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But That's Kind Of An Easy Stance To Be If You're A Humor Columnist, Because You're Tending To Make Fun Of The Government And The Powerful. I'm Sort Of A Soft-core Libertarian In That My Compass Is Generally Pointing Away From 'let's Let The Government Do This' Does It Matter To Me That It's Democrats Who Think We Need More Elaborate Programs That Involve Shifting Money From One Group To Another Group Or It's Republicans Saying We Need To Take A Harder Look At What Kinds Of Things People Are Watching On Cable Tv? Neither One Of Those Things Strikes Me As A Good Idea.

-Dave Barry

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But That's Kind Of

Dave Barry

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But That's Kind Of An Easy Stance To Be If You're A Humor Columnist, Because You're Tending To Make Fun Of The Government And The Powerful. I'm Sort Of A Soft-core Libertarian In That My Compass Is Generally Pointing Away From 'let's Let The Government Do This' Does It Matter To Me That It's Democrats Who Think We Need More Elaborate Programs That Involve Shifting Money From One Group To Another Group Or It's Republicans Saying We Need To Take A Harder Look At What Kinds Of Things People Are Watching On Cable Tv? Neither One Of Those Things Strikes Me As A Good Idea.

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The Information Encoded In Your Dna Determines Your Unique Biological Characteristics, Such As Sex, Eye Color, Age And Social Security Number.

It Was Not Easy Victory In The America Cup. Our Boys Spent Years Experimenting With Different Designs For Their Boat Before They Came Up With The Innovative Idea Of Having A Submerged Nuclear Submarine Tow It.

Never Have A Dog. Let's Not Beat Around The Bush Here: Dogs Are Morons.

Several Years Ago We Had An Intern Who Was None Too Swift. One Day He Was Typing And Turned To A Secretary And Said, "i'm Almost Out Of Typing Paper. What Do I Do?" "just Use Copier Machine Paper," She Told Him. With That, The Intern Took His Last Remaining Blank Piece Of Paper, Put It On The Photocopier And Proceeded To Make Five Blank Copies.

I Grew Up In The Southwest Bronx. Father An Accountant, Mother A Schoolteacher. Brother Was Six Years Older, Which Explains Why I Gobbled Crystal Meth At 12, Smoked Hashish At 13, And Was Shooting Smack At 17, Which Explains How I Got Hepatitis C, Which Was The Basis Of My First Book, Which Was A Humor Book About Dying.

The First Animals To Be Successfully Domesticated Were Dogs, Which Were A Big Help Because They Would Bark All Night And Fetch Thrown Sticks, Thereby Freeing Humans From Having To Perform These Tedious Yet Vital Tasks.

If You Look At Photos Of The Gettysburg Address There's A Guy Off To The Right Who I Think Is Keith Richards.

Classical Music Gradually Lost Popularity Because It Is Too Complicated: You Need Twenty-five Or Thirty Skilled Musicians Just To Hum It Properly. So People Began To Develop Regular Music.

The Hugely Popular Windows 95 Operating System Revolutionized The Software World Thanks To Its Capability Of Accomplishing The Seemingly Impossible Task Of Making Bill Gates Even Richer Than He Already Was.

Miami, You Can Never Run Out Of Material. As Long As You Have Miami Around You, You Will Never, Never Stop Being Amused.

As Americans We Must Always Remember That We All Have A Common Enemy, An Enemy That Is Dangerous, Powerful, And Relentless. I Refer, Of Course, To The Federal Government.

With Humor You Have So Many Options With Topics And Length, I Mean I Can Write Humor Essays In Books Now And They Can Be As Long As I Want Them To Be.

Granted, This System Is Insane, But We Must Not Let Sanity Stand In The Way Of Airport Security.

The Irs Wants You To Use This Form Because It Gets To Keep Most Of Your Money. So Unless You Have Pond Silt For Brains, You Want The Long Form.

Sign At A New England Church: Will The Last Person To Leave Please See That The Perpetual Light Is Extinguished?

The Spanish Government, Having Run Completely Out Of Money, Secretly Sold The Pyrenees To China, And Is Now Separated From France Only By Traffic Cones.

Spreadsheet: A Kind Of Program That Lets You Sit At Your Desk And Ask All Kinds Of Neat "what If?" Questions And Generate Thousands Of Numbers Instead Of Actually Working.

No Matter What Happens, Somebody Will Find A Way To Take It Too Seriously.

Today's Beauty Ideal, Strictly Enforced By The Media, Is A Person With The Same Level Of Body Fat As A Paper Clip.

