102 word submission on who or what influenced my direction in life as requested by alumni magazine editors for the spring issue via alumni affairs mass e-mail, unprinted.
The two influences that most fix my position, as a hungry,
variously-credentialed vortex of statistics and transactions with
the capacity to
generate and move capital
in American modernity, are
the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution,
by operation of which, over the past century,
(we the)
citizens have been rendered mere
consumers in the language of policy, and
Advertising, which gives
(we the)
consumers the miracle of perspective, teaching us
how to evaluate the relative merits of things
and be free. Hallelujah!
Existentially, an agent of doubt, I’m influenced
by Saturn, Neptune
and Mercury; politically: Uranus. Thanks for
the opportunity to share.