As Many As Six Out Of Ten

Further Strengthenings Of The Self-centered Instinct For Survival Recruit Even Greater Numbers Of People Into Some Sort Of Ring Of Fellowship (church Or Gender, Red State Or Blue) By Populating The Terra Incognita Outside The Ring With Enough Barbarians To Verify The Existence Of A Civilization Within--to Define The Preferred Stock By What, As All Good People Agree, It Decidedly Is Not.

Tardiness Is Next To Wickedness In A Society Relentless In Its Consumption Of Time As Both A Good And A Service--as Tweet And Instagram, Film Clip And Sound Bite, As Sporting Event, Investment Opportunity, Tinder Hookup, And Interest Rate--its Value Measured Not By Its Texture Or Its Substance But By The Speed Of Its Delivery, A Distinction Apparent To Andy Warhol When He Supposedly Said That Any Painting That Takes Longer Than Five Minutes To Make Is A Bad Painting.

As A Child Growing Up In The Precincts Of Wealth, And Later As A College Student, Newspaper Reporter And Resident Of New York's Upper East Side, I Got Used To Listening To The Talk Of Financial Killings And Sexual Misalliance That Animates The Conversation Of The Rich And The Familiars Of The Rich.

If We Could Let Go Of Our Faith In Money, Who Knows What We Might Put In Its Place?

The Rich, Like Well Brought Up Children, Are Meant To Be Seen, Not Heard.