We still have the same remove from the rest of the world that has prevailed for many generations. The 2008 election rhetoric seemed fixated on the term “middle class,” and I tried to isolate exactly who this “middle class” might be. I found I could not. Unlike most other countries, it seems we are all middle class. We have no crowned royalty or wealth that is centuries old, and, likewise, we have no stone-age hunters and gatherers that can still be found elsewhere. In fact, our rich are modestly so compared to the potentates of Europe, Asia, and the Mid-East, and our poor are well-off by many a truly poor person’s standards. We have no top or bottom. We live in the letterbox format—our work, play and reflective observation confined to a narrow band through the middle of the human condition.