Nostalgia

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?



I feel August dying. I now need an alarm if I want to wake up at 5 a.m. Just days ago, it seems, the sun awoke me, shining in through my windows. At night, I have to start my biking early, early enough that I arrive back home before the dusk grows too deep.

Robert Louis Stevenson's poem for children still calls to me. As a boy, I loved it, and it rang all too true. As a pre-teen, I had a summer curfew of 9:30 p.m. How could my mother call me into the house when it was still light out, the birds still chirping, the neighbor kids still playing? In winter, how could she wake me for school when the room was still dark?

Seattle is the farthest north of any major American city. (I don't count Anchorage and Fairbanks as major cities!) Its latitude is only a bit below that that of London, where Stevenson's young hero lived. We are closer to the summer's midnight sun than the rest of you. We are closer to winter's endless nights, the northern lights. Day and night vary more wildly in length from winter to summer to winter again. Nature has greater impact on our lives.

As a boy, I shared the same awe as primitive man, sensing the daylight dying, bit by bit, day by day, as autumn progressed. Oh, I knew all about astronomy and the tilting of the Earth's axis. I could describe all the planets to you when I was 7 years old! But on a different level of my life, it was magic. Magic. At some level, I felt the primal fear (or maybe hope, or maybe just fascination) that the sun might be leaving us, moving farther and farther away, never to return. And also felt the primal sense of joy and reassurance, each year after Christmas, when I saw the days again began to lengthen.

These are very basic emotions to us humans, and as kids we were close to our wild ancestors in feeling these emotions, closer certainly to them than our blasé, pre-occupied parents. The fairy tales of Northern Europe are full of this contrast between light and dark, sun and moon, summer and winter, the snug fireplace-lit cottage and the dark, starry, wolf-infested night. Those fairy tales capture our imaginations as kids, because we live our lives more out in the open air than do adults, closer to nature, closer to our lives as forest-dwelling tribesmen.

Feeling the days shorten once more, the air cooling as September approaches, awakens my senses again as it did when I was a young boy. At some level of my being, I again thrill as I wait for school to start, leaves to change and drop, frost to touch the clear night air, a harvest moon to shine over silent lakes and dark forests.

At another level, sadly enough, I'm now also waiting for the season's first bill for heating oil.

It's the Performance, not the Audience

What's it like to write a blog, you non-bloggers may well ask?

It's like getting all dressed up in white tie and tails, two or three times a week, and walking onto the lit stage of a totally empty Carnegie Hall. You bow to the dark and vacant seats, tune your violin, smile, and begin playing. You end with a flourish, and bow once more to the silent house. The stage lights dim as you walk to the wings, contemplating your next program.

Weird? Not really. You've brought to life the music in your head. For that, no audience was needed. You are satisfied.

But once in a while, as you bow to the darkened seats, your heart skips a beat; you hear the hall echo with the sound of a person clapping. And on such nights, you truly live.

Hail to the Chief

When George V, By the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India, arrived in Delhi in 1911 to receive the joyful tribute of his imperial subjects at an Imperial Durbar, he entered the city in a five-mile long procession through the Elephant Gate. The effects on Delhi traffic, even in those early days of the horseless carriage, can only be imagined.

When George W., By the Grace of the Florida Secretary of State and the Supreme Court, President of the United States, Defender of Big Oil, and Decider for the Entire World, arrives in Seattle on Monday to receive the joyful tribute of Eastside Republicans at a $1,000 a plate dinner ($10,000 for those wishing to purchase a brief personal audience with the Divine Presence), the impact may be somewhat less if only because we have fewer elephants in our highways and byways.

Traffic in Seattle is always congested, because of the geography of the area. We have many bodies of water surrounding small amounts of densely populated land. This August has been worse than usual because of the closure for re-paving of many of the northbound lanes of I-5, the most heavily trafficked route through downtown. And the two bridges across Lake Washington, connecting Seattle to the the Eastside suburbs, are daily nightmares on the best of days.

According to this morning's Seattle Post-Intelligencer, drivers can expect the afternoon commute on Monday to be totally snarled. All streets and roads on the President's route will be entirely closed to all other traffic while he is en route. The Secret Service will not announce the President's route in advance, and will not indicate which airport he will use for his arrival and departure. It will be therefore impossible for motorists to plan alternative ways to go home from work.

