There began to appear in a small, poor, war-ravaged country full of tired but proud people (proud and tired to varying extents) a growing flood of foreign “goods.” There were two things that were very confusing to the country’s officials about this. First, these imports were not asked for; no requests for trade had been issued and besides that the small country did not have trade relations with anyone except for other small countries who had too many problems of their own be able to send gifts. Secondly, exactly what was appearing in their country confused the officials even more. There were four types of goods: television sets (all with world wide satellite receptive equipment), pornography (of a great variety), “hard” drugs (crack, heroin, ect), and finally junk food (from candy bars to soda.)  At first they feared the goods were stolen but after detaining and questioning a typical “smuggler” (who, it turned out, was just a local shopkeeper’s nephew—an average citizen) they discovered that no underworld elements were involved with handling the tv’s, porn, drugs, and candy once they were inside the small country’s borders. Upon further investigation they found that whoever was delivering the items to the border was not selling them to the natives but simply leaving them there to be freely taken. Fresh supplies arrived on a random schedule but at a constant rate. No one knew who was responsible. At a meeting the officials tried to decide what was going on. This much they knew: someone was leaving them anonymous, free (if somewhat odd) gifts. That was the only fact they had. They could only guess at what it meant. Where the gifts really free? Would this invisible gift-giver appear and make demands on them later on? Why where they receiving only four types of such unusual gifts? Could it all be connected (they wondered in much lowered voices) to the recently growing evidence of religious-based terrorism within their country? The debate continued and so did the flow of goods. Being a very religious society the people rejected the pornography and drugs but bought or traded for the television sets—not to view (they had no interest in what the screen displayed) but to use as spare parts, doorstops, or gag gifts. Slowly though, the people, after coming home from working hard in the fields, found that the glow and sounds of the tv relaxed them. In turn the drugs very gradually became acceptable if not used in front of mothers or in-laws. The pornography had been wildly, secretly, popular since the beginning and the junk food was enjoyed openly. Soon, in addition to, among other things, crops being mostly ignore in favor of watching cartoons, an increase in still-born or deformed babies due to drugs, driving-while-masturbating related accidents, and the sudden problem of obesity the whole country became so complacent that even the religious fanatics/ possible future terrorists came to be concerned with only when the next shipment of celebrated contraband would arrive. The country officials stopped worrying about it too, in fact they rarely left their homes (not even to get more stuff; a convenient, country-wide delivery service that been set up by a local business man who became a national hero), just like everybody else.