Big Business Never Pays A Nickel In Taxes, According To Ralph Nader, Who Represents A Big Consumer Organization That Never Pays A Nickel In Taxes.

The Only Kind Of Seafood I Trust Is The Fish Stick, A Totally Featureless Fish That Doesn't Have Eyeballs Or Fins.

We Have Always Had Dogs, And They Have Faithfully Performed Many Valuable Services For Us, Such As: 1. Peeing On Everything. 2. When We're Driving In Our Car, Alerting Us That We Have Passed Another Dog By Barking Real Loud In Our Ears For The Next 114 Miles. 3. Trying To Kill The Avon Lady.

There Are No Bad Haircuts In Cyberspace.

Orangutan Are Very Weird Animals But They Look Very Soulful.

We're Wild Horses. We're Going To Eat Your Food, Knock Down Your Tent And Poop On Your Shoes. We're Protected By Federal Law, Just Like Richard Nixon.

During Bomb Drills, We Students Were Told To Crouch Under Our Desks. Apparently The Desks Used In Classrooms In The Fifties Were Made Of An Exceptionally Missile-resistant Variety Of Wood. During The Cold War Years I Often Wondered Why It Never Occurred To Our Defense Planners To Protect The Entire Nation From Nuclear Attack By Simply Covering It, From Sea To Shining Sea, With A Huge Strategic Classroom Desk.

You Should Definitely Have A Travel Agent. Why Go Through All The Hassle Of Dealing With Airlines, Hotels, And Rental-car Agencies Yourself, Only To See The Arrangements Get All Screwed Up, When With Just A Single Phone Call You Can Have A Trained Professional Screw Them Up For You?

Spain Travel Tip: If Bathroom Genders Are Indicated By Flamingos, The Boy Flamingo Is The One With A Hat. I Learned This The Hard Way.

If Congress Were To Pass A 'flat' Tax, You'd Simply Pay A Fixed Percentage Of Your Income, And You Wouldn't Have To Fill Out Any Complicated Forms, And There Would Be No Loopholes For Politically Connected Groups, And Normal People Would Actually Understand The Tax Laws, And Giant Talking Broccoli Stalks Would Come Around And Mow Your Lawn For Free, Because Congress Is Not Going To Pass A Flat Tax, You Pathetic Fool.

European Toilet Paper Is Made From The Same Material That Americans Use For Roofing, Which Is Why Europeans Tend To Remain Standing Throughout Soccer Matches.

Dinner Special - Turkey $2.35; Chicken Or Beef $2.25; Children $2.00

Dogsled-riding Is A Sport That Is Relaxing As Well As Fragrant.

This Was Years Ago, I Think During The Early [ronald] Reagan Years. I Came Up With A Plan That Everybody Just Pay $8.95 In Taxes. Cheating Would Be Allowed. But The Incentive To Cheat Wouldn't Be Nearly As Great If You Only Had To Pay The $8.95. There Were A Few People Who Would Have To Pay Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars Under This Plan. I Think It Was Mark Goodson And Bill Todman, The Guys Who Do The Quiz Shows. But Almost Everybody Else Would Be Off Really Cheap.

I Suspect That Laguardia Is An Elaborate Prank, And New York Has A Real Airport Nearby That Only Locals Know About.

Babies Are Equipped At Birth With A Number Of Instinctive Reflexes And Behavior Patterns That Cause Them To Spend Their First Several Years Trying To Kill Themselves. If Your Home Contains A Sharp, Toxic Object, Your Baby Will Locate It; If Your Home Contains No Such Object, Your Baby Will Try To Obtain One Via Mail Order.

The Sixties Are Now Considered A Historical Period, Just Like The Roman Empire.

The Nuclear Generator Of Brain Sludge Is Television.

Wood Heat Is Not New. It Dates Back To A Day Millions Of Years Ago, When A Group Of Cavemen Were Sitting Around, Watching Dinosaurs Rot. Suddenly, Lightning Struck A Nearby Log And Set It On Fire. One Of The Cavemen Stared At The Fire For A Few Minutes, Then Said: Hey! Wood Heat! The Other Cavemen, Who Did Not Understand English, Immediately Beat Him To Death With Stones. But The Key Discovery Had Been Made, And From That Day Forward, The Cavemen Had All The Heat They Needed, Although Their Insurance Rates Went Way Up.

As You Know, Birds Do Not Have Sexual Organs Because They Would Interfere With Flight.

Here In The News Media, Our Focus Is On Speed. When We Get Hold Of Some New And Possibly Inaccurate Information, Our Highest Priority Is To Get It To You, The Public, Before Our Competitors Do. If The News Media Owned Airlines, There Would Be A Lot Less Concern About How Many Planes Crashed, And A Lot More Concern About Whose Plane Hit The Ground First.