But we are of course honored to have our President visit the Northwest Corner. His visit will obviously be an expensive nightmare for our police, a major inconvenience and elevator of blood-pressure for our motorists, and a serious logistics problem for the Secret Service. But, of course, whether we are Democrat or Republican, he is our President and we welcome him.

President Bush's only purpose in making the trip is to raise money for the re-election campaign of Dave Reichert, a suburban Republican Congressman for a swing district. As stated in the P-I, "Contacted Friday, Reichert's campaign staff declined to comment on the event."

The President will make no public appearances. Seattle's citizens probably are not considered part of his core constituency, such as it is. Unless they have $1,000 to pony up for dinner.

Photos: (t0p) State Entry into Delhi (1911 postcard); (bottom)King George V in imperial robes

Gin & Tonic

• 2 oz. London dry gin
• Tonic water (from a fresh bottle)
• 1-2 ample wedges of lime
• Plenty of cold ice cubes
• Highball glass





DIRECTIONS
1) Chill the glass. You may want to fill it with ice, then empty it and refill.
2) Fill the glass with whole ice cubes. If you wish, take a wedge of lime and moisten the rim of the glass with it.
3) Pour the gin over the ice, which should be cold enough that it crackles when the liquor hits it.
4) Fill glass almost to the top with tonic.
5) Squeeze one wedge of lime into the glass. Drop the squeezed lime into the drink as a garnish if you like; it’s not necessary, but can add a bit of extra flavor. Serve.

---

That got your attention, right? After months of boring you, my readers, with high-minded PBS-style nonsense, I conducted a secret readership survey to learn what you really wanted to see. Unsurprising answer? Booze and dames. (For the women, booze alone seemed to suffice.)

Well, this is the World Wide Web. If you, my loyal readers, can't surf your way to lovely ladies for any taste -- and I say any taste -- on your own, you'd better call Tech Support and ask how to use your mouse.

But booze? Indeed. I offer for your certain approval the Prince of alcoholic beverages. Don't whine to me about your dirty martinis and raspberry flavored vodka. Yecch! Grow up and taste the nectar of the gods. Kick back, enjoy the waning days of summer, sip a well made G&T, and remember -- these golden moments have been brought to you courtesy of the Northwest Corner.

Next week, we return once more to our regularly scheduled programming, Oil, Deceit and Paranoia:: The Nefarious Adventures of George and Dick.

Recipe: Jon Bonné, MSNBC

Empathy: Its Uses in Foreign Policy

em·pa·thy

[em-puh-thee] –noun

the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

The Sunday New York Times seems full of stories today that discuss the on-going meltdown of the Bush administration, stories provoked by this week's hasty resignation of Karl Rove, and by the continuing bad news from Iraq.

What went wrong over there? I don't discount the importance of conflicting intellectual approaches to geopolitics. But I wonder if many of this administration's difficulties don't stem from Republicans' traditionally poor sense of empathy for persons from backgrounds unlike their own.

We usually think of "empathy" as benefitting the person with whom we empathize. But the ability to get "inside the skin" of others also benefits the empathizer. Every salesman, businessman, attorney, advertiser, public relations consultant needs to understand how others think and feel. No one ever disputes this need when dealing with other Americans. And yet, even a highly successful American business frequently falls flat on its face when it attempts to sell goods and services abroad. Its sales force fails to understand the minds, customs, emotions, and motivations of the people to whom they're trying to make the sale.

"You gotta know the territory," as the itinerant salesmen sang in "The Music Man."

The Bush administration didn't know the territory before it went into Iraq. I doubt if its officials do now. Back in 2003, the organizers of the Iraq debacle seemed almost gleeful in discounting and ignoring the opinions of career officers in the State Department, persons who may have had some sense of the history, culture, ideals, taboos, aspirations, and daily lives of Iraqis and other Arab peoples. I pick on the Bush administration, because I disagree with it in so many respects, but this same failure is endemic historically in American foreign policy. Not understanding what makes others tick is a very human weakness, but if we are to have a successful foreign policy, it's a weakness we can't afford.

The British Foreign Office, stuffy as it may have been at the height of the Empire, nevertheless put up with eccentrics like Lawrence of Arabia, Arab head dress and all, just so long as his expertise remained of use. We desperately need such expertise, wherever we can find it.

