(via Body and Soul)

Our enormous country is really a tiny principality, in which our leaders loom gigantically large in the quiet green landscape. Here in our country, our sky is actually not a sky, it's a specially designed impenetrable dome, and inside it we're calmed by soothing music and soothing voices. Every morning we're given our New York Times, which teaches us to see our leaders "as people." Our newspaper helps us to get to know our leaders, their quirks, their personalities, helps us really to identify with them. I understand their problems, what they're trying to do, how difficult it is. And I share a life with them--at least I share the essential things: a climate sweetened by electricity, warm in winter, cool in summer; armchairs, bathrobes, well-made boots, pleasant restaurants. Just like our leaders, I like the old songs of Frank Sinatra, I like Julia Roberts, I like driving quietly through the fall foliage in New England, I like lemon meringue pie and banana splits. Our leaders share my life, and they've made my life. I have my life because of them. Can that be denied? Is my life of pasta and pastries and books and movies not based on the United States being the mighty nation they insist it should be?