Today was a crazy day at the hospital. There were all sorts of loose ends relating to the Joint Commission's review, not that anybody was worried about mere accreditation. This hospital was a class act. Typically, angst was competitive, about not being a solitary mar on an otherwise across the board perfect review which would usually be rewarded by the JC skipping its review for the following two years.

Imagine being the sole cause of next year's review... and the next. It was a holy grail, of sorts. The JC nearly always nailed somebody on some stupid detail, like the distance of an IV storage closet from the emergency industrial eye wash - as if getting sterile IV solution in the eye was a problem, let alone a disaster waiting to happen. Hospital security people were placed in charge of the too whatevers, too up, too down, too left too right, too long, too short, too loud, too easy. Easy targets were tall items stuffed on top shelves too close to the ceilings and anything stowed on the floor. One just does not use the floor as a lowest shelf... something about sprinkler water access and flow.

And did the shit fly when the assistant security officer measured the main pediatric intensive care unit and found that the high intensity rooms - the jewels of the unit - were two inches shorter than state spec, which was about 4 inches longer than similar specifications listed in the surrounding states. So? So, ICU charges had to be down graded to normal room billings. And yes, the insurers wanted refunded monies plus damages for past unjustified over billing.

That two inch carpentry screw up was, in fact, imposed when the JC had prior decided that the new state of the art unit had walls whose bearing widths were too narrow for the architecture on the floor above. This was based on their specs taken from the1952 building codes and materials, even though those codes had been revised in all new commercial and technical building practices in light of new materials, construction methods, and environmental codes.

It isn't about sense. These deviations actually quadrupled bearing strength, doubled shear strength, halved fire and water warping risks, and allowed better electrical and specialty plumbing access and utilized materials which were environment friendly. But new isn't new until the JC says its new. Two inches short is two inches short. County almost closed its doors by the financial fall out of those two inches. Announcement of impending closure caused such a vitriol and public furor that any person wanting public office had to curse and rage to even be considered a viable candidate. The JC was overruled retrospectively by the governor, the assembly, the senate and then investigated by every arm of government including a few nobody knew existed.

Imagine the JC uppity bastards sitting before an angry enquiry panel of the state's Agriculture Fairness Practices Board whose president's child, after a hit and run, was pulled from death and restored in that very unit with its two inches too short rooms. You want relevance? Come on. It isn't about relevance. It is, and it is always, about power, who has it, who uses it, and how it is used. How? Any way possible and possibility is just a fog that looks like a wall.

The insurers had to give back the penalties and refunds or face fines of every sort including their lawn fertilization practices at corporate headquarters. Environmental fines were being ratcheted up to about 67 million dollars by compounding, as each log of lawn treatment was reviewed as a crime against nature, and watching for their break point. The government even hinted that insurance company shareholders would be responsible - billed - for the fines not covered by the corporations. Christ! Legal or not, it ended right there. Think about it. If shareholder greed drives corporate greed and leads to bad practices, why not fine them? Their hands are out for the dividends. Why not a ruler slap across the knuckles? Who rules, anyway? WtP. We the People. Don't piss'em off.

In any event, this was the very next inspection following that fiasco. You could bet that there may well be some feelings of payback time on the JC panel. Some of them were still settling their own personal legal fees. You just know what arrogance delivers to the thought process. The gall of these hospital people! Complaining about our process! How dare anybody judge us, the judges! Revenge was in the air. There were so many possible targets.

Getting charts in order was the killer. Somehow, in Joint Commission mentality, a doctor treats only one patient and then spends the rest of his career reworking his one and only chart. Medical excellence is not about outcomes. The JC does not review outcomes. They review charts. A serial killer on staff who keeps beautifully organized and highly readable falsified charts could actually be a boon to this review mechanism. It isn't ever about how true the chart is, but how neat, how parceled, how signed. A Doctor Foedus was suing the hospital for revocation of privileges without cause. He never had a single chart infraction. Paper. He might very well win.

