my 26 best friends

It's after 4 am, Thursday morning, August 23rd. In six hours, Yo will wake me up. I will drag my half-asleep body to the shower, making sure I have a T-shirt on the slip-proof floor that doesn't work. I stand on the T-shirt so I don't slip and fall and kill myself. Killing myself in the shower is a bad idea just about any day of the year. But particularly today. Because today a group of oncologists, chemo-therapists, RN's with soft voices, the oncologists' choice of which of the $3 million in drugs they keep in the Chemo Lab are best for drip drip dripping into the vein in my upper left arm - a vein that will carry the poison to the edge of my heart where it will then be pumped forthwith throughout my body - but by some miracle of science a healthy portion will go directly to my throat where the malignant cancer cells found a home. All those people and all those drugs are there in the Chemo Lab to keep me alive. Dying in the shower would just be bad form. Unforgiveable.

I will be one of 18 chemo patients sitting on real, soft leather, tan Lazy Boy reclining chairs with their backs to three walls in a big room in the basement of the Lakeview Medical Center right next to the Lakeview Hospital. That's a good idea because there are 18 different people with 18 different cancers and you never know when the poison will be too strong and it's sayronara or the hospital. They gave me the whole enchalada for my first poison potion and I almost died. I was as sick as anybody can get and still wake up in the morning. I spent four days in the hospital. I'm still here.

(If you read this before 11:45 this morning, you might give me a call, Johnny and just tell me everything will be alright. Or maybe I'll get up early and give you a call. I'm pretty confident about all this. But I'd love to hear your voice before the first drip.

Believe it or not, I am looking forward to my dripping six hours later today. Main reason: they have informed me that whatever drug combination is injected into my body will be 33% LESS...LESS potent, powerful, dibilitating than the first time. They want to kill the cancer cells. And leave me alive. I agree with them 100%.

Yolanda is driving me there. I told her she should go see a movie. Or bring a friend and pig out at a nice restaurant in Orange County for about four hours. Nope. She is staying nearby. She's the world's fastest reader. She started a new 300-page James Patterson thriller at eight this morning and finished it before going to bed. She's bringing two new books tomorrow. I'm bring ten past New York Times Crosswords, two each of Wednesday thru Saturday and two Sunday crosswords - the quintessential puzzle of the week. I'm also bringing this laptop thing - this lap top thing. In case I think of something to say.

It's late. Tired. Off to bed. One third less strength than the first time. And Yo gave me three pills three hours ago that ameliorate the side effects of the poison before you take it. I didn't have that before. All the pills were after the fact.

Goodnight, John. Pleasant dreams. I won't guarantee my dreams will be pleasant. But my visit to Lakewood very well may be. Especially if I finish that Sunday Times crossword puzzle.

Love,

Bill

YUL,I'M NOT.

Yul Brenner was really the first to make total baldness sexy. Terry Savalas popularized the hairless head, but he didn't conquer hearts the way Yul did. My wife Yolanda has been in love with Yul Brenner ever since she first saw him on Broadway dancing with his children's Nanny in Rogers & Hammerstein's "Anna and the King of Siam." Bald men were few and far between 50 years ago. Bald men were ridiculed and laughed at back then. Bald men all wore toupees, fooling nobody. Fifty years ago, bald was out. Today, bald is in.

I spent my first 77 years on this Planet with a full head of hair. The cancer cops gave me my first chemo therapy treatment a month ago. Now I'm almost bald. One more treatment (starting this Thursday) and I'll be as bald as an eagle...as a billiard ball....as an egg....as a baby.

On those few occasions when I look at myself in the mirror, I see a wizened old man with a thin face and a bald head -- like a prisoner in a concentration camp. I liked me with hair. Any hopes that bald would make me handsome were dashed when Yolanda looked at me for the longest time and said, "Yul, you're not."

Besides being ungramatical, it was the unkindest cut of all.

