A magpie without name and I were talking

I had three guesses of his name,

and I blew them all. I thought,

of course, of Kipling; and so I

figured Mowgli would be fine. I

thought of Edward Elgar and his

dream of Gerontius; I even fig-

ured Lutyens on the durbar for

George V. I knew I was dealing

with a Potemkin sort of magpie,

an empty etch-a-sketch of shil-

ling for the exceptionalism of

the mercantile empire, but I in-

nocently got the dynasty wrong.

Mary of Teck would not have had

two Cadillacs.

The other day, our magpie was dis-

encumbering himself of a faith that

spoke wonders for the scope of his

bladder, on how the furthest reaches

of the Earth might be enhanced by a

constant sharing of our betterness,

as a people, burnished by the engine

of profits. Subsidiary, but equally
dazzling premises were advanced by
our chirpist, but I came to the ten-
tative conclusion that one can't ac-
tually know what he thinks, if he
does think a thing of his own any-
more, until and unless the President
of the United States is no longer of
African descent. But Friday is not a
day for unhappy reflections. He might
not, actually, revive torture in
our military jurisprudence, once the
spectacle of the black man's humane
Executive Orders were vacated; and
he might fret less about apologies
for our genius, if we had his to fall
back upon.

Yet every day does push forth his

demand to be our leader - our, if

you will, example, as he is bold

(always, we may count on it, bold)

to say. And this Friday I reflect

that it will be nice to have our

Fridays back, once this more can-

didly racist campaign than 2008

has washed away the magpie's tale.

ii  dark sea, Derek