[Smokey Joe]

Art, you DO live in "that world." There is only one world. It is getting inhabited more and more by the type of people who get "oo-ey" about boiling lobsters. You and I are of the minority. And Katie Couric influences more people than you and me put together.

I understand what you're saying about the disconnection in some people's minds between the conveniences society wants and the messiness required to produce those conveniences, though. It gets worse: They think something magic happens when they press the accellerator of a car, so the car goes faster. No law of thermodynamics, no friction, no Newton's Laws, no nothing. Just magic. In movies, the magic is that Clint Eastwood fires off a blank (not even pointed at the guyÑactors are careful about that!) and the bad guy falls "dead"Ñthey think the same skill and effort level will produce successful hunting if they think about it at all.

What we have to hope and pray is, that these "oo-ey"people stay apathetic about their voting and disorganized about their politics. If they get militantly oo-ey, and seriously organized, we can kiss our guns goodbye. But it won't matter, because a little while later, we will have to kiss our country goodbye too.

Fortunately, the dream that most of these people live in extends to every aspect of their lives. Everything that happens, happens by magic. No logical thought on their part has any effect, so why bother to think logically. I know this is scary, but I believe it to be true. I would be delighted to be shown to be wrong.

This is getting really depressing. I wish I didn't believe it.