"You Might Not Reich This"

Eight in the morning. In pre-coffee time, it's as good as four in the
morning. I walked with heavy, begrudging steps to Anthropology, bleary-
eyed and grumpy, when a little orange cat gave me a squeaking command:

"Come pet me, you shithead."

I complied, but stopped in mid-scratch. There before me, in wrought-
iron, a giant swastika--with a cute little flower at its center.

My initial thought: clearly, I'd stumbled upon a Nazi cult.

My second thought: --or perhaps, as Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, the
architect adopted it because it "looks good."

Or perhaps, out of his Hindu, Greek, Native American, or any number of
very old cultures--this architect chose the swastika to represent
peace, the sun, and life.

Parallax is the phenomenon by which, if you held up a finger and
closed one eye, your finger would appear in one spot; yet when you
switch eyes, your finger appears to move, even though it did not.

Look at something with both eyes, people.