William Strawn Douglas, born in 1961, grew up immersed in the medical system. His father was a physician at the world famous Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. His mother was a nurse and nursing instructor. He is a Marine veteran, has worked in the oilfields of Wyoming, and as a cook at the famed Seward Cafe on the West Bank of Minneapolis. He admits to having been active for years as a user of what he calls short order soft drugs, and even participated in distributing some of them. He spends his time reading science fiction, studying ideas about the shapes of future governments, and trying