 Signatures! Sign every declarative sentence. Yes! Sign under the signatures of others. Yes! Cosignatures are wonderful. Write Thank You and sign then add a doctor's identification number after the signature. Don't forget the leading meaningless computer space keeping zeros. Dr. Killerforhire, 00234567. Very good. Date the top and the bottom of the page. Write out every detail of the two hours of instructions given to the family. Have them cosign each page. Have them cosign each topic. Keep triplicate copies. Make sure every topic, from the cloudy list that ever escalates, is included. Skip none. So yes, relate what instructions of sexual restrictions were given to the three year old who was sent home after an infection of the knee was drained. Do not skip that driving a motor vehicle is to be restricted for how many days? Did that three year old male have a pregnancy counseling session? When can that other child who is totally paralyzed, resume stair climbing? Was the paranoid schizophrenic, who jumped from a roof because Jews with ray guns were chasing him, given nutritional supplements and instructions on their use? How many more unproductive details of requirement, always disconnected and retrospective, could they possibly add or extend? Possibly? Remember that infinity of infinities? An infinity of reflections in an infinity of jewels? These bastards had a lock on everybody's jewels, and could these suckers reflect!

Short of a regional hospital shut down catastrophe, doctors simply had no chance bucking the JC. Gerry Yount summed it up, "They're boogers we just gotta pick." That became the official metaphor of the JC. First and foremost was the competition between services to not get nailed by Gerry's flying boogers. Because today was the booger time to beat all booger times, the table was generally abandoned. Only Shannon and Marcus were there. A third regular attendee nearly made it. "No muscle freak to run defense? Hey Lone Ranger and Tonto, where's the posse today?" An approaching Ivory taunted with a big smile.

"Pickin boogers."

"Oh Jesus. Today?" He reeled out, leaving his food behind, mumbling about bips and boogers, boogers and bips and somebody whose name sounded something like Ernie Asshole.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto tag was a common one coming from Ivory. Marcus claimed the Tonto label, Shannon obviously The Lone Ranger as it was she who took on all the causes and rode into sunsets. She went to the state meetings. She attended the Developmental Disabilities Task Force hearings. She petitioned the commissioner's office and went in person to any place of power which might have an ear. And, for the most part, she went alone. The joke went, "Who can press more? Peter or Shannon?" The answer was obvious. Even Belachnik, himself, without hesitation, pointed at the ever driven Shannon O'Brien when that riddle was first posed.

"Lone, may I call you Lone?"

"Yes, Tonto," she smiled.

"We eat alone, Lone."

"Just as well," Shannon sighed, "I could stand a bit of quiet. Got all your charts gussied up?" He told her the charts could go leap off a cliff which didn't make sense but did capture his regard for the process. When chided that he was going to be an outcast if his charts were the only ones found defective he returned that being defective to the JC was an honorable attainment of professionalism and an act of self sacrifice, which she didn't get. She did her squint eye head shake for elaboration. Well, it seemed very obvious to Doctor Macaluso that the JC was going to stick it to the hospital. If they did everything perfectly, they would still get screwed by the JC. The difference is that if you do things perfectly and they invent new ways to screw you, and they are very good at that, then those new screw jobs exist in perpetuity. New boogers to pick. So just set out some obvious violations to satisfy them.

Shannon gasped when he told her that he originally thought about including in every chart a statement that the children were told not to jerk off or they would go blind. Or how about, children, it's OK to jerk off but not while driving drunk? But then he rethought those documentations. They might actually meet the JC requirements. So even better, he didn't mention any sex in any discharge summary. "Wait til they se that! Hah! No mention of sex. It'll kill them. Guaranteed black marks." However, Shannon wasn't reacting to his teasing. Not directly. Her smiles were mechanical and lagged, being more in response to his body language of anticipation. She was elsewhere. "OK. What gives?"

"Don't ask," Shannon fended him off.

"Don't ask me to don't ask."

"Remember Jessica Williams?"

"Yeah. You were going to straighten out the disapproval of her surgery."

Shannon explained that AmeriMed denied treatment again, on appeal, because the surgery to enable her walking was taking her from one condition to another unexperienced before. Nonwalking to walking, to Macaluso's I-don't-get-it stare. Surgery, as it was requested, was not to be a restoration of a prior level of function but rather a creation of a new level of function. Under some numbered article of their plan, only a restoration to a proven prior level of function was covered. Enabling her to walk, as she never walked before, is to their definition like a nose job, something new. As Macaluso was muttering, "proven?" and "prior?" and throwing in "time machines", Shannon continued on. She just had to shed some of this for her own sanity.

AmeriMed also rejected it for other reasons. They claimed that they regarded the procedures as aimed primarily at mobility for educational access purposes as it was not definitively shown how the proposed change would otherwise be utilized. They did not cover interventions which are for cosmetic nor educational purposes. Shannon listed her head sideways with her eyes rolled up, her right hand clenched in her lap, as Marcus just squinted with a side to side oscillation of his head. She then, as a sudden recollection, blurted, "Oh. Speaking of AmeriMed. They just diverted that Hallem girl, Susan?" and cringed on answering the immediate Marcus where querry as she delivered, "Bethdale General."

