The Horror

The Ionic columns are a nice touch. What I like best is that only twoof them are required to hold up the massive roof of the structure. It'slike a magic trick. Children love magic. . . and the American peopleare uniformly very childlike, so this is perfect for them. Themysterious green metallic object in the traffic circle is another nicetouch, lending an appropriately ominous note to the scene.

Whenhistorians glance back at 2007 through the haze of their coal-firedstoves, they will mark this year as the onset of the Long Emergency –or whatever they choose to call the unraveling of industrial economiesand the complex systems that constituted them. And if they retain anysense of humor – which is very likely since, as wise Sam Beckett onceaverred, nothing is funnier than unhappiness – they will chuckle at the assumptions that drove the doings and mental operations of those in charge back then (i.e. now).