Edelweiss meets Evita

''Don't cry for me, Ben Bernanke.''

''You were supposed to be a genius. That's all we asked for--''

''You mind your business.''

''We kept our promise.''

''You keep your distance.''

The beleaguered Federal Reserve chairman is scheduled to appear before a Congressional committee this afternoon to offer a belated explanation for the government's handling of Bank of America's troubled merger with Merrill Lynch. Mr. Bernanke is rapidly running out of fig leafs and deodorizer to conceal the dubious nature of the forced marriage in January between the banking giant and the bankrupt speculative house on Wall Street.

Sooner or later, we all are going to know whether the Feds ordered BOA's former chairman to swallow Merrill while concealing its staggering losses from his shareholders, or if BOA squeezed $100 billion in TARP booty from the government by threatening to take the entire financial system down.

The suspense is palpable, but there's no need to wait until this afternoon to find out what Gentle Ben is going to say. We've obtained an advanced copy of his testimony. Put on your favorite Zamfir flute CD and pour yourself a lukewarm glass of Chardonnay, and enjoy.

Bernanke: ''First and foremost, I apologize to the nation. I have made decisions that have hurt and will continue to hurt you, and for that I'm sincerely sorry. Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner have stood by me through bailout after bailout, through hard time after hard time, and neither of them deserve this. Please offer them your prayers.''

Committee Chairman: ''What exactly are you apologizing for, Mr. Bernanke?''

Bernanke: ''I apologize to my staff. I misled them about this whole thing, and as a result the people of the United States believed something that wasn't true. I want to make absolutely clear that over the past six months at no time did anyone on my staff intentionally relay false information to other federal officials or the public at large. What they've said over the past six months they believed to be true, and I'm sorry to them for putting them in this position. There are many people out there right now who are hurt, angry and disappointed with me, and rightfully so. Over the time that I have left in office, I'm going to devote my energy to building back the trust the American people have placed in me. I ask for your forgiveness, and your prayers for everyone who I've hurt."

Committee Chairman: ''Mr. Bernanke, please get to the point. Tell us how this merger came about.''

Bernanke: ''It started with a really earnest conversation between two dear, dear friends eight months ago. Then something sparked between them. During this sparking thing, a grace and calm and a level of sophistication overcame them, and two magnificent parts of our financial system were drawn together in mutual feelings of attraction. I sat between them and observed that we were in a hopelessly -- some might say impossible -- or perhaps a hopelessly, impossible situation in the fading glow of our shrinking GDP. How in the world this lightening (sic) strike snuck up on us I am still not quite sure.''

Committee Chairman: ''Can you be a little more specific?''

Bernanke: ''As I have said to you before, the parties had a special feeling about each other from the first time they met, but these feelings were contained even though they enjoyed this special friendship. I suspect I felt a little vulnerable sitting between them because this is ground I had never certainly never covered before, so I asked Bob Rubin for some pearls of wisdom.''

Committee Chairman:''And what did Mr. Rubin tell you?''

Bernanke: ''He told me to sleep soundly knowing that despite the best efforts of my head my heart would cry out for the union of these two lovers. And from the merging of their voices, the swapping of their credit default derivatives, the combination of their delicate cash flows, as billions of crisp new Franklins sprang forth in a new birth of financial freedom, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that no executive compensation package is too big to be negated by abject failure --''

Committee Chairman: ''Mr. Bernanke, we'll have to end here. Three committee members have booked seats on the 2 p.m. flight to Buenos Aires out of Reagan National. I assume you will make yourself available for further questioning?''

Bernanke: ''That's correct, Mr. Chairman. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon.''

Last call in Steel City

About 30 years ago, you could walk into just about any self-respecting saloon in America and get the same response to a word-association game matching beers and the towns that made them famous.

Such as: Schlitz -- Milwaukee, WI, Iron City -- Pittsburgh, PA, Rheingold -- Brooklyn, NY, Rolling Rock -- Latrobe, PA-- and so on and so forth.

Not any more.

This week, the historic red-brick brewery in Pittsburgh that has been churning out Iron City beer since 1861 will produce its last few drops of the Steel City's favorite golden liquid.

The brewery, which survived the Civil War, two World Wars and a Great Depression, is closing -- but Iron City will not disappear. It soon will emerge from the taps at a brewery in Latrobe, PA, that used to produce Rolling Rock.

