It was a good month for the End Times. In Iran, banks of uranium-enriching centrifuges were whirling merrily away. In North Korea, patriotic reactor fuel rods were giving up precious atoms of plutonium for the Glorious Leader. In Israel, the Temple Mount movement was getting ready to tear down mosques and lay the cornerstone for the Third Temple, thereby ensuring the arrival of the Messiah by Christmas. And the Watchtower Lady showed up at my door.

She thrust a pamphlet into my hands, and took off. I had been writing and had lost track of time and I was in my bathrobe and the day wouldn’t see 2 p.m. again. I suspect if you’re hawking Watchtowers you see all kinds, and she thought I was one of those kinds.

The pamphlet pictured the Whore of Babylon, representing False Religion, riding a Beast with seven heads, representing the Republican Party. Maybe it was the other way around. Anyway, I learned that God is angry. He’s going after the jerks who have corrupted religion with politics, or have used religious authority to corrupt children, or who have refused to see that Jesus’s message was love, not hate. After Armageddon—soon—these folks better be limber enough to kiss their asses good-bye.

Good for God, I thought. Good for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who had enough moral courage they refused to serve in the German Army in WWII. They got sent to Auschwitz. They didn’t fare a whole lot better as conscientious objectors in this country.

Then the phone rang and a voice, seething with rage, asked, “Did you call George W. Bush a moral pygmy in the Mountain Express?”

It was the president of the American Association of Moral Pygmies.

“You can’t insult us like this,” he said. “Our morals may be stunted, but we’re not EVIL.” He said I would hear from the AAMP attorneys, and hung up.

I promptly called my own attorney, told him the news, and he said, “You’re in trouble. Those people are ruthless. They’ll tear you up like a losing ticket at a dog track. They’ll break your legs at the start of ski season. They’ll give your email address to the widows of Nigerian generals. They’ll...”

“Moral pygmies will do all that?” I asked.

“Oh,” he said. “I thought you said AARP.” He said not to worry. “Moral pygmies always say they have attorneys, but they spend the retainer money on flake and high-end vodka.”

Sure enough, after I had hung up the president of the Moral Pygmies called again to talk things out. “It’s just that we get so tired of being blamed for everything,” he said. “That’s why I’m moving to Sun Valley.” It turned out he had subscribed to the Mountain Express after he had signed the contract for his new Fairways home.

“It’s going to be beautiful,” he said. “It’s fifteen thousand square feet of pure luxury. Sun Valley’s one of the few places in the world where decadence can coexist with conscience.”

I did a quick calculation. At $300 a square foot, his house would cost 4.5 million on land that had probably cost a couple of million an acre. Divided by $60,000, which is what a Habitat for Humanity two-bedroom home goes for these days, the house alone was enough for 75 families to have a roof over their heads.

“How’s it feel to be living in a house that is worth the equivalent of 75 Habitat for Humanity homes?” I asked him.

“Great,” he said. “Expensive. Rich. Good thing I sold my Enron stock when I did.”

“Don’t you ever feel like you owe Humanity a Habitat?”

“Ha Ha,” he said. “No.” Then he said, “I bet my car is worth more than one of those little cracker-box houses.”

“No twinges of guilt?” I asked.

“Nope. I’m a moral pygmy.”

“You’re starting to sound evil. And I think your house is an attempt to compensate for your moral stature.”

“WE’RE NOT EVIL,” he yelled. “In Sun Valley, they call us The Successful People. Bwhahahahahaaaaaa.”

I started thinking about the Watchtower Lady, and how she might feel walking up the walkway to a Successful Person’s house. I decided that she would wait until after Armageddon, after the Third Temple had been built and the Messiah had come, after Tel Aviv and Los Angeles became smoking pits, and after a Just Jehovah had made six billion quick and easy judgments on the souls of men. Moral courage notwithstanding, it would be easier to get through to him then.