Republicans need to recognize in themselves -- and I speak only in generalities, of course -- an even greater than average tendency to narrow their horizons to the set of people and peoples who look, act, dress, talk, and feel like themselves. Republicans have to force themselves -- in their role as government officials, regardless of their preferences in their private lives -- to expand their universe, to learn to understand -- to empathize with, if you will -- peoples very unlike themselves. Over the years, Republicans can expect to control foreign policy roughly fifty percent of the time. As a nation, we can't afford another two presidential terms of foreign policy like those now approaching an end.

Most of us -- at least, those of us apt to be reading this blog -- spent some time, during or shortly after college, bumming around foreign countries. Those were times we rubbed shoulders with all kinds of foreigners, both locals and other travelers, because we didn't have the money to shut ourselves off in expensive hotels. I think that experience provided us with a sense, at least, that human life is rich in the multitude of ways it can be led, that humans can live lives in ways very different from our own with very different objectives, and still live lives that they find deeply meaningful. They may envy our wealth and the comfort of our lives, but many are unwilling to buy our external affluence by abandoning the riches of their own internal traditions.

Maybe all future foreign policy appointees, when facing Senate confirmation hearings, should be forced to respond to certain questions: How many youth hostels have you ever stayed in, and in what parts of the world? With how many local families have you lived abroad? Ever been so broke overseas that you hitchhiked? With how many fellow students in foreign countries did you ever discuss politics, economics, jobs, education, religion, love, sex, family life -- not as a debate but kicking ideas around informally, over a beer or lying on your backs staring at the stars? How have all these experiences affected you?

Republicans like "litmus tests." This might be a good one to implement.

Photo: Future voters. Kargil, India. 2005.

Briefly, briefly, briefly

The Northwest Corner drifts into the dog days of a Seattle summer. Yellow school buses, morning fog over the Sound, and leaves changing color -- they are already discernible as a dark line on the horizon. But the long languid hours of summer are still very much with us.

Having exhausted all reserves of profundity in my prior posting, I think it's time to retreat to a format last used in May, and give you a quick summary of life here in the Northwest. Maybe I'll make these summaries a quarterly feature.

• While the rest of the nation bakes, fries and burns in record heat waves, us Northwest loggers and fisherfolk have had a fairly cool summer. A few nice, warm weeks in July, but August -- generally our hottest month -- has been, for the most part, partly cloudy and moderate in temperature. Highs in the low 70's all this past week.


• Yes! I did ultimately get my new bike! I'm riding about an hour and a half every other day, increasing each ride's distance as my legs develop. I stay in as high a gear as possible, to increase the resistance against my muscles, and try not to shift down when going over small hills. I have at my disposal the Burke Gilman trail, an excellent paved bike trail that I enter just a few blocks from my house. It continues miles northward, past the Seattle city limits, around the north end of Lake Washington, and then eastward through some of the Eastside suburbs. Denny and I leave for Laos in November, and I have only a short time to train before the autumn rains descend upon us. The riding is fun, the scenery along the lake is great, the people-watching on the trail can't be beat. And my legs just keep getting stronger!


• Denny, for his part, is training daily in Sonoma for the Santa Cruz Sentinel Triathlon on September 23. My hopes that he might be slacking off, so I could catch up with him by November, have been rudely dashed.


• I'm sending in applications this week for visas to Laos and Vietnam. The Vietnam visa is probably unnecessary, as we are only changing planes in Saigon airport on the way home. But there are stories of airlines that have refused to carry passengers into Vietnam, even just to change planes, without showing a visa. I see the visa fee as hassle insurance.


• Kathy and Clinton visited from Sonoma last weekend. That was so much fun! We visited new landmarks that I discussed in my May summary -- the new Seattle Art Museaum, and SAM's outdoor sculpture park. We also had Sunday brunch at an old landmark -- the Space Needle! I never enjoy Seattle as much as when I'm showing it off to someone else. Which should be an inducement for readers to come visit me -- it would make us both so happy!


• Seattle Seafair, at the end of July, is a puzzling annual tribal rite -- or assortment of rites -- left over from the very distant past. The high point of the week used to be the Seafair Unlimited Hydroplane Races, a noisy and incredibly boring event on Lake Washington that locals seemed to love. The winner of the event no longer is guaranteed front page celebrity, and being the subject of fond discussions throughout the coming year. But the rite continues, as rites are wont to do. We also still have the visit of the Blue Angels -- a Navy squadron of F/A-18 Hornets that fly in wingtip to wingtip formation, seemingly at rooftop level -- shattering the peace each year for the benefit of Seafair. Family pets across Seattle spend the weekend cringing under the family bed. What's this craving for noise? All we lack is NASCAR!