Still, the first chemo treatment was a kind-of success The lesion in my throat - which has gathered all those malignant cancer cells - is a little smaller than it was before the poison was drip-drip-drip-dripped into my vein. Even better, there are fewer cancer cells than before. Chemo therapy is not perfect. It almost killed me the first time: vomiting violently, feeling nauseus all the time, bouts of diahrrea and constipation, one right after another. And those never-ending, body-shaking hiccups. Mine weren't just annoying. They hurt. I was so ill, they had to put me in a hospital for four days. If I was a Catholic, they would have sent a priest to my room.

But I got through it. That'll help with the one coming up. I know what to expect.

The best news: they've reduced my dosage by 33%. The next treatment will be 33% less strong.....33% less apt to send me to the hospital. For sure, the next poison potion won't kill me. And it might make a serious dent in the cancer cell population. Not only that, but the chemo lab nurses will all want to rub my beautiful bald head. And I'll let them.

Here's great news for Christians everywhere! You never have to read that long, long, long boring black book filled with all those lies and fairy tales and all that begettin' and begotten' again!. You no longer have to look for inspiration in the stories about this crazy rabii who thinks he's God and his 12 male friends who traipse around the desert with him in dresses and they never meet a woman (except a prostitute and the God guy's mom). You don't have to read unbelievable things like 15-year-old virgins giving birth, or dead men coming to life, or somebody turning water into wine. Now, instead of reading 350 pages of hype and tripe and being more confused than before you started...NOW you can get all the genuine inspiration you'll ever want...all the truth, all the rules you'll need to live a happy, meaningful life. And it's all in one beautiful, memorable prose poem - Desiderata - with 46 short lines to be read slowly - ever so slowly - written by Max Ehrmann in 1933 and heralded around the world as the most beautiful tone prose ever written.

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.

But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.

Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.

Seven wishes to change the world.

It's going to be another hot August day tomorrow. Some of you have already made beach plans. I may go, too. Let's say I do. Let's say I decide to take a long walk on the hard wet sand near water's edge. And let's say I come across an old lamp washed upon the shore. I pick up the lamp. I begin rubbing the sand off it. Suddenly I hear a voice from the lamp, a deep male voice with the distinct Middle Eastern accent. Alladdin's Lamp? I smile at the thought. But The Voice brings me up short.

"Do not laugh. You have found Alladdin's Lamp. You have rubbed the lamp. You are granted seven wishes."

I know it's a joke. But I did find the lamp. So I tuck it under my arm and head for the car.

I don't take three steps before The Voice says - angrily - "THIS IS NO JOKE," in deep, stentorian tones.

"It read my mind," I thought to yourself. "I'm sorry, sir," I said to the lamp. I did feel a little silly about it though.

"DO NOT LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN," The Voice booms back. "I repeat. You have seven wishes. They can not be trifling wishes like more money or a plane ticket to London or an immediate cure of your cancer. They must be wishes for seven changes in the world - any change you choose - to make the world a better place to live. You have exactly seven minutes to name the changes and say why you're making them.

Fortunately for me, the lamp and I were at the far end of the beach. There were no bathers, no people at all. I was glad I didn't have to explain this to anybody.

So far, the lamp made sense. "Oh, what the hell," I reasoned, "It couldn't hurt."

I didn't have much time. Seven changes to make a better world...and why....in seven minutes "Think, damn it, think" I said to yourself. "Think fast!"

I held the lamp like a microphone and talked into it. "Number one. I wish to eliminate television around the world forever."

I waited for a response from the lamp. No response. "He bought it, "I whispered to myself.

Then the lamp speaks: "Why?"

"Oh right," I said. "I forgot. Sorry."

And time's a-wasting.

"Why eliminate television in the world? Because television is dumbing down the planet. People are not reading books any more. The average American spends five hours a day watching television. Five hours! That's time away from studying, from sharing with friends and family, from being outside in the healthy air, playing, exercising, being an active participater in life instead of just a watcher. Television is written and produced for the lowest common denominator. Most TV shows are aimed at people with IQ's in the 80's and 90's. Many shows show graphic scenes of violence and mayhem. The so-called "sit-coms" are just replays of hundreds of old scripts interrupted often by canned laughter and applause. The "news" commentary is just a reading of the first few paragraphs from today's newspapers. You invite friends over for dinner and can't wait for the dessert to bring out the TV tables and watch some dumb cop show.  Even Shakespearian plays and important news events are interrupted by three or four minutes of advertising messages with their sound increased 40%! Keep PBS. But take all other TV off the air.

