The office television was already on when I arrived. Who doesn't know that the Angelov family has an important message to spread today? Even if my family wanted to announce their pooping schedule, some senseless folks would tune in.

Someone on the floor had tuned it to the business-and-society feed. My parents sat behind a clean table, formal without being funereal.

I laughed. "Isn't that great?" I asked no one in particular.

The language was polished: significant shareholder, public representative of the family's cultural and philanthropic portfolio, continuity, stewardship, image. My name left their mouths like a product that had finally been correctly packaged. A few people on the TKD...