We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year.

It's your fault if you stay fucked up, but the foundation of your fuckedupedness is something that's been passed down through generations of your family, like a coat of arms or a killer cornbread recipe, or in my case, equating confrontation with heart failure.

As for leadership, she applauds New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, whose stern law and order policies have won over the black silent majority, she says.

The judge had granted the DA a one-week extension with the caustic admonition that the case would be summarily dismissed if at that time probative, as opposed to prejudicial, evidence was not produced.