PAUL:	What a thin copper strand by which we have suspended this 
	dysfunctional society of ours.

	Technology.  All our trust eggs, placed in the basket of a few 
	shaky theorems and ill-defined suppositions.

	Molecules of chance behave the way we say they will ?  Atoms 
	circle a so-called nucleus because we say they do ?  Magic 
	electricity works the way we say it does ?

	Gangly spans of metal cakewalk across our rough northern 
	terrain conveying the insulated wiring that delivers the 
	pulse of modern life from the shuddering turbines of our 
	pristine wilderness to my toaster oven and your light bulb.  
	Reddy Kilowatt indeed.

	And then Mother Father Nature cocks a snook at us.  The ice 
	storms, the hail, the freezing rain, the feet of snow, the 
	raging torrents of unstoppable rivers, the howling winds and 
	the bone-numbing cold.  Winter, we call it.

	And we have coerced precious metals, plastics, polymers and 
	non-biodegradable alloys into an uneasy partnership with us 
	suborning the hocus-pocus that is electricity, the excitation 
	of the stuff of life, harnessing to our puny human desires and 
	wonts.  It is their slavery as well as ours.

	Electricity, j'accuse.  When the power went out here last 
	weekend for several hours, it allowed me the relaxation that 
	had been fugacious for so long.  When the twelve channels on 
	my electron box, deprived of its necessary electrical fix, 
	quit hectoring me I noodled my way unknowingly into a state of 
	relative bliss.  I kicked back.  I read my Christmas books.  
	I tuned out of the humdrum and threw another log on the fire.  
	I even spoke with Mom for awhile.  

	I discovered we don't need this modern life.  We don't need to 
	know how many buses have plunged off Mexican cliffs today, 
	how deep the water is on the coastline of Bangladesh this 
	week, how far the Canadian dollar has fallen this month.

	Why cars ?  Why laptops ?  Why cellular phones ?  Why sonic 
	toothbrushes ?

	Why not spend fifteen minutes with an aging parent ?  Why not 
	try one of those crossword puzzles ?  Why not not worry about 
	how the Leafs did last night ?

	Makes you wonder, what really matters ?  Nothing like a power 
	outage to focus the mind.

	Think I'll go pull the plug now.