Phi Beta Kappa

I like to have books and essays recommended to me. Sometimes the pieces are recommended based on what my friends and/or family see as something I should read/like/appreciate. Sometimes the recommendation is based on similarity of style or theme. Sometimes it's just for the sake of having something to say.

Whatever the reason, I love it. I do the same. I consider myself a Golda of pairings. I like to put person a and b together if I think they're a match. I have an album full of mental pictures I've engraved into my mind when I introduce someone to a new type of music that I've guessed they'll love. Even my family's approving nods when they realize that I've chosen the right pairing of beef and protein for tonights dinner.

I don't believe in direct responses. In writing I have the luxury of beating around the bush, dangling the carrot in front of a literary horse. For I enjoy the simple pleasures of teasing. A quick, hungry look followed by complete ignorance. Perhaps a soft graze seeming almost accidental. I hint at things to come without actually saying it. It's difficult I'll admit and I'm not always successful so bear with me gentle reader.

Have you ever deduced something you had no way of knowing? Had your brain put together small tidbits of information and had it click without you even realizing how or why? Or notice a word you just recently learned pop into everything you read or do? How about identifying someone you've never seen?

It's how I come up with new definitions. How I invent and reinvent my thoughts into ever changing streams of consciousness.

So let me define the pack. The initial image is Buck circling within a picket of crazed dogs. In this image I am the sleeping man a couple of hundred feet away perfectly oblivious to what's happening on my camp.

The pack is a life-line. A place where a happy trekker keeps his water, trail-mix, and a compass. So as not to get lost of course.

While getting a man into the Senate or Congress costs a lot of money, keeping a man in Congress requires little to no effort. The beauty of politically tired countries is that things don't change very much from term to term or person to person. It's one of the greatest investments you can make (incumbency rate of 95%). These are leaders of a pack (a country).

The pack as a country is that its made up of an unwillingly unchosen multitude. Who's to be the leader then?

And then the problem of cliques arise, and coalitions and parties with vested and opposing interests in a wide variety of outcomes. Things stop being about delegation and about leadership.

So what's in a pack?