I've been working on my retirement plan. It all depends on the success of the project underway to fully map the human genome. One of the side effects of this project will of course be the acceptance that there can never be any definitive formula for determining a person's race. So over the next 20 years, as we all become more accustomed to exactitudes in genetic facts, racial origin will seem a concept less and less appropriate for use in laws and constitutions (just like the advent of the atomic clock resulted in the removal of a bunch of arcane laws referring to sun dials and crowing chickens). The concept of race will be replaced by some term like culture referring to commonality of upbringing and experience. As well, at some point over the next 35 years some drastic new media format will be developed (as revolutionary as television). For the purposes of this discussion I will call this new media Zuni (because I bought this cool miniature fetish bowl from a strange man in Sante Fe (a cross between Dr. Doolittle, Indiana Jones and a corpse) who claimed the bowl's style was based on the culture of the Zuni people, but anyway.) Zuni will supersede television, making it obsolete. And this will affect the whole society. I (who will have become mildly famous by then) will term it a "cultural invasion from within". People will like this phrase and let it stick. And, of course, nothing will really have been solved between then and now about the crisis with the North American aboriginal population because we still won't have figured out to occasionally stop talking. Canada and the US may or may not have undergone unification by this point in time, that is irrelevant. Because when me and my 350 to 20,000 close friends feel it is time to retire we will make our appeal to the United Nations. That we be granted our own tract of land were we can pursue our TV-centered life free from the oppression of Zuni. I've been doing some driving around in the last few months to assure myself that the home land of this culture will have to be located in the southern desert of the US somewhere between Texas and California, where all the best Warner Brother cartoons were set. I will finalize location details closer to the point, but my working strategy for the bargaining involves my giving up the right to both of our two major holy sites, Burbank and the Desert Inn hotel in Las Vegas. I'm not sure yet what to try and get in exchange for this sacrifice. That might depend what sorts of advances in home appliances have happened by that time. Anyway, I apologize for this intrusion on your time but I am hoping this will make my mom feel more comfortable that I am planning for my future. I could have sent this just to her of course, but the public declaration should make her more willing to believe that I'm not just making up something on the fly. ["For My Mother's Sake" February 8, 2000] ------------------------------ YOUR DAILY STEAM ------------------------------ ISSN 1206-4130 http://2x4group.com YOUR DAILY STEAM is a continuing series of fables written by James Spyker. If you like them feel free to forward them around. Send me your e-mail address to receive a free subscription. Subscription and editorial correspondence to yds@2x4group.com