“In a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do [?]”

T.S. Eliot, “Gerontion,” 1920

Twenty-five years ago a Soviet-era defector named Alex told me about a KGB office in the Soviet Union. They had all the desks arranged on the main floor, with one large desk in the middle of the office at which sat a nice, helpful, old man. He was everyone’s friend. He listened sympathetically to the personal problems of the KGB staff. He gave them advice on all matters, and he smoothed things over with the boss, whose office door was always closed and dark. No one ever saw the boss except the old man. One day the old man retired and they had a party for him. It was at this party the old man announced he had been their boss all along. Alex finished the story by making his fingers into walking spider legs and said, “The spiders are everywhere.” Then he winked.

Once upon a time there lived a little girl in a village whose grandmother was running for President. Indeed, this grandmother was very political; so much so that she gave her beloved granddaughter a red cloak with a hoodie. Thus the girl came to be known as “Little Red Riding Hood.”

The grandmother liked the color red. In fact, she believed it was better to be Red than Dead. The grandmother was so fervent in this idea she imaged herself to be the spawn of Red Indians, which resulted in the grandmother’s political nickname — Pocahontas.

Able-bodied adj., A non-progressive condition lacking the privileged status of the differently-abled.

Darwinism n., The theory of evolution of species by the survival of the fittest; favored by socialists who continually lobby for political intervention on behalf of the unfit.

Centrist n., A person who stays too close to the double yellow line and gets run over by traffic going both ways.

Communist n., A hominid species consisting of two subspecies: (1) Homo stultus utilis and (2) Homo politicus homicidam. The latter lives parasitically off the gullibility of the former, producing detrimental effects on the society of Homo sapiens sapiens. The life cycle of Homo politicus homicidam has three phases: (1) the pre-revolutionary subversive phase, in which it pretends to be democratic and concerned with poverty and injustice; and (2) the revolutionary phase in which total political control is consolidated through mass murder, mass brainwashing and universal impoverishment; (3) the phase of controlled liberalization in which the ruling Communist Party hides its political supremacy behind a mask of liberal reforms and international friendliness calculated to deceive the rest of the world into disarmament.