Happy New Year, and agreed.

The HBO Series "The Boss" is more than slightly prophetic about how politicians and aides see the game in 2014. In their version of reality, the real players are the politicos and their staff, and the 1% that pays tribute or does favors in exchange for patronage. The rest of you are indeed pawns, or "muppets" as the wannabe 1%-ers currently label you. Before that it was riff-raff, great unwashed, chattering classes... these terms are useful as they emanate from those who are sufficiently corrupted by power that society needs to move them on. The players always seem to forget that what they see as a game is in fact an institution of service to all who dwell in the jurisdiction, including the lowest of the low. Nothing new about this- there was a reason Jesus washed the feet of the poor and why Emperors in their Triumphs had a slave whispering in their ears- as a reminder that even the greatest are in service to the State/people. Otherwise they're just bandits.

If TC is around, perhaps she will recall the inscription I jokingly plotted to have carved into a fireplace in a great mausoleum of a place I was having renovated a year or five ago. ;-)