"Number two: I wish to eliminate all advertising in the world." "Why? Because advertising is a capitalist tool. Advertising tells people lies about products and services so that people will buy them. Advertising sells things to people people don't need. Advertising makes poor people without any chance of buying a new car, a beautiful new dress or land in Wyoming or a new pair of shoes envious and jealous of those who can afford it. Advertising widens the gulf between the haves and the have-nots in this country. A gulf that gets wider every day of the year. And advertising costs billions of dollars a year. One 30-second commercial on the Super Bowl "show" costs 400 million dollars! Imagine what UNICEF could do with money like that for the children of the world."

I didn't wait for a response or reaction from the lamp. I was watching my watch.

"Number three. "I wish to eliminate all automobiles in the world powered by the internal combustion engine. You - whoever "you" are -- know all the reasons why. The tens of thousands of tons of carbon and carbon dioxide pollutants poured into the atmostphere every day by two billion cars and trucks around the world. The horror of global warming and the real chance that the ice caps at the poles will melt and the oceans will rise and wipe out seacoast cities like New York City, San Francisco, Rio de Janiero, Sydney, Hamburg, Leningrad, Shanghai and so many others. The terrible, ugly and lung-killing smog that settles on so many urban areas around the world. The 50,000 people who die in automobile accidents in the United States alone each year. The 200,000 seriously wounded each year. The soon-to-be prohibitive cost of auto insurance. Our dependence on oil as an energy source needs to be ended NOW. Without cars, we do away with a need for gasoline and oil to lubricate the cars engines. Which brings me to the next wish."

"Number four. I wish to eliminate all oil-powered electric plants and all oil products in the world -- including plastic.

In the movie, THE GRADUATE", a businessman counselled a young college graduate (Dustin Hoffman) with one word of advice: "plastics." Indeed, plastics have been important. But plastics are made from oil. No more plastics. Oil is dirty, oil when burned becomes harmful to our air, our climate, our health and the health of our planet. Oil must go. Now. Replacing oil as an energy source will be electricity (electric cars are a reality today, their costs are coming down as we speak). What we're spending for gas and oil we will now spend for wind machines, geo-thermal power, solar energy and energy sources we haven't even thought of yet."

"What would replace plastic? The oldest building block of all. Wood. We could plant billions of fast-growing eucalyptus trees around the world. The trees would be planted near rivers and streams to keep the fresh water on the ground. The trees would absorb the carbon dioxide in the air, filter the air, provide shade for workers and after six or seven years of growth, lumber for builders around the world. Plastic is not bio-degradable. Our landfills are clogged up with millions of tons of plastic throwaways. Wood is biodegradable. And wood has always looked so much better than plastic.

"Number five", I said with my strongest voice. Then I breathed in deeply with my nose (smelled the roses) and exhaled (blew out the candle) with my mouth and said...." I wish to destroy every rifle and handgun in the world.
Why? Because guns kill people and animals. That's why they are made. First, rifles. Most rifles today are used to kill our brother animals: elegant male and female deer, moose, bears - the most family oriented and loving of all animal species - rabbits, tigers, elephants, pheasants, eagles, ducks. We are the only animal in the mammalia family who kills other animals for no reason... for - oh God! - fun! We are also the only animal on Earth to kill its own kind! Wait, with one exception. We share that ugly truth with the hyena!

"There are 100,000,000 (one hundred million) handguns in the United States alone. Eight thousand Americans are killed angrily or accidentally by handguns every year! Two thousand children kill each other with daddy's handgun stored not to well in the family closet. We measure the horror of gun ownership with the names of places: Columbine, West Virginia Tech, the bell tower at the University of Texas. The U.S. has one/thirtieth of the population of the world and owns one half of all the world's handguns;. Does that mean Americans are frightened, paranoid animals? Yes. They can't control their own lives. So Mr. Lamp, you'll have to do that for them."

