Some correspondences are so effortless I don't think they're real.
Perhaps ironically, or perversely, the global economy's present manic panic is precisely the sort of instability I assumed would set the tone for this emerging century back in 2000. It's disorder and uncertainty, yes, but it's also numbers and politics. It's business as usual, albeit less usual.
A day in September of the following year seemed to set us on a different, regressive course—an itinerary hatched by anarchists bent on reducing everyone and everything to sticks and stones, underscored by the drumbeat of subsequent wars.
I'd rather see customers run on banks than children running from tanks. I'd rather see golden-parachuted CEOs receive their walking papers than ill-equipped ill-prepared soldiers receive their marching orders. Financial losses don't hold a candle in a hurricane to the ineluctable loss of human lives.
Paper beats rock any day, in any age.
I've been going to bed somewhat content lately. I don't know how I feel about that.
I've observed that insulting someone's intelligence in order to spare their feelings is literally neither hither nor thither.