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I Feel That Nasal Spray Is A Wondrous Medical Achievement, Because It Is Supposed To Relieve Nasal Congestion, And By Gadfrey, It Relieves Nasal Congestion. What I'm Saying Is That It Actually Works, Which Is Something You Can Say About Very Few Other Aspects Of The Medical Establishment.

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Cambridge University

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Productive Work

Without Good Grammar, The United States Would Have Lost World War Ii.

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It's Income Tax Time Again, Americans: Time To Gather Up Those Receipts, Get Out Those Tax Forms, Sharpen Up That Pencil, And Stab Yourself In The Aorta

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I Do Some Of My Best Reading While Seated In The Bathroom.

When I Read That I Had To Go To Gettysburg.

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I Had No Shoes And I Pitied Myself. Then I Met A Man Who Had No Feet, So I Took His Shoes.

Dogs Do Not Grasp The Concept Of House Cleaning.

If, When You Talk To People, They Keep Backing Away From You, It's Because You're Too Close, Alright? So Don't Keep Advancing On Them Like A Human Glacier.

Have You Noticed That Whatever Sport You're Trying To Learn, Some Earnest Person Is Always Telling You To Keep Your Knees Bent?

The Main Accomplishment Of Almost All Organized Protests Is To Annoy People Who Are Not In Them.

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Funny Thanksgiving

It Is An Inconvenience, Being Located In A City Where Taxes Are Ludicrously High, Where You Pay Twice Your Annual Income To Rent An Apartment That Could Easily Be Carried On A Commercial Airline Flight.

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When I Write My Annual Tax Column, Some Ex-irs Agent Will Complain, "there You Go Irs Bashing Again." They're Always Saying That They're Just Doing Their Job. Someone I Know Once Said, "you Could Get Another Job."

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I've Never Been Struck By Lightning As Far As I Know, So The Higher Power Is Treating Me As Well As Even Those People Who Love Him Very Much.

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Many People Have Trouble Sticking To Their Resolutions, And There Is A Simple Scientific Explanation For This. In 1987, A Team Of Psychologists Conducted A Study In Which They Monitored The New Year's Resolutions Of 275 People. After One Week The Psychologists Found That 92 Percent Of The People Were Keeping Their Resolutions; After Two Weeks We Have No Idea What Happened Because The Psychologists Had Quit Monitoring.

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Stamp Collecting

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I Called A Company And Asked To Speak To Bob. The Person Who Answered Said, "bob Is On Vacation. Would You Like To Hold?

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Trails Need To Be Wider So People Can Walk While Holding Hands.

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I Have Read That, On The Average, The Japanese Are Getting Taller, But At The Moment They Seem To Be About The Same Height As American Junior-high-school Students, Only With Fewer Guns.

We Should Call Editorials What They Are: Columns Written By Committees.

The Most Valuable Function Performed By The Federal Government Is Entertainment.

People In The Computer Industry Use The Term 'user,' Which To Them Means 'idiot.'

I Love The Resource Of The Internet. I Use It All The Time. Anything I'm Writing - For Example, If I'm Writing A Scene About Washington D.c. And I Want To Know Where This Monument Is, I Can Find It Right Away, I Can Get A Picture Of The Monument, It Just Makes Your Life So Much Easier, Especially If You're Writing Fiction. You Can Check Stuff So Much Quicker, And I Think That's All Great For Writers.

Everyone Has A Right To Be Stupid. Some Just Abuse The Privilege.

Black Stache Had No Love For The Queen, No Love For Women Of Any Sort, Except For His Ma. He Had A Real Soft Spot For His Ma, And Was Truly Sorry For The Time He’d Marooned Her.

On Valentine's Day, Millions Of Men Give Millions Of Women Flowers, Cards And Candy As A Heartfelt Expression Of The Emotion That Also Motivates Men To Observe Anniversaries And Birthdays-fear.

Leonard Aster Thanked Fighting Prawn And The Mollusk Tribe For Their Hospitality. “you Mean,” Said Fighting Prawn, “for Not Killing You?” “yes,” Said Leonard. “it Was Very Gracious Of You.” “do You,” Said Leonard, “i Mean, Does You Tribe, Shake Hands?” “no,” Said Fighting Prawn. “we Kiss On The Lips.” “oh,” Said Leonard, Looking Very Alarmed.

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I Am Not The Only Person Who Uses His Computer Mainly For The Purpose Of Diddling With His Computer.

The Objective Is Not So Much To Walk Your Dog, As It Is To Empty Him.

