Even we, certain as we are that the nation is speeding toward economic recovery as swiftly and surely as an Amtrak Acela, are not immune to the steady rhythm of downbeat news lately manifest in the media. Revelations of commercial chicanery, dematerialized nest eggs, and the increasing din of plowshares being beaten into swords have to some degree diminished our customary sang-froid and threaten to render us as timid as Democrats.
 
Of equal moment, we are located in the heart of Silicon Valley and thus subject to a continuous rain of CEOs defenestrating from the dot-coms above us. For some reason this gets worse on Fridays, when the volume of plummeting executives increases several fold and it is unwise to walk about in the parking lot.
 
Small wonder then that your W Team might occasionally seek the balm of escapism and trifling diversion as a means of banishing dull care. Thus on most evenings you will likely find us clustered shoulder-to-shoulder in front of our television, hypnotically munching butter popcorn and watching The Power Puff Girls.
 
As all will know, the Power Puff Girls are a modern morality play -- Good contends with, and always overmasters, Evil. No giant ant or mad monkey-genius has a chance when the mighty moppets are about. (Go, Buttercup! Go!)
 
Although she really needs to give some serious thought to anger-management.
 
There is something oddly reassuring about watching the tiny titans at their labors. In some mystical province of the subconscious it encourages the belief that ~everything will be all right,~ and similar self-affirming fictions that help us negotiate the treacherous path from morning to night.
 
But cruelty abounds in this world, and it will come as no surprise that one day, when our attention had momentarily strayed, some smarty-pants switched the channel to CNN.
 
Not that we were fooled for long. There are any number of obvious differences between CNN and the Power Puff Girls. For one thing the latter uses brighter colors and is more believable, and also Judy Woodruff's eyes aren't as big.
 
Nonetheless, in the few frantic minutes it took us to find the remote and restore things to normal, our blissful ignorance had been corrupted and we had received several unwelcome updates on the world's progress. In this way we fell prey to information regarding the President's economic summit in Waco (~A Theatrical masterpiece~ -- Rex Reed; ~Most of it was very believable, I loved it!~ -- Gene Shalit).
 
But of greater significance and interest was news of a movement within the Catholic Church that favors the use of glass confessionals in hopes of curtailing awkward events. We found this idea instantly appealing. It is a core tenet of conservative belief that, left to their own devices, human beings will immediately gravitate to the lowest possible level of scandalous goings-on. None of us -- at least none of you -- can be trusted as far as he, she or you can be thrown.
 
Perhaps it was the conflation of this news with our recent viewing of the PPG' epic struggles, but we were immediately granted a vision of an idea whose time we believe has come -- given the times, that is.
 
If, we asked ourselves, the Church -- which places privacy very near the top of it's order of concerns -- can make such sacrifice for the common good, can the rest of us do less?
 
No, we answered, we can not.
 
And thus we present a proposal of modest implementation, but, we trust, profound and far-reaching effect: henceforth all American buildings should be made of glass -- all glass: glass walls, glass doors, glass roofs -- the, to borrow a foreign phrase, whole enchilada.
 
It is this kind of thinking that has catapulted us into the top ranks of whatever this is that we are doing.
 
Here is why our idea is brilliant and not insane:
 
There will be an immediate and obviously salutary effect on private morality -- which, as a matter of course, will now become public morality.
 
Business will flourish. Home furnishings sales will skyrocket as the line separating interior and exterior decor is erased. It will be a marketing professional's dream: no more guesswork about patterns of consumption. At last we will know who is watching the Anna Nicole Show.
 
Law enforcement will become a snap. Burglary will now be a thing of the past. The crime of blackmail will disappear over night because there will be no more secrets. Everyone will live on the straight and very, very narrow.
 
It will be good for the economy, taking us beyond the collapse of the technology sector and subsequently diminished attractions of the bond market. To be sure, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan's sub-rosa encouragement of the housing bubble has given nervous investors some place to put their dwindling capital other than baseball trading cards, but the effect has been compromised by unintended consequences.
 
For example, last week we went to our local hardware store to buy a tool shed in which to keep our stocks and returnable soda bottles. By the time we arrived, a throng of domicile-crazed Californians had bid the price up to $750,000 (that's a comma, Anna Nicole). But even so reasonable a price was beyond our reach and instead we purchased a fiberboard doghouse for a bargain-basement $200K with a 30-year mortgage and a relatively small down-payment.
 
All that will change under our plan. Thanks to the resultant explosion in new construction and renovation, walls will go down, windows will go up, and glaziers will become the new aristocracy. Houses will multiply like rabbits on Viagra.
 
Now everyone will have a glass ceiling.
 
And there'll be a lot less stone-throwing.
 
We get tingle-y thinking about the better America that will result when people can't get away with stuff.
 
Best of all, our proposal requires little if any statutory alteration, because it is consonant with -- and certainly not more lunatic than -- many of the ideas currently in-hatch down at the Inquis -- down at the Justice Department.
 
Although window shades will have to be banned.
 
That is our proposal in a nutshell -- where it fits very snugly. No need to thank us, it's what we do.
 
But now, with that out of the way, we have to get back to the Power Puffs. We understand that tonight they're going to fight a Jurassic bug with laser eyes! (Get 'im, Blossom! It's a chick thing! GIRLS RULE!)
 
That's it for this week, Straight-Shooters. Remember, the next time you're in your local curmudgeon shop, look for our new bumper-sticker: ~My other planet is sane~
 
Your pal,
 
Hank
 
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