But in a video game world where reality is increasingly treasured, and where more game systems use motion sensors to enable players to control the action, Smith wants to help ensure that millions are not left in technology's wake.
Did it reflect fiscal discipline to fund two wars (increasingly expensive in treasure and lives lost), or to approve tax cuts for the rich that have continued to increase the gap between rich and poor?
He and Janet were famously sympathetic and generous, as my own family came to learn, but over the years he increasingly seemed to treasure peace and quiet, and time alone to read and reflect.
Barnes & Noble is stuck in the middle, a giant saddled with hundreds of huge stores, and an image of corporate sameness in a market that has increasingly come to treasure defiantly independent bookstores.
What they are reading is changing, often for the worse; but it is also true that the internet increasingly provides a treasure trove of rare books, documents and images, and as long as we have free access to it, then the internet can certainly be a force for education and wisdom, and not just for lies, damned lies, and false statistics.
Tschirhart, a B-17 bombardier with 35 bombing missions over Nazi occupied Europe under his belt, is now 91 and every time I hear or read the sad statistic that our World War II veterans are dying at a rate of more than 1,000 a day, I wince and value this friendship even more, just as I increasingly honor and treasure all our surviving World War II veterans.
How large this problem loomed in Nādir Shah's mind is demonstrated by his increasingly morbid obsession with treasure and jewels.
Toward the end of his life, however, his image as a national treasure was increasingly tarnished by his alter ego, an unsavory character called Gainsbarre who regularly appeared on live television inebriated, infamously burning a 500 franc note (a statement against French tax laws) or making lewd comments to a young Whitney Houston.
As technology grows more sophisticated and the American government and its corporate allies further refine their methods of keeping tabs on citizens, those of us who treasure privacy increasingly find ourselves engaged in a struggle to maintain our freedoms in the midst of the modern surveillance state.
Of course, the return of treasures like these to Phnom Penh and Ulan Bator are still the exception, but they are growing as governments, law enforcement agencies and the public increasingly realize that looting cultural treasures is a crime — and not a victimless one.