"Oh. Just punch me in the face! Punch me in the God damned face! Damn it, Shannon! I made that an emergency transfer! Bethdale! That's a shit hole! Do they even have a neurosurgeon?"

"No. mmmm.." It was clear that Shannon was avoiding getting Mac bent out of shape, but then again, he needed to know what was going on, "She is seeing Doctor Polch." As Marcus just stared blankly with hands suppliant and shoulders shrugged, she added that Dr. Polch was a podiatrist as Macaluso jumped to his feet. Seeing that Macaluso had already lost it, she just let it all fly. "He runs the Athlete's Kinesiology Center there."

He was drop jawed and furious all at once. "Itching jocks and horny callouses? She is going to herniate her brain and die while some dufus gives her shoe inserts! Shannon! How could you let this.."

"Whoa big boy. I've been on the phone screaming at people. I even called Jeff Malin at the Chronicle. He called me back and said that the docs there accused you of being an alarmist. They told him that lots of kids get heel pain from tight Achilles tendons. Soccer just brings it out quicker. Simple lifts in the shoes should resolve her pain. Jeff said that her heel pain is, in fact, better with the lifts. That does not make a flattering story for you Mac. If the Chronicle ever ran that.."

"Heel pain! Better? That means she's still playing? Who gives a shit about the heel pain!? Of course the lifts will help the heel pain! Ass holes. Hey. Did she actually ever see an MD?"

"Initially, just the sports people and her primary."

"Who's the primary?"

"Lynn Brown." Shannon's answer was unexpected. Dr. Lynn Brown was no dummy. This had to be a departure for her. Shannon revealed that she had already discussed the deeper issues with Brown who was aghast that her approval of the visit to Doctor Nathan Ivory was overruled. The obvious question was answered in that the original complaint and therefore the issue under review was heel pain, not vocal properties nor brain stem herniation from an expanding fourth ventricle brain cyst. Further evaluation might be initiated after the presenting primary complaint was settled. Settled meant that the presenting complaint, heel pain, did not return next season and fail secondary treatment, casts.

"Gotta warn her, Shannon... Mrs. Hallam.. Gotta call her.."

"I did. She consulted, on her own, a neurologist at U. of C. who agreed with you."

"So?"

"So nothing. Heel pain. Period."

Macaluso dropped back into his seat, slumped and grumbled rubbing his lips with the side of his right clenched index finger, then blurted, "Ivory?" But Shannon waved him off. Ivory had already interceded to get labeled with ambulance chasing by one of the toe crackers over there. When Jeff Malin called him.. he actually called Ivory, Marcus.. when Malin called Ivory, the man went ballistic. Jeff said that he'd best not quote Dr. Ivory, for everybody's sake. Shannon did quote her own Ivoryism, after a bit, when Macaluso was calmer. He had said, "Those ass holes have less brains than frogs have tits." From this Mac began mumbling about more news worthy literary references, Saint Giles of the Lilly Pad, or Agatha of the Tarsal Callosity, then began, with two arms and his face held high, an unintelligible chant to Saint Gereon.

Shannon tried diversions without much luck. Over Mac calling down curses in the names of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, she asked, "You hear? ProtectiBlue is raising their rates thirty to fifty percent! They jammed it through the senate. Amazing. They showed their projected indebtedness as insolvent." She had picked up that nugget on one of her jaunts to the state house. More purged by fatigue than in reaction to her diversion he relented.

"Hell, Shannon, that's no surprise. They lost nearly all of their investor's money. Real estate speculation. Those bastards were into land and commercial building deals, big time. Big pot of gold? Hah. Big pot of hot snot 'tsall they got. They made huge investments and the bottom dropped out. That's where the debt came from. It had nothing to do with medicine. In fact that's how two thirds of these damned organizations got started. Ask John, he'll tell you, they're devouring medical funding to offset their losses from high risk speculation investments. Total scam. Offer ten percent reductions in price but give fifty percent less product. Put the difference in high risk or flat out illegal schemes. It's a blood sucking frenzy. People are not on guard against confidence schemes in medical insurance. They plop down their their money and they think they actually have something. I wonder how many of them could prove - actually document - that they used to be able to take a shit or a wiz if they ever had to get surgery approved for an obstruction."