Magnetism Is One Of The Six Fundamental Forces Of The Universe, With The Other Five Being Gravity, Duct Tape, Whining, Remote Control, And The Force That Pulls Dogs Toward The Groins Of Strangers.

Thanks To Modern Medical Advances Such As Antibiotics, Nasal Spray, And Diet Coke, It Has Become Routine For People In The Civilized World To Pass The Age Of 40, Sometimes More Than Once.

With A Novel, You Have To Have A Story. It's Much More Important To Have It Matter To The Reader What Happens To People, And It Has To Make Sense And End In A Way That Is Satisfying. So I Spend A Lot More Time Thinking About That. Then The Writing Itself Usually Is Easier For Me, Because I Know Where It's Going.

I Have A Friend Named Doris Who Argues, On Good Authority, That The Single Biggest Cause Of Global Warming Is Menopause.

The Voice Belonged To Mr. Pzyrbovich, An Algebra Teacher Who Was Always Called Mr. P, For Obvious Reasons. He Has A Heavy Accent, Which A Lot Of Kids Said Made Him Hard To Understand, Although To Be Fair Some Of These Kids Would Have Never Understood Algebra Anyway.

For Most Celebrities, The Biggest Meal Of The Day Is Toothpaste (they Use Reduced-fat Crest).

Although It Was Constructed In 1536, The New York Subway System Boasts An Annual Maintenance Budget Of Nearly $8, Currently Stolen, And It Does A Remarkable Job Of Getting New Yorkers From Point A To An Indeterminate Location Somewhere In The Tunnel Leading To Point B.

The Central Point Of This Final Chapter Is That - Follow My Logic Carefully Here - Unless You Die, You Will Continue To Get Older. (it's Insights Like This That Separate The Professional Book Author From The Person With A Real Job.)

To People Who Make Moving Ads That Block The View Of Websites: Not Only Will We Not Buy From You, But We Want Shrews To Eat Your Liver.

If You Look At Any List Of Great Modern Writers Such As Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, And F. Scott Fitzgerald, You'll Notice Two Things About Them: 1. They All Had Editors. 2. They Are All Dead. Thus We Can Draw The Scientific Conclusion That Editors Are Fatal.

Scott Fitzgerald

I've Never Actually Given Birth To A Child, But I Suspect That Going To A Justin Bieber Concert With A Child Is Close.

I Have Always Dressed According To Certain Basic Guy Fashion Rules,including: Both Of Your Socks Should Always Be The Same Color, Or They Should At Least Both Be Fairly Dark.

As A Taxpayer, You Are Required To Be Fully In Compliance With The United States Tax Code, Which Is Currently The Size And Weight Of The Budweiser Clydesdales.

I Never Had The Vaguest Idea Whether Any Of It Had Anything To Do With Me, Especially Being A Sixth Grader. When I Got Older And Traveled, I'd Read About The History Of Where I Was Going. I'd Be Like, "oh, History Is Kind Of Interesting."

Nature Is Located Mainly In National Parks, Which Are Vast Tracts Of Wilderness That Have Been Set Aside By The United States Government So Citizens Will Always Have Someplace To Go Where They Can Be Attacked By Bears. And We're Not Talking About Ordinary Civilian Bears, Either: We're Talking About Federal Bears, Which Can Behave However They Want To Because They Are Protected By The Same Union As Postal Clerks.

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Just Get On Any Major Highway, And Eventually It Will Dead-end In A Disney Parking Area Large Enough To Have Its Own Climate, Populated By Large Nomadic Families Who Have Been Trying To Find Their Cars Since The Carter Administration.

The Story You Envision As You Start Out Is Always A Great Story; When The Facts Turn Out To Be Different From, Or More Complex Than, What You Expected, Your First Reaction Is Always Disappointment. That's When You Must Fight The Urge To Bend The Story To Your Preconceived Notions. First, It's Dishonest. And Second, In The End, The Truth Is Always The Best Story.

Denmark (also Called Norway) Is Best Known As The Original Home Of The Prune Danish As Well As The Vikings, Who Wore Hats With Horns Sticking Out Of Them, And For A Very Good Reason: They Were Insane.

Instead Of A Permit System Or Regulations, The Forest Service Needs To Reduce Worldwide Population Growth To Limit The Number Of Visitors To Wilderness.

Democracy: In Which You Say What You Like And Do What You're Told.

Baby's Room Should Be Close Enough To Your Room So That You Can Hear Baby Cry, Unless You Want To Get Some Sleep, In Which Case Baby's Room Should Be In Peru.

