The Missing Paragraph

Apologies for the light blogging this week. One kid's home on spring break, another is having car troubles, and the third is very disappointed that he's not getting yet another snow day today. In between working, shoveling, and chasing all over town on various errands I've also been trying to wrap up an essay for BenBella Books, so the blogging hasn't just taken a back seat; it's been back in the cargo space with a couple of wet dogs.

I'm rather pleased with the way the essay turned out, but as always I'm disappointed that I wrote something in the first draft and then had to scrap it in the final. Try as I might, though, I just could not make this bit fit in:

James Bond lives in a world where governments recognize that oligarchies and fabulously wealthy megalomaniacs are a danger to democracy and the rule of law, not important sources of campaign contributions. In our world the president would be more likely to schedule a lunch and photo op with Ernst Stavro Blofeld than to send a secret agent after him, and state governments would compete by offering tax incentives to be selected as the site of the new SPECTRE lair. The business pages of our local newspapers would carry quarter-page photos of smiling men with shovels over captions reading: "Groundbreaking ceremonies for SPECTRE's new secret lair were held today in rural Chanhassen. The multinational evil organization's new corporate hideout, which is expected to take 3 years to construct at a cost of $3.6 billion dollars, will when fully complete provide jobs and housing for more than 2,000 henchmen, minions, and nameless drones and contribute an estimated $500 million annually to the local economy."