Not since 9/11 have Americans felt so connected and vulnerable as they do in this economic meltdown. Like smacking a mule with a two-by-four, it has really gotten our attention.

With the exception of a few hedge-fund types who probably immediately invested in gold to hoard their ill-gotten gains, the rest of us don't know if we'll ever retire, much less manage to feed ourselves. We really are all in this together. Remember when Congress stood on the steps of the Capitol seven years ago to sing, "God Bless America?" I suggest the rump parliament do the same when it reconvenes after election day.

Artistic note: As a cartoonist, I deal in visual shorthand. While sketching the character on the left, I realized that one of the most enduring stereotypes is that of the goateed, pince nez-wearing, tweedy psychoanalyst, probably based on the Sigmund Freud prototype. A hundred years from now, cartoonists will be still characterizing them as nineteenth-century bourgeois Viennese.

It's like the universally-held misconception of librarians: invariably ancient, eccentric types who fasten their hair up with chopsticks. This is unfair. I knew one in Oklahoma who used a couple of forks.