• But not for lack of trying. Local boosters -- including the Seattle Times -- have been trying for years to lure this bizarre "sport" to the Northwest. Apparently not hard enough. NASCAR officials have been reportedly offended this year by local taxpayers' apparent lack of interest in funding construction of the necessary speedway. Thank God.


• The Mariners continue to limp along, three games behind the Angels. They don't seem very impressive, but they would in fact be the wild card team if the A.L. playoffs were played today. No one wants to say too much about the pennant race, I guess for fear of jinxing them and because they have broken our hearts so many times in the past. I may have said too much already.


• Meanwhile, and still in the wonderful world of pro sports, the SuperSonics appear to be on the brink of pulling up stakes, leaving town and moving to -- so help me, folks, I'm not making this up -- OKLAHOMA CITY. Hahahaha! So long, Sonics. I'm not crying.

In reading over these items, I sense that summer in Seattle sounds kind of boring. It may just be my mood. But in this world in which we now live, I can think of worse things than being boring. Or being bored, for that matter.

And that's how it is, briefly, in the Northwest Corner. Good night ... and good luck.

I think, therefore ... well, therefore I think

"How do we know what we know?"

If you endured a college course in introductory philosophy, you know that this is the basic question tackled by epistemology. René Descartes, the French philosopher, argued that we must not assume the absolute truth of anything that could conceivably be doubted. He worked backward, refusing to concede without proof even the existence of the world about us, until he reached one irrefutable axiom: "I think, therefore I am." From his own existence, he then was able to deduce a number of more complex truths, such as the existence of the world that he perceived by his senses, and, ultimately, even the existence of God himself.

But what if Descartes's basic axiom was itself in error. What if "I think" does not necessarily imply "I am"? And what do we mean when we say "I am"?

John Tierney discusses, in an entertaining and rather witty article in today's New York Times, the ideas of an Oxford professor named Nick Bostrom. Dr. Bostrom asks, what if we don't exist? What if we and our universe are just virtual illusions in someone's computer game? This idea is a thought lots of us probably have had, in one form or another, and maybe tossed around with friends while lying on our backs staring at the stars. But the article works through some interesting consequences that might result.

But first of all, let's note that it's not difficult to conceive of the universe as being a virtual world. Quantum mechanics and particle physics show that the "matter" that seems so solid and enduring to us is only the perceived effect of varying combinations of electromagnetic and other forces. Our body is made of elements and compounds, whose properties and appearance are but the effects of certain specific alignments of atoms. Atoms are composed of protons, electrons and other elementary "particles." But these particles themselves are composed of quarks, which can be conceived of as -- if I correctly recall my science classes -- mere statistical probability waves in time/space. Elementary particles certainly do not resemble ultra-tiny grains of sand.

Nothing in the way that physicists describe "reality" seems any more "real" or "common sense" than the digital configurations coursing through a computer. Like a computer program, the reality we call "the universe" is all about information, not about anything permanent or "solid."

If we ourselves are as ghostly as are the virtual characters in a computer's game program, there's no way we can prove it or disprove it. Dr. Bostrom himself concludes that there's a 20 percent chance we are living in a computer simulation. John Tierney says, giving no reasons, make that at least 50 percent.

Whose computer? Who knows? The Times article is entitled: Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy's Couch. Maybe our Creator is some nerd with a beer belly, a bored geek who can't find a date?

So viewed, immortality is a cinch. A character in a computer game can be killed and revived as often as the software's rules permit. All the information constituting his existence remains in the computer's memory after his "death." A more interesting question might be, which of us will be granted a second life? If the geek playing the game shares our values, maybe because he created them in us to begin with, the good may indeed inherit the earth. But what if the player instead chooses to resurrect those who lead the most interesting lives? This possibility could have a real impact on how we should spend our 70 or 80 virtual years of existence.

Also, the ancient problem of "why does evil exist" now becomes a no-brainer: violence and death are more fun for any red-blooded game player than are peace and happiness.

