As You Make Your Bed, So You

As Individuals And As A Nation, We Now Suffer From Social Narcissism. The Beloved Echo Of Our Ancestors, The Virgin America, Has Been Abandoned. We Have Fallen In Love With Our Own Image, With Images Of Our Making, Which Turn Out To Be Images Of Ourselves.

Since The Creator Had Made The Facts Of The After-life Inaccessible To Man, He Must Not Have Required That Man Understand Death In Order To Live Fruitfully.

Formerly, A Public Man Needed A Private Secretary For A Barrier Between Himself And The Public. Nowadays He Has A Press Secretary, To Keep Him Properly In The Public Eye.

While The Focus In The Landscape Of Old World Cities Was Commonly Government Structures, Churches, Or The Residences Of Rulers, The Landscape And The Skyline Of American Cities Have Boasted Their Hotels, Department Stores, Office Buildings, Apartments, And Skyscrapers. In This Grandeur, Americans Have Expressed Their Booster Pride, Their Hopes For Visitors And New Settlers, And Customers, For Thriving Commerce And Industry.

The Improved American Highway System Isolated The American-in-transit. On His Speedway He Had No Contact With The Towns Which He By-passed. If He Stopped For Food Or Gas, He Was Served No Local Fare Or Local Fuel, But Had One Of Howard Johnson's Nationally Branded Ice Cream Flavors, And So Many Gallons Of Exxon. This Vast Ocean Of Superhighways Was Nearly As Free Of Culture As The Sea Traversed By The Mayflower Pilgrims.