You got the teeth of the hydra upon you

Walter Page, American ambassador to London, had the following conversation with the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, regarding the 1913 military coup in Mexico:
"[Grey:]'Suppose you have to intervene, what then?'
[Page:] 'Make 'em vote and live by their decisions.'
'But suppose they will not so live?'
'We'll go in and make 'em vote again.'
'And keep this up 200 years?' asked he.
'Yes, said I. 'The United States will be here for two hundred years and it can continue to shoot men for that little space till they learn to vote and to rule themselves.'"
--Quoted in Empire: the Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power, Niall Ferguson

Sound familiar?

In other news, I had an extremely rewarding practice today. It felt really GOOD to play. That makes me happy. Not so happy-making were the dead batteries in my CD player, which meant that my arranging session was cut short. It doesn't help that all the pianos are so out of tune. I can never tell if my chords will actually work because they're so off-pitch anyway. /stab