Much more interesting to Dr. Bostrom is -- what happens when the characters in the game -- we humans -- realize that they are just characters in a game? Or what if the "guy" playing the game is in fact merely a character in someone else's simulation? Not too hard to imagine. We are reaching the point ourselves where we can make extremely good simulations of reality, to the point where the characters in our games themselves might soon show every external sign of being entities with their own thoughts and feelings. How then will we prove that they are "merely" simulations and in any observable way different from ourselves?

What if we become games players ourselves, and our creations themselves eventually become so sophisticated that they realize they are simulations, and indeed become competent to create their own simulations? What if the effect of such a cascade of simulations -- mirrors within mirrors -- is that the ultimate "computer" -- however conceived -- the computer on which the original game was played, and within which we are all entities generated by subprograms -- exceeds its computing power? Tierney's article in the Times concludes that the world might then end not with a bang -- or a whimper, either -- but with a message on the Prime Designer's computer:

It might be something clunky like “Insufficient Memory to Continue Simulation.” But I like to think it would be simple and familiar: “Game Over.”

I feel dizzy. I think I'll go outside and ride my bike!

August 9, 1974

Summer in August. Thirty-three years ago. President Richard M. Nixon peered out the window from the Oval Office in the White House. He saw a hostile nation and world.

Incriminating tapes and documents in his possession had been subpoenaed. The courts had refused to honor his claims of executive privilege. He was continuing to fight an unpopular war in Vietnam. There was in-fighting among his own staff. His polls had dropped precipitously, with approval ratings below 30 percent. Congressional members of his own party were turning against him. The contents of the subpoenaed material would soon appear in the nation's newspapers.

He talked to his wife, to Secretary of State Kissinger, to the Rev. Billy Graham.

He quit. Thirty-three years ago today, August 9, 1974. He delivered a one-sentence letter of resignation to his Secretary of State, walked out on the White House lawn, climbed into an armed forces helicopter, and left Washington, D.C.

President Nixon was gone.

That was then. This is now.

"Do you think Oz could give me courage?"

cow·ard·li·ness, noun
—Synonyms 1. craven, poltroon, dastardly, pusillanimous, fainthearted, white-livered, lily-livered, chicken-hearted, fearful, afraid, scared.

Forty-one Democratic members of the House, worried about voter perceptions and delay in their August recess, joined virtually all Republicans in voting 227-183 yesterday to chip another block off the Fourth Amendment. Prior Congressional capitulations to the Bush/Cheney Administration had already permitted the Justice Department to intercept and wire-tap -- without any warrant and without any court review --all telephone calls or e-mails in which either one of the parties lived outside the United States. The new statute now grants Attorney General Alberto Gonzales exclusive power to determine whether he "reasonably believes" that one of the parties does, in fact, reside outside the U.S.

Many Democrats argued that the bill was unconstitutional, interfered with supervision by the courts, and placed unfettered power in the hands of an attorney general whose trustworthiness has proved, to be gentle, questionable

Nevertheless, 41 Democrats voted to give Bush exactly what he wanted (although they did limit the authorization to six months). They feared that if they voted against the bill, the voters would think they were "soft on terrorism." They did not seem concerned by the widespread perception that they were "soft on unconstitutional abrogation of powers by the executive," and that they were essentially spineless and unable to fight for the principles they claimed to support. They were also concerned that continued delay in approving the measure was cutting into their much-valued August recess.

Unfortunately, the New York Times so far has not published the official roll call, enabling Democratic and Independent voters to determine the identities of the cowardly Democratic Congressmen who voted for the Bush scheme

John Hancock, upon signing the Declaration of Independence with a large flourish, reportedly joked: "There, I guess King George will be able to read that!" Hancock was not concerned that he would be "perceived" as a traitor to a different King George. He didn't fret about the fears his wealthy political supporters had of rabble-rousing separatists like Thomas Paine. He wasn't concerned about escaping the July heat of Philadelphia, so he could take his summer vacation.

But then, John Hancock had a backbone. He was not a coward.