"Maybe they just want to piss for educational purposes," Shannon laughed darkly, but turned to greet Lois, the clinic secretary, as she approached with an arm full of folders and charts.

"Hello doctor Macaluso. Hi Shannon. Scuse, Mac. Shannon, I set that meeting for this Thursday afternoon. The exact hour is loose, I cut back Thursday... sometime after two o'clock when everybody finishes up... and traffic, who knows, whenever you get there. Bela said that she was bringing a Mister Doofus, or Goofus, Schmoofis, something like that, I didn't quite get it."

Shannon abruptly switched gears from listener to organizer. "Great! Are those the charts, I wanted for the meeting?" reaching out.

Lois twisted to withdraw them from reach. "No, boss lady. Believe it or not, other people have charts too. These are mine, just need dictations filed. I put five of the charts you requested on your desk. The bazillion others are up in transcription. I'll get them later today. I also pulled those papers you wanted for the meeting. They're on your desk with the charts."

"Super."

Looking back to the lunch line Lois queried, "What's that shit they're serving?"

Mac jumped in, "Liver and peaches." Lois snorkeled holding her nose over her charts as she walked away.

Shannon turned and beamed, "Tonto, know what that was?"

"Uh-uh, Tonto got no clue Kimosabe," Mac shrugged, but just knew that it would mean more work. Fortunately he was an insomniac and she wasn't. He had a built in safety valve with her projects.

"Dorothy Bela? Rings a bell-uh?" As Mac was still shrugging, "Doctor Dorothy Bela, law professor, Teson Hall Law school?"

There was something familiar there. He was just starting to reel in a leaping fish of a recollection. "Was that the law professor we tried to get to meet with us over the HMO crap?"

"No. That's Dryfus. This is HIS boss. She's chief of the department. Dryfus is the one you're remembering. Damn, I've been after these folks for over two freaking years! And out of the blue... well.. not totally out of the blue... but who'd a known... " Macaluso nudged her with a comment about her needle being stuck. She went on, "Remember that Celtic Arts night, I tried to drag you to? You finked out. Well, I met Sean Price."

"uhhh.. vaguely.. mmm, .." still not reeling this hard catch reflection.

"Well HE is on the board of the law school. He's the connection. John set him up with Gaffy McGuiness.. " as Marcus's eyebrows came to life.

He blurted, "To what? Chop the guys head off? Or is it balls?"

But O'Brien, not pausing, continued, ".. for his daughter's wedding." Macaluso was now amending his question to what, chop the bride's headoff? And as Shannon went on, he went on ammending - finally to the groom's head off with no idea of how utterly possible that actually was. Shannon was half ignoring him but did insist that Gaffy would never chop a ladies head off to which he teased, "Sooo, you're safe."

"Yes. I am, Tonto."

McGuiness, wild man, poet, avenger, according to her account, was marvelous at the post wedding reception where he made his surprise dark appearance. It was his presence which made that wedding an event people still talk about. It even made the papers despite the organizers' claim that it was a McGuiness impersonator doing the recitations. Nobody believed that for a minute. "He's still wanted," Shannon seemed proud to share, although the truth was his kind of wanted was a covert shoot to kill kind of want. There was nothing of threat in the form of legal process which had nothing on him. His very existence was an embarassment, icon of vulnerability of the ruling powerful. Powerful people feared McGuiness emulation. Shannon knew this, but this was home talk, not public stuff, though Macaluso had heard it all. He joked, in a reference to Irish whisky, that the Black Bush told more truths than the burning bush. But there was no whiskey to be had at The Table, so truths were not comprehensive nor self evident. "Uh, I don't get it, Price? Irish? Not O'Priceahan, or McPrice, or GilPriceenenny.."

He was still testing out Irish convolutions on the name Price as Shannon backed up a bit. "Well, I guess. Yeah. He's, well... how do I put it... he is Irish.. technically.. modern technically, that is, but not historic technically, or by asociation of blood line.." as Macaluso almost choked on his coffee, blurting, "Blood line? Shannon! What in hell are you babbling about?" But her response was even more unsettling as he just roled his eyes, lips to the table, head covered beneath his arms. "This is weird. Don't ever call me weird again."