What would we do with the discarded guns and rifles? Melt them down and give the steel rolls, pipes, bars to developing countries to help them build new homes and businesses.

"Number six: I wish to change the obscene ratio (gap) between what the ceo of a company makes and what his lowest-paid worker makes. In Japan, that ratio is about 32 to one. The worker at Sony makes $20,000 a year. The CEO makes $640,000. The worker and the stockowners believe the man responsible for the health of the company deserves $620,000 more.l

One can live a pretty good life - even with a wife and children, a maid and a chauffeur - for $620,000. With enough left over for savings and college tuition. But in the Greed Capitol of the world - the United States of Greed, the United States of Selfishness - 32 to one is not nearly enough. Robert Murdoch - the media baron who just bought the Wall Street Journal - makes $30 million a year. His lowest paid worker makes $20,000 a year. The ratio here is $30 million to $20 thousand or 1500 to one! The ceo of Sony is happy with a 32 to 1 ratio. Murdoch - and virtually ALL U.S. ceo's demand at least 500 to one. That's not fair. That's just plain, ugly greed. I wish that gap to be the same as the gap in Japan. If Mr. Murdoch can't live on $620,000 a year, put someone in his job who can.

Number seven. My final wish is that we create a perfect city. The city is called NOW (nix old ways). It is built on an old 20,000 acre air force base in Nevada, in the desert, 40 miles east of Reno. The city is paid for by all 50 states in the U.S.

NOW, Inc. makes a deal with each state to take 100 men in the state's prison system who have served at least half their time and are judged most likely never to return. It costs each state $40,000 a year to house each inmate. For that amount, NOW would take 100 men from each state, house and feed them on the honor system in two-story army-like barracks in the Nevada dessert, The total number of 5,000 men would spend two years working to build the city of NOW. At the end of that time, they are free men. Their record is washed clean. They can go anywhere they want. Or they can stay and become the supervisors of the new state-paid workers who have joined the workforce.

So, NOW gets $40,000 for one hundred men ($4,000,000) times fifty states, or $200 million. A great down payment on a new city.

It's enlightened self-interest (one of the great human concepts). The States are released from caring for 100 prisoners a year. They have new prison space. Five thousand men a year living behind bars and chained are now living without bars and chains in open barracks, working for a good cause, living with self-respect and moving back into a civilized world. And the new city of NOW, Nevada starts life on a $200 million budget.

The man in charge of NOW (who happens to be named Norman O'Hare Williams), calls on former ceo's of construction firms, famous architects now in retirement, retired city planners and transportation gurus and retired generals and financial leaders. He convinces them to join him in creating the perfect city, and supervising an avid work force of 5,000 dedicated men. They jump at the chance.

NOW is run on leg power and solar power. The only private wheeled machine is the bicycle. Leg power. Everybody in NOW owns a bike. Solar power makes the city go. There is lot of sun in the Nevada desert. Solar power takes care of the lighting at night, the electric stoves, the electric buses that cruise the city, the electric elevators in the buildings higher than four stories (you walk to the first, second and third floors). There are NO automobiles, no internal combustion engine, no guns and no loud radios. The city is round. Housewives know that dirt gathers in the corners. So there are no corners. The city is a series of concentric circles starting small at the center (where a mile-high building will be built). A half mile out from the center there is a 400-foot-wide river winding around the city. The water comes from a mountain lake four miles from the city. That same lake is the source of a large waterfall which provides back up electric power for the city.

The first residents of the city will be the ex-prisoners who helped build NOW. When they're free, they marry the women who waited for them and choose to stay in this utopianworld. The downtown of NOW, of course, is near the center of the concentric circles. The residences begin about a mile from the mile-high building in the center of the city. The houses for the people are built from five main plans but allow lots of input from the new owners. A house is already built for you when you move to NOW. You own it. You pay NOW, Inc. (your mortgage) only for the house's cost. No payment is ever higher than $300 a month.