--------------------------------------

PS -- Aug. 6 -- The New York Times still has not provided the names of the Cowardly Forty-One. However, here are the names, thanks to Speeple News, an on-line magazine:

Jason Altmire (4th Pennsylvania)

John Barrow (12th Georgia)

Melissa Bean (8th Illinois)

Dan Boren (2nd Oklahoma)

Leonard Boswell (3rd Iowa)

Allen Boyd (2nd Florida)

Christopher Carney (10th Pennsylvania)

Ben Chandler (6th Kentucky)

Jim Cooper (5th Tennessee)

Jim Costa (20th California)

Bud Cramer (5th Alabama)

Henry Cuellar (28th Texas)

Artur Davis (7th Alabama)

Lincoln Davis (4th Tennessee)

Joe Donnelly (2nd Indiana)

Chet Edwards (17th Texas)

Brad Ellsworth (8th Indiana)

Bob Etheridge (North Carolina)

Bart Gordon (6th Tennessee)

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (South Dakota)

Brian Higgins (27th New York)

Baron Hill (9th Indiana)

Nick Lampson (23rd Texas)

Daniel Lipinski (3rd Illinois)

Jim Marshall (8th Georgia)

Jim Matheson (2nd Utah)

Mike McIntyre (7th North Carolina)

Charlie Melancon (3rd Louisiana)

Harry Mitchell (5th Arizona)

Colin Peterson (7th Minnesota)

Earl Pomeroy (North Dakota)

Ciro Rodriguez (23rd Texas)

Mike Ross (4th Arkansas)

John Salazar (3rd Colorado)

Heath Shuler (11th North Carolina)

Vic Snyder (2nd Arkansas)

Zachary Space (18th Ohio)

John Tanner (8th Tennessee)

Gene Taylor (4th Mississippi)

Timothy Walz (1st Minnesota)

Charles A. Wilson (6th Ohio)

No one from Washington, thank God. But anyone living in Colorado's Third District, may want to write Mr. Salazar.

A bridge falls in Minnesota

A modern freeway defies the contours of the world through which it passes. Have you ever thought about it that way? We drive without a thought at 70 mph, hour after hour, on a broad highway that is either level or gently graded. Engineers have assured that we cut easily through mountain passes without blinking an eye -- the hills have been lowered for our benefit. We cross rivers and canyons unawares -- gaping holes in the ground have been seamlessly bridged, and today's bridges are often free of superstructures that would even remind us that a bridge exists.

So we zoom along, day after day, year after year. And then one day, the I-35W through Minneapolis simply collapses. A few drivers die. The rest of us are forcibly reminded that the earth hasn't changed, the laws of physics have not changed. The world remains tough and full of obstacles, exactly as it was for the earliest pioneers. Our nonchalant assurance of an effortless drive, mile after mile, is a gift of engineering and technology. When the engineering and technology fail, we are returned in an instant to the harsh world of our ancestors.

In an instant. Anyone who has survived an earthquake knows the feeling. One moment you are staring off into space, wondering what to eat for dinner. The next moment, a fault slips a few feet, a mile underground, and the stable world you believe you inhabit is a shaking, rolling, convulsing fun house. You have no idea whether you are just experiencing a brief tremor, one that you can later joke about with your friends, or if the shaking will go on and on until everything that gives your life meaning has been leveled to the ground.

And so goes life itself. We live our days, one after another, uneventfully. Or rather, we consider "eventful" to mean an argument with a spouse, a problem at work, a steak that has been over-cooked when we specifically requested "medium-rare." The next minute, an aneurysm bursts, a coronary artery is blocked, a truck leaps out of the street and onto our sidewalk, a steam pipe explodes under the street, a lightning bolt hits the golf club we had just started to swing. Suddenly, we realize how foolish we've been in assuming that we would always walk life's path on Persian carpets and rose petals. To believe that the nature of the universe had been designed so that we could always glide across any river, climb any mountain, simply by pressing down the accelerator.

Foolish, but necessary. We can't live, we can't make decisions for ourselves and others, without trusting in a certain stability. But we must remember, occasionally, that our trust in a perpetually easy and effortless life relies on a fiction, a fiction that, to be maintained, depends on a million little things going just right. When the wrong load on the bridge meets the wrong engineering decision or the not quite correctly installed I-beam -- and sooner or later, it metaphorically always does -- we and the bridge hit the river. We discover with horror that, beneath our dreamy, American middle class illusions, real life is harsh and has always been harsh, a fact that to much of humanity is all too obvious.

For each of us, there invariably comes a time when dreams come to an end, when not all our education and skills and prestige and bank accounts can shield us from reality. The shock is easier to bear when we're prepared mentally. When we enjoy the drive, but take the precaution of learning how to swim.