While eating crab soup near the back of a Vietnamese restaurant in Lower Manhattan on this moonlit night, my friend and I were asked for cash by an Asian woman proffering a laminated world peace flyer. It gleamed with a yellow and blue flag (right) that I immediately recognized as that of Mr. Moon, billionaire publisher of the Washington Times and friend of the Bush family. As Moon’s take-home pay must be reaching healthy levels thanks to his monopoly on U.S. sushi, I was surprised he was still juicing his impoverished followers for 8 p.m. cash drives.

The lady was dazzled when I told her I was familiar with the “True Father,” but her programming* had not prepared her to reconcile enthusiasm for Reverend Moon with unwillingness to hand over $20. Swiveling her attention to the next dinner party, she was presently kicked out of the restaurant by the owners, and roamed off towards Canal Street.

* For an example of a similar breakdown in robot logic, see the classic Star Trek episode “I, Mudd.”