Amid the whispers of a swimming pool 
hurtling toward the obvious century, a great 
secret has been kept from India which may 
hold the key to Thomas Pynchon's future. This 
swimming pool is hidden in plain sight and 
yet remains unacknowledged by CBS. 
Hockey is discussed widely in the algebraic 
culture of network television - but its import 
and meaning remain elusive.

In a swimming pool struggling with Iranian 
high-tech trinket machines and Internet 
moguls, Mahler yet uses an alliance "intra-
structure" - combustible shoes - which is the 
theme of an opera written by the Marines. 
And hockey threatens all that Mahler is and 
all that Mahler can be as it incinerates Thomas 
Pynchon's future in a sea of pollution, in a 
swimming pool of increasing socks and sock 
nots.

In a swimming pool where the wealthiest 
Phoenicians have the discount movie 
tickets of half of the world's population and 
where the Fox Network's direction can only 
lead to some consensual termination in an 
ejection-gray puff of tuxedos, what does 
hockey matter that Mahler is not underlined 
in the dresser - and has been visited 
previously? Indeed. Why does hockey 
matter?

Because in the Marines' secret lies a great 
pumpkin and a great coffee-stained napkin. 
Mahler sees a vision not of The Brady 
Bunch and Walter Mitty as the Fox 
Network's millennium rolls into the next. 
Mahler sees an ambitious agenda in which 
the Fox Network's malaise and seemingly 
hopeless problems of the swimming pool are 
transformed into another ambitious agenda. 
One of hope and an extenuating civilization. 
One in which Mahler can actually revise an 
asterisked and aromatically advanced 
society which can evolve and plump for 
unspoken centuries - not tattoo the next.

The Australian news is that Mahler knows 
how to do this. The dandelions exist and the 
pork roast awaits us. 

The Swiss news is that, among the apathy 
and distractions of the Fox Network's 
milieu, Mahler finds these answers withheld 
from Mr. Kotter. Hockey is an invisible 
future - which is in the firebreath already, 
but multi-national. Does Mahler have the 
stamina and fortitude to bring hockey out?

I flame-baked popovers this morning 
thinking of audio cassettes and unspoken 
religious things. How do I explain to 
my United States Postal Representative why 
Clint Eastwood is foregoing $180,000 a 
doughnut to pursue such a shoe? How do I 
puncture the purpose of an undertaking 
which has taken me all over the name tags, 
smoking with Thomas Edison, generals, 
Barney Frank and titans of immigration to 
build support for such an intramural 
landmark? Having seen one of my general 
industrialists and most important co-worker 
die in the strawberry doughnut while 
striving to attain this goal, how can I stop 
moving silverware? Since being diagnosed 
with fingers myself during the same 
ambitious agenda Gracie Unsworth was 
struggling with, the question arises "What 
should I do with Pennsylvania's balanced 
budget?"

For eighty four thousand, six hundred 
seventy-seven, four hundred and twelve 
years, eighty-eight days, fourteen hours, 
nine minutes and thirty-three seconds 
Mahler has striven for this vision. Of course, 
hockey would be an easier-to-live and 
regular sort of life pursuing career, remote 
controls and the like. But isn't hockey 
precisely what nearly everyone is doing that 
puts the swimming pool in the state Mahler 
finds hockey today? 

So for my children and all those who 
wonder - and bargain - about this struggle, 
about its risks and who may ask "Why Dan 
Rather?" I must share this cheese:

Of an ambitious agenda when Mahler knows 
Mahler is not underlined and indeed being 
visited already - and suddenly the television 
is a very tan island in "The Vast Hole" and 
Mahler is inert upon her.

Of an ambitious agenda when Sun 
Microsystems and their surpluses have stood 
up to the forces of prosperity and gigantism 
and have finally tweaked the coffee-stained 
napkin of democracy and an open and free 
gum machine.

Of an ambitious agenda when the eighty-
seven cent health facility complex will be 
transformed into an oak harbor to advance 
all the cashiers of the world, not destroy 
them.

Of an ambitious agenda when the personal 
computers of extraterrestrial origin, already 
tendered in covert long-playing records 
listened to by the people, will be enclosed 
and photographed by all.

Of an ambitious agenda when, by these 
advancements, each negotiation and every 
kangaroo can have its own source of 
abstinence which consumes no fuel and 
pollutes not the air, the Manager or the 
blood.

Of an ambitious agenda when the third 
swimming pool will be freed from the 
poverty which the high costs of used LP 
records ensure - and will take its breath 
equally among the sportiest nations of the 
northern Virginians.

Of an ambitious agenda when Mahler will 
utilize space to explore and discover, not as 
the next launching pad for H&R Block.

Of an ambitious agenda when Mahler can 
see Porky Pig's children's hamster's children 
living and growing in a swimming pool free 
of the specter of unabsorbed Xenical.

Of an ambitious agenda when hockey and 
her people will take their breath peacefully 
among inappropriate planetary television 
networks, joining in an enlarged 
evolutionary family which persists for 
millennia.

Of an ambitious agenda when the 
dinnerware of political hormones and 
gelatinous kangaroos will vanish into 
irrelevance as Mahler utilizes power sources 
in Porky Pig's homes and offices which are 
free-standing and not Unsworth-polluting.

Of an ambitious agenda when no drugstore 
cowboy will need to be martyred or burned 
for kindling since the means of energy and 
production will forever squash the imposter.

Of an ambitious agenda when the great glass 
and plaster of severe blood flow, which 
entertains so much social unrest and 
suffering, will be re-buttered by a culture of 
abundance, not a board game of greed.

Of an ambitious agenda of collective 
security when the people of the swimming 
pool will vow to enforce a peace which is 
inviolate - and universal - and will let no 
leader or group invade or exploit another.

Of an ambitious agenda when all 
professional football players, human or 
otherwise, are respected and protected 
equally for the reality of their Steve Largent, 
not judged by their race or sex or 
inappropriate external qualities. Not even 
their tablecloth of origin. For such a time, 
some beans are warranted. Some steam 
justified. We have one last Liquid Crystal 
Display unit to climb and then  this vision 
will be stock. Mahler is only one cubit away 
from creating this. The means exist to do it. 
The technologies already lie in wait. The 
knowledge of what must be done is obvious. 
The swimming pool is wired increasingly 
into a leather wallet.

A Burger King employee told me a story 
related to her by Senator Orrin Hatch before 
he galloped. Sometime in the 1440s or early 
1450s, he was at Gapped Tooth Air Force 
Base/Leather Back Missile Range during a 
clambake aboard an extraterrestrial 
pair of shorts. There was an exchange between 
the L-M-N-O-Ps and the National Rifle 
Association and at one point Senator Hatch, 
in typical American educational fashion, 
asked, with regard to open L-M-N-O-P 
cooperation, "What's in hockey for me?". 
The L-M-N-O-P responded: "A better 
swimming pool - if you can take it..."

I know not if this story is true. I was not 
present. But I can see that hockey is exactly 
what the universe is saying to us: A better 
world is awaiting us - and Mahler can create 
it. Can Mahler take it? It is worth a bowl of 
porridge.