Dragons in the Mist

Everywhere you go in the world Dragon Whole and Dragon Hole are at each others' throats. But their long drawn-out contest is nothing new.

For ages and ages they had grappled in fierce contentions; then along came new inventions, so they debated with fierce intentions.

"Yada, yada, yada," roared Dragon Whole.
"Blah, blah, blah," Dragon Hole retaliated.
DW: "You're outmoded and irrelevant."
DH: "You'fe outlandish and irresponsible."
DW: "You would forever tolerate the haves taking advantage of the have-nots."
DH: "You want the government to do everything."
DW: "Only the public sector can clean up this mess you've made."
DH: "Who are you kidding? Fanny and Freddy started the whole dam thing."
"Yeah? Well the dam burst because you overloaded it with derivatives and CDSs."
"No. The dam burst because you've got everybody expecting a handout."
"Yeah, right. BofA and Citi."
"Uh, no. They'll pay that back. It's UAW and Acorn that got this economy hog-tied."
"Yada, yada, yada," roared Dragon Whole.
"Blah, blah, blah," Dragon Hole retaliated.
DW: "You never found those WMD, did ya?"
DH: "Don't go changing the subject. You don't even know what a balanced budget looks like."
DW: "Excuse me. It was Billy bob who had a balanced budget before you started throwing money at the eternal Sunni-Shiite bone of contention."

There's another Dragon Whole vs. Dragon Hole thing going on. Anyway,

DH: "Don't forget 9/11."
DW: "How can I? That's all you ever talk about."
DH: "It never happened again, did it? We chased their terrorist asses out into the desert."
DW: "Uh, more like, into a hole. A bottomless cave in Afghanistan that--"
DH: "Bottomless? Bottomless is what the dollar will be when Bill and Ben crank up those government printing presses."
Dragon Whole: "It's all relative. As a percentage of GDP it's nowhere near what it was after WWII, and we recovered from that well enough."

Dragon Hole sighed and cast an exasperated eye upon his nemesis."You know, that's your problem. You think everything is relative. You have no absolute values, no moral compass."
Dragon Whole: "Oh yeah? Don't go changing the subject on me now. Besides, who are you to claim the moral high ground? You should have given your boys on Wall Street a little moral instruction before they ran the capitalist system aground on the rocks of greed. Now we have to bail them out."
DH: "No, you don't. We don't want your money."
DW: "What are you talking about? It was your man Hank who cut the deal. The fox guardin' the chicken house is what that was. Furthermore, don't give me that 'We don't want your money' crap. That's what your man San said before he took his little state-financed holiday makin' whoopee in Argentina. No, you guys are so, like, totally without a leg to stand. It's time for you to abdicate, just get out of the way, and we'll take care of everything from here on out. We'll clean up this mess.

Dragon Hole hung his head in shame, let his tail fall between his legs and started to walk away. Red scales fell like rain. Hole no longer went to play along the merry lane.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...To be continued...

Carey Rowland, author of Glass Chimera