A few months ago, Cortez the Killer, explorer, conquistador, poet, bookseller, teacher of Spanish as a second language, bricklayer, songmaker, ship's wright, cartographer, philatelicist, public relations and media strategy consultant, dogsbody, rag merchant and wine taster was laid off ("made redundant") from his most recent mercantile job, viz, House Imperialist for Fitzcaraldo, inc. It is generally understood but not ever publicly acknowledged that his job entailed working as an upcountry guide & translator for a tiny subcontractor to the "Cultural Outreach" arm of Blackwater, Inc, primary contractors on a Pentagon contract said to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to, quote, "steam that paddlewheeller as far as you can upriver until the Amazon shall turn into a mudpuddle and find and civilize whatever pre-Columbians as you shall there encounter," unquote. Cortez, a proud man of Latin persuasion was not happy to sign up for the dole, viewing it as an insult to his manliness. But, ever the pragmatist, he came round to the point of view that "you do what you gotta do". After all, he was broke.