Frugal Is Cool in Cash-Strapped U.S.

"There is a sense of mourning and confusion and a real feeling of living in the last days of empire," Tobar said.

Author Hectar Tobar is describing his perception of the widespread American sentiment of fear, a mood that is striking to him, having returned to the United States after a seven-year hiatus. Apparently we're not the confident, fearsome mongerers of war and capitalism that we used to be.

It's a great article. Read the whole thing.

However, I can't say I'm surprised. All the crashing and collapsing going on lately has brought to mind an Op Ed article written over ten years ago in The New York Times. Back then, my good friend Jason and I first learned to frolic on foamy shores of Lattes and Cappuccinos. We luxuriated in the rich acidity of double and triple shots of espresso sipped gently from tiny little cups, or dumped wholesale into steaming mugs of drip coffee or chai tea.

We were, we thought, the spiritual progeny of John Adams who said, "I am a revolutionary so my son can be a farmer so his son can be a poet!"

Little did we know we were driving the machinery that would one day derail the nation.

It was Jason who first read the article (read the whole thing...I mean it this time). He passed it on to me and together we wondered (over cinnamon sprinkled foam) if it could possibly be true. Josef Joffe had mused that the introduction of gourmet coffee always portended the end of any great empire, and worse, that America was next in line.

The age of American greatness will come to an end in an ocean of hazelnut and amaretto if Starbucks and epigones expand unchecked. There is a reason why the great empires of yore have gone under when confronted with a Melior full of freshly brewed Kenyan Blue. Either you tend to your gold-plated Gaggia or to your F-16. You don't fight with a frappuchino in hand. And as you admire that gentle dollop of steamed milk in your macchiato, what will you think about: the ''halls of Montezuma'' or the beaches of Cozumel?

Indeed. Long-suffering hasn't been an American virtue since the Great Depression. Coffee aside, there's no better evidence of that than our willingness to go to war (twice) with far-inferior opponents to keep the price of oil in check.

(Scratch that. Perhaps better evidence lately is that those "far-inferior" opponents spent the past few years largely kicking our butts...that is, before David Petraeus came to town - who might be our only hope, since he doesn't even know what kind of coffee he drinks.)

Ten years and 10,000 Starbucks stores later, Afghanistan is slipping away and the American Empire seems in danger of falling apart. And yet, here I sit, blogging like a wanna-be poet, sipping my press-pot Colombian coffee and wondering whether or not we'll learn that old virtue again before a new Empire rises on some post-modern frontier.