"He's an Orangeman, but his wife is Catholic. Their daughter, too, Maeve, I think her name is, yeah. She's Catholic." Shannon went on unshaken. To this she added that Price's future son-in-law, another Orangeman, is in many ways like his new father-in-law and partner in several business ventures. Price's daughter met this fellow at one or another of Price's business affairs. "Johnson. Maeve Price is marrying a Johnson." as Marcus made indelicate hand gestures playing on that name. "Stop that. That's old. Grow up. Anyway... gath.. Stop that, you'll go blind. Although that actually is the rumor, that he's, well, mmm, endowed in a certain way, a certain big way. They call him Big as a nick name. Now stop that! People are watching you! Marcus! Anyway, gathering mom's green relatives with dad's Orange relatives plus the groom's Orangemen from both sides of his family - that - you may not get it - but it's real - it posed a problem."

Macaluso was crossing his eyes, and shaking his head as this sounded so medieval, but Shannon went on ignoring, "John got Gaffy to go. To do recitations. To be a peacemaker. He got the Gaffy McGuiness, Gavin F.E. McGuiness, to do only - uh - well - less piss down your throat stuff. Imagine, Gavin McGuiness making peaceful gestures. That alone is amazing! That's what made the papers. Truth is, though, and don't repeat this, John said that Gaffy is absolutely certain that Price is a jackal. There's no way Gavin can accept an Orangeman. Not after, well, that's a whole other deal."

"Gavin, now, is it? We are on first name terms with a serial killer, are we? Hmmm?" She punched him and he laughed, then admitted his own curiosity about the tale, "Gavin McGuiness sucking up to, what do you call them, loyalists? Royalists? Recoilless-rifleists? Moyel-less-ists?" And after he played that theme dry, "Hmm. God. I'll bet that was hard for him! I hear he's a hell fire. Pisses steam! I love his stuff, what little there is translated."

There was a long silence. Both of them were wandering in their own extrapolations. "Mmm." Shannon broke the silence with what sounded like a reverie, then abruptly perked up, "Oh, so, anyway, a week later Dorothy Bela calls ME.. she calls ME! .. after all that dancing around... damn." Shaking her head, "I think this is divine intervention. Maybe we were premature. You know? This is actually a better time. More people are aware now. People are on to the HMOs now. They know. We don't need to tell them facts. Everybody knows. What we need to do is lead an uprising. We need a legal mechanism. I think, really, five years ago, nobody would have listened... let alone give a shit. Even three years ago, their arguments sounded so genuine. So un-made up."

Mac relived a transient recollection, "Like a newspaper article about a children's art event that occurred last week," keeping the deeper meaning of this thought to himself.

"Well, uh, yeah, I guess. Like that," Shannon allowed, accustomed to his disconnected comparisons, then watched as that beast of his took over. She knew to give him some space when that sulking furrowed brow and far away look set in. Besides, she needed her own time to contemplate this new development and sipped her coffee quietly for a few minutes, jotting notes, then entered his dream with a nudge. "Care to share?".

As if from nowhere, a low octave reply drawing from nothing said before, growled out "It's not about isms. ... It's about power." His voice was echoic, and far away, different, scary.

Shannon made her stock 'anybody-home?' gesture to which he wasn't responding but, instead, continuing his deep rumble. "Power is power. You put it here or put it there, it is still power. They decorate it for public consumption, but it is just power. Attila was the most honest power broker. He never put a veneer of philosophy on his power. Smite and kill. Smite and kill. Kill and plunder.. No isms. No bull shit. Power. Pure power. Attila did what he did because he wanted to do what he did and because he COULD. There was no pretense. No making of better worlds for an Attila-ism. Somebody had something he wanted, bam."

"I'm trying, .." Shannon was making help-me gestures with her fingers.

"Nazi-ism. What the hell was that? A philosophy? My ass. It was a blind fronting a mad man's assumption of power, a Nietzcheesque decoration on a curtain meant only to hide what was lurking behind. These philosophies are nothing but the historic tastes of the gullible. Different generations require different lies to buy into the same old scheme, assumption of power of one or a few over the many. You can try to cram the facts into the polemic, but the essence of Nazi-ism was the Hun - power.

Hitler did what he was allowed to do. He went as far as he was allowed to go, blind to lines. Hitler killed and plundered until he was stopped from killing and plundering. The shape of Hitler, his scope was not from within but from without. As water is shaped by the dam, or by the glass, by containment, and as gas expands until something stops it, evil, by definition is expansion without shape, without regard, without constraint.

