CHILDHOOD: The rapidly shrinking interval between infancy and first arrest on a drug or weapons charge.

REVOLUTIONARY: An oppressed person waiting for the opportunity to become an oppressor.

Golf is the art of driving hard, avoiding the rough, surmounting traps and hazards, aiming straight, and arriving on the green at last, only to end up in a hole in the ground before your companions. The favored pastime of businessmen and their cronies, probably without a full appreciation of its metaphorical implications.

True individualists are always at odds with the universe. Set adrift by their peculiar tastes and interests, they spend their lives searching for kindred spirits and a compatible mate. They are hopelessly out of step with the business world and its trivial urgencies. Their priorities are not the priorities of their neighbors. They are unique; therefore they are alone.

POWER: The ability to make our fellow humans squirm, sweat and stammer on command. Often regarded as an aphrodisiac; actually a potent laxative that, whenever ingested by people in high places, causes everyone below to run for cover.

Corporation: a miniature totalitarian state governed by a hierarchy of unelected officials who take a dim view of individualism, free speech, equality and eggheads. The backbone of all Western democracies.

Cynic: an idealist whose rose-colored glasses have been removed, snapped in two and stomped into the ground, immediately improving his vision