Of course, being a nonprofit has some drawbacks, too. Financing depends on gifts, bequests and donations. And federal law states that some nonprofits can't have much in the way of income accumulation.

So life as a nonprofit is sometimes tenuous. The kind of think tank I am thinking about is one like the Center for Strategic Studies or the Institute for Iraqi Affairs or something like that. Few people know what these "institutes" or "centers" do. Some are free-standing; that is, they exist on their own. Others are parts of universities and colleges.

The latter seem to be more nebulous than the former. Some of these seem to be the invention of college professors and may well, for all I know, be just a filing cabinet drawer. But some—the Carnegie Foundation, for instance—have been around a long time, have a solid base of financing and dispense good, if not well-known, works. The Carnegie Foundation built a lot of public libraries in its day and now deals with peace.

So with all this in mind I have been thinking about starting a foundation. I'm not sure whether I should call it a foundation, an institute or a center, but somehow center sounds most impressive. Then, of course, I'd have to have some stated purpose for my center, some reason for its existence.

So I have thought of calling my center The Center for the Study of Centers. This sounds a little redundant, but I think it is time we expended a little time studying what it is that centers and institutes actually study. Another area for study is what center and institute fellows do and how one can get center appointments.

The Center for the Study of Centers will ferret that out, along with what happens to old fellows when they get old. (Do they, like old soldiers, just fade away?)

So there you are, or rather there I am. All I need is a nonprofit corporation, a board of directors and, of course, some beneficent angel with a few million dollars he or she doesn't know what to do with, and we're in business.

Oh, and I'll need to devise a logo for the center. Something like a circle with a slash bar across it might do. What do you think? All contributions, need I say, are tax deductible.

Carl Heintze is a frequent contributor to the Willow Glen Resident.