The Dudes haven’t made any progress on redecorating their site yet, mostly because any design that Dude makes on his PC to replace the baaa-ck road picture he despises can’t be ported to Dude’s Mac, and vice versa. Which, of course, means that they’ve been spending the better part of the week arguing with each other and with various more-or-less dysfunctional “help” desks.
So while they sort this out, Your Friendly Neighborhood Amoeboid Host, as an alternative to handing out earplugs, takes you to the (ahem) opposite pole of the economic spectrum, where Reg and Syd are enjoying a fine autumn afternoon on one of America’s most scenic inland waterways:
“Wonderful yacht, Reg! The heated, enclosed Olympic swimming pool is a most elegant touch.”
“But of course, Syd. Only the best for my guests. I shouldn’t wish any of you to get a hankering for swimming in the ocean around here. Brrrr! You wouldn’t last five minutes.”
“And neither a whiff of chlorine nor a roar of ventilating fans! How do you do it?”
“You just have to have the right designers, Syd.”
“And you could probably get them for a song, what with the state the economy’s in.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
“Obviously. As you’re always telling me …”
“There’s always money to be made. Didn’t you hear the Commissioner of Baseball say how their game has never done better, financially? Give the people what you’ve convinced them they want, and they’ll hock their grandchildren for it. Recessions are for losers.”
“Like that guy over there?”
“The one with the crumbling dock, you mean?”
“And the compound, Reg. Sneeze, and those buildings will fall into the water.”
“That’s the state university’s marine biology field station, Syd. Don’t worry, it’s only a matter of time.”
“Oh?”
“Sure. The university’s been absorbing 12% annual cuts in their state funding for the last couple of years now, and will be doing so for at least a couple more years. You can bet a duck in the pool that we’re making certain of that. The tea partiers work for us, Syd, you do know that, do you not?”
“Reg. Please. I was on the committee!”
“Ah yes, so you were. Well, you know, then, that the university can’t stand that forever, and they’ll have to stick with the football team and their other moneymakers and let places like this go. Serves those eco-eggheads right for thinking that they can interfere with our profits with that ‘global warming’ nonsense. Sooner or later, people were going to figure out that they were driving to all those anti-drilling meetings. Hypocrites. Don’t you think that bluff would just look outstanding with a few upscale condos on it?”
“Great views to be had if you just cut down all those scraggly trees, Reg.”
“It’s great to have you aboard, Syd. How about a dip in the pool, and some champagne afterwards?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
“And … you don’t happen to remember those, um, meetings I had a few months back?”
“Um, yeah …?”
“She’s poolside. And she brought a friend.”
I am thinking that Reg & Syd might want to spend some time contemplating history and take a very careful look at the path they are following. Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana
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