This summer has had about it the feeling of doom. Things fall apart. The center cannot hold. I keep reading economists blathering about how Americans must retool themselves for a brighter day under globalism. People who can't count to fifteen are not likely to become script writers, or video-game designers, or rap producers, or even economists [though editor is a possibility, as I have known more than one editor to brag, 'I don't do numbers.' ... Not a shamefaced admission but a proud boast], and these appear to be the trades that the economists believe we will use to save ourselves in a time of global wage arbitrage.
I knew a guy whose family ranched down by Del Rio. He told me that had an old Mexican pastor whom they'd set to counting sheep when they were gathering for shearing. He could count only to ten; when he had counted ten, he would drop a pebble in his shirt pocket. For the final count, he would take out the pebbles and show them and say, 'I have this many and six more.'
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