 Cancer. Growth without regard to the whole. There was no victory of a philosophy over Nazi-ism. A mad man just pissed off enough of the world to get his ass kicked back. He was not a Nazi threat, he was a monster - a pure threat, waving a Nazi flag. The historic maps do not show the shape of Nazi-ism, the spread of a philosophy, they show the resolve of resistance and the scope of preparedness to contain. Nazi-ism, a dumb ass smoke and mirors philosophy goo on a web to entrap the gullible. We still have Nazi's, but they're just curiosities, stuck in the glue of philosophical gobbledygook and without brains enough to loosen themselves. They have no power. They are no threat. That trick has been exposed. We ignore them, or just give'em a kick in the balls for auld lang syne."

Shannon was getting edgy about this stream of consciousness, but didn't interfere. She knew better. Let him vent - whatever it was that he was venting needed out. But she wondered what had she said to bring this on.

Macaluso continued, "Stalin. Now, there, was another ass hole. Another power seeking ass hole who attained power, by pure chance of timing mean-spiritedness, and another man's stroke. Stalin could just as well have dressed his power in a tu tu. It wouldn't have mattered, but he went with the flow. He dressed his power in Marxist dialectic bullshit. People were into that then. That so-called philosophy drew its breath only from the power and fear of the beast who was in charge. Him. Without fear, it vanished in a blink.

Commune-ism is a just another ism, a decoration, draped over the same old power predator essence. And, yet, philosophers fart their time away discussing the color of the tarp that bedecks the bomb that it hides beneath. The only meaning in the tarp is the hiding of the power. Hidden power is amplified power. Nazi-ism, Stalin-ism ism-schmism, just smoke and mirrors, bullshit. Forget the lips. Watch the feet. It's about power."

Shannon knew that she had lost her grip on this conversation and just leaned back. He pressed on, his eyes far away, "Capital-ism. Sounds better. Huh? Another tarp? What's under it? Bombs? Maybe. Power for sure. Personal power of a few over the many? Who owns that one? Capital-ism was the mantle worn by the robber barons of the early 1900s, like lace on a naked centerfold. It didn't really conceal. Yet it did do something. Pleasing in the tease? But what was beneath? A good screw? You bet.

Look at those big industrial names. They were all scurrilous crooks of insane power. Power. Power to exact and to hurt. In their acquisitions of power disguised as an economoc philosophy, children were abused in their sweat shops. Young men lost limbs to their uncaring plunder - uncompensated. That unfettered raw capital-ism shroud bedecked their alter of greed and made it sanctified. Holy.

You can't get away with diddley in the name of Stalin-ism or Nazi-ism today - you'd be eaten alive. But any child can be sacrificed, plunged into an abyss of neglect under the indifferent immoderate obsession called naked capital-ISM. That's our mantra, our veneer, our cosmetic on plunder. We equate capitalism with America. But what kind? Raw? Didn't we have a history to reign in the huge potential for abuse and acquisition of power? It's OK, it is expected that there be rules in football and baseball. We expect guidelines to be enforced or the game is tainted. But those money fisted blood suckers cry foul if their lopsided game even has a referee! Christ, even boxing has rules and a ref! But it is unAmerican to suggest that capitalists should have ANY limits on what they can do. And look at how they do it, they do it with our power! We the people.

Look at what these turds are doing to our children! But when the mob encircles them with torches, they wave their hand hypnotically and utter - 'free enterprise' - 'capitalism' - and poof the torches are extinguished and the mob reduced to dust. A gust of wind blows from the west and the dust, too, is gone . To hell with the children, this is free market! This is capitalism. Capitalism is Darwinism. Long live Spencer. Helping the weak is poor for our race. Letting the strong trample the weak, strengthens us! Somehow, protection of the people through balance of power sought by and guaranteed us by our constitution plays second fiddle to bloodsucking guys in suits. Why?

Just one thing though, how's this different from the Nazis? Is it the strong over the weak or rather the dishonest and self-serving over the honest and unsuspecting? Is a con-artist a good capitalist? Is capitalism the same as anarchy? Can you do anything you damned please? To anybody? Buyer beware? Morality be damned? Who the hell set the HMOs above the law? Law belongs to US! Not them. Not anybody else. That is a negation of our entire essence as a people. Unequal protection under our law? In the name of what? Capitalism?"

