Experience: the vehicle of history. Teenagers: the driving force behind fatal accidents.

Like a valet who commits grand theft auto not to go for a joy ride but to open a used car lot, so do we seize upon love not to revel in its ecstasies but to haggle over its blue-book value.

As for automobiles, they come to reflect and sum up the marvels of consumption. They mirror a society without history, except when they are burning.

Well, Secretary Ridge would have to speak for himself, but from my experience, you had someone who's got a history in law enforcement just looking at it from the standpoint, 'My goodness, we got intelligence here, we've got to raise the threat level.' But the Homeland Security has to consider, first of all, 'How does the public react to this? Does it measure up to the standards of credibility? Is it something that we can act upon with an appropriate response?' And, quite frankly, sometimes we realized the public couldn't do anything or law enforcement couldn't do anything. There was a push back saying, 'I don't know that we need to create the fear in the American public.' And, in fact, as you can see, as we got more experienced, the number of times we increased the threat level decreased in '04 as compared to '03. I believe it was four times or three times in '03. We reduced that by half in '04. And I think that's just experience getting better at it.

Experience teaches is such a lovely saying. However, when people try not to make the mistakes of what history and experience has taught, they are criticized for it. They are told that because they have not experienced it, they cannot appreciate it, and thus never know it. However, at the same time, people want you to learn from past mistakes and past experiences, in order to make a better choice for yourself. So let me ask you, which is the hypocrite? Is it history or is it today?

Artists are the serfs of a leisure society.