"We have it in our power to begin the world over again." - Thomas Paine, 1776

If you had a 60-foot telephone pole in front of the house where you were born in 1959, and you paid a visit to that house this year, and the telephone pole was now only 13.49 percent of its original height - 8.1 feet high - would you notice? And, if so, would you wonder what had happened? And if your parents drove a 1959 Cadillac, 18.75 feet long, and you saw that same car in their garage today at only 13.49 percent of its original length - 2.5 feet long - would you notice? And, if so, would you wonder what had happened?

While we're all pretty sure that we would notice such radical alterations in the height of a telephone pole or the length of a car, I wonder if we are as perceptive about such radical alterations in the value of our money. Yet, by the government's own calculator (http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl), a dollar bill in 1959 is now worth $7.41 in today's dollars; today's dollar is worth 13.49 percent of what it used to be worth in 1959. Do you notice, or wonder what has happened?

"Black Friday," traditionally known as such as a ledger reference for retailers making profits on pre-Christmas sales the day after Thanksgiving, has now acquired another meaning as well: "black" as in death. At a Valley Stream, New York, Wal-Mart, "a temporary Wal-Mart worker died after a throng of unruly shoppers broke down the doors and trampled him moments after the store opened early Friday, police said." (Associated Press, November 29.)

There are times when a concrete, real-world event can serve as a focus, a highlight in microcosm, of the greater cultural milieu in which it is embedded, and this tragic occurrence -- as well as some of the "explanations" being offered in the wake of it -- is a textbook example.

As the 2008 presidential election approaches, it is both interesting and illuminating to observe the trends of our political discourse: factions, groups, special-interest lobbies, and coalitions rule the day, and all thought of Joe and Jane American Citizen as individuals has fled our minds completely.

As we are all now aware, the $700-billion bailout has become the law of the land. A lot of people are, understandably, upset about this and are pointing out the flaws of this legislation: that it is, ultimately, unfunded; that it rewards failure and penalizes success; and that it represents an increase in government's control over the economy unseen since the Great Depression.

All valid arguments, of course - and totally irrelevant: Such critiques miss the crucial point completely.