Shannon looked grim. Her neck was pulled into her sweater. Her brows were nearly sitting on her cheeks. But Macaluso was not done. Squinting into the distance, "Yet, it isn't even mentioned in our founding documents. Not a trace of any ism is mentioned. Not even the isms of religion, except to keep them apart from the rule and structure of law. Our forebears had it exactly correct. They were against any consolidated power, any interest having vested protection. Our only consistent doctrine ought to be to disallow accumulation of unbalanced power - of any kind. No power of any kind or degree ought to exist without direct redress of we the people.

Power without review or redress - no matter what - is evil. Power without redress from the people is evil without any further evaluation or discussion. It doesn't matter how it is used. Power without redress is evil because of how it might be used. It can upend our ship of state. We the people can drown in their waters."

Poking the table with his index, yet still peering into nothingness, "To a degree, we've been successful in keeping power in the hands of the common people, a diverse and widely held guardianship. Of the people, by the people, and for the people is not unclear. Government is power. The people - in the broadest sense - ought to have that power - be the sole possessors of that power. We allow industry - if WE please. We grant process to allow business transactions in OUR land, in OUR midst, so that WE may benefit from the process. It is permitted by us for us. WE own this place. We let you play on OUR field, but only if WE enjoy the sport and the field is not fouled. But the ism sayers would have you believe that they have some innate overriding right to plunder US, in OUR home, in the name of THEIR ism. Well, screw them and their isms."

Shannon's lower lip was nearly inside out as Macaluso was now fisting the table, "But now, they have gone further. Now we see corporations, under the guise of capital-ism, eroding, rewriting the laws that protect us, choking the courts with nit picking issues that hide the only issue - acquisition of power - theirs. What are they doing? Just like Hitler, what can they do? They do what they can. They go as far as far allows.

Our history has drawn lines, lines of we the people. They are not ignoring the lines, they are systematically erasing the lines. They ravish the land, they brutalize people, and sing loud songs of capitalism. Yet, they are not in balance. Not now. They might just as well be storm troupers or the red guard. Don't expect justice from them. Don't expect due consideration from these bastards. They are predators. And they ARE smart. They rewrite the law to insure their meals of humanity."

Shannon was reeling from this blast of darkness, "Whoa.. hang on. There are good people out there. We're good people. We count. It's up to us to be smart and vocal."

"No!" His finger was raised shaking as he insisted, "It's up to us to be smart and effective. Who the hell want's to be Joan of Arc? If a devil has been loosed you might well need another devil to consume its power. The mere existence of power is not the problem. Power without a negative counterpart is what evil actually is. Evil is unfettered power. Unfettered power is evil. Isms don't mean shit. Argument is word on words. Words that go nowhere. A tapestry of verbiage shrouds accumulations of power. What an awful combination, huge power and decisions made behind closed doors. You can call it capitalism, but huge unfettered unrefereed power in the hands of a few who make decisions in secret is not what we as a people are about."

"That's why you have to vote for Clinton!" Shannon made an overhead power to the people fist, getting her pitch in. "The government is the balance. We are the government. We the people. See?"

Making a finger in throat gesture, Mac went on, "Gak. On paper, maybe. I saw government in action. It is a government of thieves, by thieves, for thieves. They are smart. Damn smart. They suck you in with great schemes. Motherhood, starving children, cleaning the river, and things of unimaginable intricacy, all to do one thing, steal."

He looked Shannon right in the eyes, but also focused right through her, "It's not that they can steal that bugs me. It's not that they do steal. It's that they won't allow anything to exist unless stealing is built into it. They can't abide the honest man in their proximity. I can never be so smart to figure out the many ways they have of stealing. I witnessed it day after day after day."

"When was that? How did you.." trailing off, Shannon led him on with a keen look of interest. Mac was considered by everybody to be a raging liberal and congenital softie. She had not seen THIS side of him, not so furious.

"It was right after the rum banana," was the confounding reply, "and some I learned indirectly from Jazz Man, my father." He paused, then teased darkly, "Shannon. Any chance of Mrs. Hallem giving her kid up for adoption or moving to the North Ward?"

If she would have had coffee in her mouth, he would have been wearing it with her reaction to that unexpected joke. "Duh, yeah, right. That's about the only way.." But that's the thing about humor it needs a seed of truth. She trailed off lost in contemplation of the ridiculousness, yet practicality, of that jest. It was a jest, wasn't it? Wasn't it? "Marcus?" He was growling. His eyes seemed fixed on ghosts. "Marcus?" But his mind was on rising waters and the pool.