselves?

 The Justice Department staff has concluded that other Justice Department staff should not be prosecuted for even the clearest violation of the laws governing the behavior of its staff of lawyers.  So what exactly is a Justice Department all about, outside of law enforcement?  I won't even get into the "We don't torture any more except we still do." thing.  It has just become a macabre play on words. Then there is party affiliation.  Senator Specter, a Republican has become a Democrat, except he hasn't, except he will, and on and on.  It raises the question of how would a new citizen of the U.S. rationalize his/her choice of a political party  if the most senior incumbents in those parties can not? And while I am on the subject of citizenship, without Habeas Corpus how is the U.S. not a despotism rather than a democracy as we are fond of claiming?  Under what political philosophy is it my right not to have rights?

There is also the matter of the banks not having any money.  Well I don't have any money.  Does that make me a bank?  If so can I get a zero interest loan from the Federal Reserve?  And anyway if a bank has no money is it a bank or just a store with nothing for sale?  There are two wars going on in pursuit of some unstated purpose other than they have been going on before today.  Or are they even wars any more?

I'll stop.  It seems the poets are laughing and the expert analysts are laughing.  Maybe the whole thing has become laughable and it is time to move on.  I wonder what is on the Animal Planet channel.  Oh god no.  It is probably worse there.  I think I need a vice.

The assistant presented this reply to the magician with certain trepidation.  The magician was not an intemperate man but it seems that physically punishing a servant for the disappointments or discomforts suffered by a master did not violate any rule of Chivalry or Natural Law.  The assistant could only dream of a better day for his ilk. 

"Harumph," was the magician's only reaction.  He turned to his table and scattered the fire that was burning under an iron pot that contained several bats, a mouse, various herbs and a volume of table wine that had begun to turn to vinegar.  There was no need to continue brewing the potion intended to re-animate the court at Camelot.  The king was awake but simply not inclined to discourse.  The magician slumped back into his chair.  The assistant having waited long enough upon his master's wishes returned to the opposite corner of the chamber and resettled himself in the musty clump of furs that was his bed. 

"I can only imagine" the magician thought to himself, "what manner of difficulty the King and his Court are silently brewing in their own pot of conceits and ambitions. It is hard enough to undue the damage to man and beast caused by their self-absorbed carrying on, but when allowed to simmer and steep into one of their pungent brews of mayhem, even a magician of my abilities is at odds to find a remedy."

'Will it be a woman again?" he wondered.  The Ladies of the Court had long ago tired of overwrought declarations of devotion.  Such declarations inevitably emanated from the gaggle of Princes and knights following one of their indulgent visits to the castle wine closet.  The Ladies were not averse to compliments, but a pledge of honor and service from the same knight three times in the same week, well, that perfume loses its charm.  Disentangling all these commitments was the work of a Papal Legate, not a magician.

"Or would it be another fire breathing dragon?"  The last one turned out to be a tired old milk cow that had disturbed a carelessly unattended lantern, setting fire to a small barn and out building.  But that was not the story repeated with flourish and copious amounts of fermented liquids at the "victory" celebrations that followed the demise of the poor cow.

"Or would it be a quest?"  Quests were the inevitable follow on to the habit of profligate spending that was the hallmark of the court at Camelot.  Once the bottom of the coin purse became visible it wasn't long before some imagined slight of honor by a neighboring kingdom would lead to a great clamor for the return of that honor along with the spoils of some retributive invasion.  Was it ever thus with rulers?

The magician realized that the sooner he learned the details of the court's current endeavors the better for him.  "Where the hell is the Lord Narrator?  I need to know what they are up to."

Eventually we all grow up and slowly, inexorably loose that internal voice of self-direction in favor of the utility and even benefits of following the instructions of others. "Good behavior" becomes simply "behavior" as the child in us goes to sleep and the adult, that creature of self-control, takes up the role of "Simon."

It never occurred to me quite this way before but yesterday as I read President Obama's statement accompanying the torture memoranda, I started to think of "growing up" as a moral failing. As a child there was a loud inner voice that contended with the various directives from others. As an adult it seems I should be content to wait and listen for the phrase "Simon says." Without that inner voice this game is no longer any fun.

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