Neville mentions reading in that morning's newspaper that the city had granted the gas company a four per cent rate increase, one of several current-events items he lists that morning -- earthquakes in the news, the Secretary of State's televised remarks on the country's nuclear stockpile, and Congress voting itself a raise while adding a new surtax -- which he holds up as evidence of a world gone mad, in contrast to the divine order he teaches is working within each person.