Rolling Rock is now produced in Newark, NJ. And the last time we checked on Rheingold, the long-defunct New York staple was briefly produced at Schmidt's Philadelphia brewery (although they still attempted to market it as a ''great New York beer'').

Confused? Well, here are some sobering statistics that may clear things up for you.

In the mid-1990s, the Iron City brewery cooked up about a million barrels of suds annually. According to reports, this year's output at the Pittsburgh landmark will total less than 171,000 barrels.

By comparison, industry titans like Anheuser-Busch InBev and Miller each put more than 50 million barrels of beer on the American wall every year. For several decades now, about two dozen large regional breweries have waged a valiant fight for survival against these giants, who pour out an ocean of industrial-strength lager each day at 20 mega-breweries throughout the U.S.

But the continued dominance of the national beer icons is not putting the final nail in the coffin of our favorite local brands. This is being hammered home by the emergence of the craft beer and microbrewery business, which has grown exponentially throughout the country.

According to www.beertown.org, there now are more than 1,500 craft breweries operating in the U.S., including 65 small regional breweries, 446 microbreweries and 990 brewpubs. A craft brewery is an outlet that produces less than 2 million barrels annually (with at least 50 percent of its volume malt beer); a microbrewery produces less than 15,000 barrels per year (with 75 percent or more of its product sold offsite); a brewpub is a restaurant/brewery that sells 25 percent or more of its beer on site (i.e. -- the beer is brewed primarily for sale in the restaurant or bar).

The Beertown site reports that output of U.S. craft breweries increased to nearly 8.6 million barrels in 2008, compared to about 8 million barrels the year before, while output for non-craft regional breweries remained, well, flat. The craft brew industry is generating more than $6 billion in annual revenue, growing 6 percent by volume and more than 10 percent by dollars annually. Within the craft suds sector, microbreweries are proliferating at an even faster rate.

So don't waste too much time crying in your last mug of ''authentic'' Iron City, beer fans. While some of the great old names are going the way of the dinosaurs, these are being replaced by a kaleidoscopic universe of new labels and flavors. We'd give you a breakdown of the mindboggling number of choices now available, but we're getting thirsty.

However, before we head out to hoist a few, we will serve up one heady factoid that absolutely knocks our socks off --

It turns out that the state with the greatest per capita number of breweries in the United States is -- you may want to sit down before you read this --VERMONT. That's right, the Green Mountain State has a brewery for every 32,698 citizens. The runners up are Montana, Oregon, Maine and Colorado.

Wait a minute. We just received a challenge from the great state of New Jersey. A guy in Kearny, NJ, claims his town has more bars per street corner than any city in America. He wants a recount.

In the interest of fair and balanced journalism, this calls for a thorough investigation.

Return to sender

''Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.''

These words are etched in stone atop the nation's largest post office building in midtown Manhattan. For well over a century, they have served as a credo repeated with pride by mail carriers throughout the land.

Unfortunately, this famous motto soon may require a dismal addendum --

''However, an economic downturn and the widespread use of electronic communications have necessitated severe cutbacks which may curtail your service at certain times and places.''

The U.S. Postal Service has been on a downward trajectory for the past 20 years. As use of the Internet for primary communications, including payment of bills, has increased exponentially, the overall number of postal workers has shrunk dramatically. In 2000, there were more than 800,000 postal workers. Today, the total is barely more than 636,000. The seemingly annual increase in postage fees has worked to accelerate this trend, rather than stabilize it.

Throughout this downsizing, the Postal Service has managed to keep its commitment to deliver the mail six days a week and to maintain post offices in just about every community in the United States. This commitment is now being challenged by the economic downturn, and it may be down for the count.

According to reports, the Postal Service currently is evaluating at least 3,100 of its 36,700 post offices and retail outlets for closure or consolidation. It also is considering eliminating Saturday mail delivery. A decision is expected by Oct. 1.

The numbers confronting the government's decision-makers are grim: the nation's mail-carrying service reported a $2-billion loss for the quarter ending March 31; mail volume is down almost 15 percent from last year. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, postal officials are predicting the agency will handle about 180 billion pieces of mail during this fiscal year, about 32 billion pieces less than the volume handled just two years ago.

Predictably, the American Postal Workers Union has pledged to fight the proposed cuts, calling them ''desperate.''