"Is that IT?" the lamp asked, obviously impatient after that long number seven,

"Sorry, I guess I did get carried away. But NOW will be a great city someday. All the buses will have baloon tires. They'll be no neon signs anywhere. Churches will have to pay taxes on their land. And if you want to see a pornorgraphic movie or naked girls or do it with a prostitute or go to a peep show or drink in a bar, it's all in one location in downtown NOW. It's called the Red Light District. You can't drive there because there are no cars in NOW. You may get drunk and abusive and obstreperous. But you can't shoot anybody because there are no guns allowed in NOW. The only jail is a place where people can dry out and they put you on a quiet bus going to your neighborhood."

"AHEM!" That from the lamp.

Oh, OK, sorry. Well that's it. Those are my seven changes to make the world a better place to live. Er, ah, when can we expect delivery?

"Any day now," the lamp said. "Any day now."

Whose world is it anyway?

Just Call Me Jesus

To tell you the truth, I never thought of myself as the son of God until they found that malignant lesion in my throat. That clinched it for me. Jesus died a terrible death - hung up iron nails pounded into his flesh by Roman soldiers. But that was it for him. I fall into the fireplace, get a dislocated shoulder and lose the use of my right arm. Then I can't swallow. So they put a tube in my stomach and - for the last year - I have poured nine cans of nutrients into my tummy every day just to stay alive. Finally, three weeks ago, they announced I have cancer of the throat. They almost kill me with one treatment of chemo therapy. There are two more to go. Then radiation for a week. Then, if the cancer is still there, they will operate to take the lesion away and my voice with it.

So I figure I'm the new Jesus. God is putting all the sins of human animals on my shaky shoulders. Which pisses me off, to be honest with you. I mean here's this guy who is supposed to have created the universe, all the stars in the sky, all the animals and trees and lakes and rivers and oceans and the internet and pecan pie ala mode and we're not even related. I don't even believe in him. I spell his pronoun with an h. Not an H.

And he choose Me (did you get that?) to be the new Jesus, I guess the Christian handlers figure the old Jesus has been around for two thousand years and the world is no better for his having been here and preached, and they wrote this hokey story about him being born in a manger, and spending months and months in the desert with 12 other men. And they're all wearing dresses and don't date any women, or even know any woman. Except a prostitute and Jesus' mother who shows up sometimes. They've proved that the so-called prophesies were all fake, that the "history" was all made up and the Bible is as believable as Mother Goose.

I don't know why they chose me. But then I don't know why they chose Jesus either. More people have been killed in wars in the name of Jesus (Ireland, the Crusades, the Inquisition,) than any other reason,  Fifty million people in the Roman Catholic period from 500 AD to 1500 AD (a period called the Dark Ages).  I guess they figure I can't do any worse. At least I haven't said a lot of stupid things like Jesus has said. Like "only through me shall ye enter the kingdom of heaven (god's place). Well, right away, you're going to get people mad:people like the billion worshippers of Islam around the world. The Hindus, Jews, Zoroastorists, Humanists, Buddhists, Daoists and Deists. Another dumb thing, "blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the Earth." Come on, now. Ever been to Darfour? Ever been in the ghettos of Detroit, Philadelphia, New York and Chicago? Ever watch one of the 30,000 children who die EVERY DAY of hunger and disease in the world DIE? This world is run by, owned by, controlled by, and jealousloy guarded by the rich. Remember Eisenhower's fairwell speech when he talked about the threat of the American "military industrial complex". A Republican, mind you. Who told the truth.