A spokesman for the local dog population told us his brethen would join the postal workers in opposing the curtailing of Saturday service.

''Yeah, I know weĠre mortal enemies and all that, but the weekend is going to be very dull if we donĠt get a least one shot at the mailman,'' he said.

We were going to ask his opinion of electronic bill-paying services, but he rolled over on his back and started snoring before we could pose the question.

The mouse that roared

The New York Times reported today that scientists have successfully implanted inside a mouse the human gene that governs language and speaking skills.

The mouse already is talking, and he's got a lot to say. We caught up with this impressive specimen at a secret government lab. We can't disclose the precise location, but we can tell you it is in Wisconsin.

Our subject was working out in a makeshift gym next to his cage. He was doing some laps on a hamster wheel, a poster of a huge slice of Jarlsberg taped to the wall in front of him for inspiration. A Green Bay Packers ''cheesehead'' hat rested jauntily atop the cage.

We asked the mouse his name.

''You can call me Fred. Call me Mickey and I'll snap your tail!''

We immediately noted Fred's New York accent.

''You got a problem with that?''

We asked Fred what was on his mind. Turns out he has been reading the newspapers that line his cage every day. He also watches a flat-screen TV on the wall. Fred has a remote he controls with his tail. He says he's been switching back and forth between the financial channels and the NBA playoffs lately.

''What's up with this Bernanke guy? He prints a trillion in new bills and then he warns us that inflation is going to ruin the economy? I could have told him that. You make too much Swiss and soon it's gonna to be worthless. Then everybody is gonna start hoarding Jarlsberg and Roquefort.''

Fred was particularly upset about something he read in a copy of Crain's New York Business the other day.

''That 35 percent vacancy rate in Manhattan office space is a killer. My cousin Vinnie doesn't even bother to crawl onto the F train in Flatbush anymore. What's the point of dragging your tail to the city every day if there aren't even any crumbs on the floor when you get there?''

Fred said he was pleased with President Obama's choice of a new pet.

''Dogs are loyal. Dogs are friendly. You can always count on a dog. Cats have an agenda, and it's never yours.''

Fred stepped off the wheel and asked us to pass a small white towel over to him. While he was rolling around the towel, he told us he is disappointed the showdown between Lebron and Kobe didn't materialize in the NBA finals.

''I was dreaming about it for months. Massive consumption of Doritos and nachos all over America. Coast-to-coast crumbs.''

''Well, maybe next year,'' he sighed.

Much to our surprise, Fred said he caught Keith Olbermann's critique of Detroit Economic Growth Corp. director George Jackson the other night on Countdown. Olbermann put Jackson on his ''Worst Persons'' list for allegedly not working hard enough to keep the old Tigers Stadium from being torn down.

''The humans have enough stadiums, and those stupid luxury boxes are hermetically sealed. Leave the old dumps for the rest of us.''

Fred also told us he recently got an angry phone call from his cousin Sean in Beantown.

''He's griping that Big Papi is stinking up the middle of the lineup like a piece of aged provolone. Says he can't even bear to sit in the Fenway scoreboard and watch anymore. Besides, not much to eat in the scoreboard since Manny left town.''

We asked Fred if he is ready to become a global celebrity when word gets around about his speaking skills.

''I'm keeping a low profile right now because I'm doing some off-the-books work for the CIA. Those jokers finally realized that all those high-tech gadgets don't measure up to some paws on the ground.''

However, Fred assured us that, when the time is ripe, he's ready for what he called his "closeup."

''I've got an endorsement package with Jarlsberg that's gonna give me two points on every wheel, a book deal, two movie cameos, and they're trying to work me into a Super Bowl commercial for a new cellphone camera. By the time I'm done, it'll be bigger than Lebron and Nike.''

We had dozens of other questions for Fred, but his iPhone rang and we had to cut it short.

''Gotta take this,'' Fred said, stepping on the touchscreen. ''It's my lawyer. He's trying to get an injunction to stop a screening of Fantasia at the Disney World IMAX.''

Fred made a face. Then he got really worked up.

''Terrible stereotype. A mouse wearing gloves. You ever see a mouse wearing gloves? We're really fed up with it and we're not gonna take it anymore. In this day and age, we don't have to. Are we mice or are we --- aw, you know what I mean.''

Something tells us we're going to be hearing from Fred again soon.