Nope. I don't think I want the job. Until we guarantee to get babies who will grow up to be more like Lech Welensa and Dr. Sweitzer, and Mahatma Ghandi, and Bill Clinton and Mother Theresa and Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine and Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King and my wife, Yolanda. And with the 6.5 billion people in the world trying just to survive (one billion), just trying to eat three meals a day (one billion), just getting by (2 billion) or rushing to get more than they have and more than others have (the rest), I don't hold out much hope. It's selfish to say I am glad I won't be here when the Planet earth implodes. I am sorry that my children's children's children's children will see it and live through it and die through it. It is inevitable. As inevitable as a sunrise. And how sad it is to know that someday there will be a beautiful orange, and red sunrise and nobody left on Earth to see it

Our Fickle Brain

I walked with the Whittier Democrats in California back in 2003. We all had signs begging George Bush to change his mind about invading Iraq. We were out there at the corner of Painter Avenue and Whittier Boulevard, a busy intersection. A few cars slowed down and tooted their horns in support. But, mostly, there was little interest in the war then. It was a long way from Whittier, after all, and we were just going in there and get Saddam Hussein and destroy all those weapons of mass destruction he had stockpiled in his country. A week maybe, and it would be over. So our signs and shouts to passing cars didn't work. Bush invaded Iraq in spite of us. And now four-plus years later - longer than World War II (our last justifiable war) - 165,000 young-too-young boys and girls are STILL THERE - risking their lives every day in Bush's Iraq War. A war we learned didn't have to happen because there WERE no weapons, there WAS no connection between Iraq and 9/11. Bush even stopped looking for BinLaden and concentrated all our troops in Iraq. That man is crazy. He wants to Christianize and Democratize the whole Middle East. Christians have always been kind of flaky. Bush has simply brought Christian flakiness to a new high.

Citizens of the United States of America can be a pretty slow bunch sometimes. It's taken them almost seven years to figure out how bad Bush is. His latest approval figures show 24% of Americans approve of that idiot. 24% is about the number of Republicans that are the really sick fringe - the Christian Jihad, the people who worry about things like abortion and keeping "under God" in our schools' pledge of allegiance, or putting the Ten Commandments up in public buildings. We should make a deal with those folks. We'll give you the Ten Commandments if you stop trying to get ID - Intelligent Design - into our school books. They have about 10 scientists (out of about 800,000 in the U.S.) who think God created man. The rest of the scientists - ALL Nobel Prize winners, the man who discovered DNA, everyone - knows that humans evolved from lower animals. AND that we are continuing to evolve. Just look at our brains. As homo sapiens (thinking humans), we have been walking Planet Earth for 30 million years. It took hundreds of thousands of years before we learned to use fire to cook and to protect our caves; before we learned build spears and bow and arrows to protect ourselves from otheranimals...to build shelters....to cook food....to learn to speak....to paint pictures on cave walls. All

that time our brains kept evolving..little by little...synapse by synapse...until we learned to write and and speak and plant

seeds and grow food....until we learned how to communicate with other human animals....and how to teach one another and how to heal one another.

And now look at how big our brains have evolved. Our brains are planning vacation trips to Mars.;..and planning cures for cancer....and finding a way to end all disease, all microscopic killlers like malaria and AIDS. Our brains are in a race with Bush-like fanatics who would risk blowing up the world to get his way - a race between the WAR WORMS and the people who want peace throughout the world. In nature, there are no wars. Only one-on-ones -- a cheetah chasing a gnu for dinner; an eagle swooping down on a unsuspecting prairie dog; two mountain rams banging their horns together in a fight for a ewe in heat. But you never see ten thousand wolves marching on ten thousand tigers. All other animals - except the human animals - don't have the evolved brains humans have to building giant armies, to organize troops and plan strategies of war. There is just no animal smart enough to figure that all out. Just us. And if we are not careful, our brains are going to carry us into a war with ourselves - with chemicals, nuclear bombs and billions of teeny tiny bugs all with lethal poisonous bites.

Our brains have given us life. Where the average American lived 48 years a hundred years ago, he or she now lives 74 years. Our brains have given us knowledge of the world and how it works. We can track our orbit around the sun, in juxtiposition with all the other planets in our Solar System and with millions of named and positioned stars, comets, planets and moons throughout the universe. Our brains have created ways for us to see the world we live in as no other animals can. We can fly to China tomorrow and enjoy their Festival of the Tiger. We can drive our daughter to the hospital when she's broken her water. We can talk to our new friends in Equador on our IPod. The same brains that give us so much can take it all away. Isn't that a bitch though?