One Of The Issues That We Professional Newspaper Columnists Are Required By Union Regulations To Voice Grave Concern About Is The Federal Budget Deficit, Which We Refer To As The "mounting" Deficit, Because Every Extra Word Helps When You Have To Produce A Certain Number Of Gravely Concerned Newsprint Inches.

The Japanese Tend To Communicate Via Nuance And Euphemism, Often Leaving Important Things Unsaid; Whereas Americans Tend To Think They're Being Subtle When They Refrain From Grabbing The Listener By The Shirt.

Actually, There Are People From All Ove - Not Just Latin America, Certainly Not Just Cuba, But All Over Europe, All Over The United States. I Like That. I Like Knowing A Lot Of Different Types Of People. And I Can Afford To Live In A Relatively Safe Part Of Miami.

I Don't Like Anything Unsigned In A Newspaper That Purports To Be The Opinion Of Some Group If We Don't Know Who The Group Is. It's Laughable To Say That The Miami Herald's Editorials Or Any Newspaper's Editorials Represent Any Views Other Than Those Of The People Writing Them, So Why Don't We Tell Everybody Who They Are?

Never Try To Put All The Chemicals In The Entire World In Your Body At The Same Time.

So When I Open The Door On Halloween, I Am Confronted By Three Or Four Imaginary Heroes, Such As G.i. Joe, Conan The Barbarian And Oliver North, Who Would Look Very Terrifying Except That They Are Three Feet Tall And Facing In Random Directions. They Stand There Silently For Several Seconds Before An Adult Voice Hisses From The Darkness Behind Them: "say 'trick Or Treat!

Any Parent That Relies On Any Law To Help Him Parent Is An Idiot.

It Was Public Art, Defined As Art That Is Purchased By Experts Who Are Not Spending Their Own Personal Money.

Experts Agree That The Best Type Of Computer For Your Individual Needs Is One That Comes On The Market About Two Days After You Actually Purchase Some Other Computer.

There Are Two Distinctive Classes Of People Today, Those Who Have Personal Computers, And Those Who Have Several Thousand Extra Dollars Apiece.

For People Who Like Peace And Quiet: A Phoneless Cord.

My Problem With Chess Was That All My Pieces Wanted To End The Game As Soon As Possible.

The Other Major Kind Of Computer Is The "apple," Which I Do Not Recommend, Because It Is A Wuss-o-rama New-age Computer You Basically Just Plug In And Use.

One Night In Tokyo We Watched Two Japanese Businessmen Saying Good-night To Each Other After What Had Clearly Been A Long Night Of Drinking, A Major Participant Sport In Japan. These Men Were Totally Snockered, Having Reached The Stage Of Inebriation Wherein Every Air Molecule That Struck Caused Them To Wobble Slightly, But They Still Managed To Behave More Formally Than Americans Do At Funerals.

Real Cars Were Made Here In America: Fords, Chevys, Plymouths. These Were Large Chunks Of Detroit Iron - Cars That Had The Size, Weight, And Handling Characteristics Of Aircraft Carriers But Worse Fuel Efficiency.

I Never Stop Running. I'm Not One Of The Weenies Who Drop Out Just Because The Electoral College Votes. I'm Still In The Race. I'm An Extremely Corrupt Candidate And I Stress That In Case Anybody In Our Reading Audience Is Interested In Sending Me Money.

Nobody Understands How Hard It Is, Being A Captain.

See, When The Government Spends Money, It Creates Jobs; Whereas When The Money Is Left In The Hands Of Taxpayers, God Only Knows What They Do With It. Bake It Into Pies, Probably. Anything To Avoid Creating Jobs.

Thus The Metric System Did Not Really Catch On In The States, Unless You Count The Increasing Popularity Of The Nine-millimeter Bullet.

Don't Get Me Wrong. I Like Disney World. The Rest Rooms Are Clean Enough For Neurosurgery, And The Employees Say Things Like "howdy, Folks!" And Actually Seem To Mean It. You Wonder: Where Do They Get These People? My Guess: 1952. I Think Old Walt Realized, Way Back Then, That There Would Eventually Be A Shortage Of Cheerful People, So He Put All The Residents Of South Western Nebraska Into A Giant Freezer With A Huge Picture Of Jiminy Cricket On The Outside, And The Corporation Has Been Thawing Them Out As Needed Ever Since.

I Hate Rap Music, Which To Me Sounds Like A Bunch Of Angry Men Shouting, Possibly Because The Person Who Was Supposed To Provide Them With A Melody Never Showed Up.

I Read A Lot Of Lot Non-demanding Fiction.

You Kids Have Fun, And Be Home By Thanksgiving!" Our Parents Would Call To Us On Halloween Night, As We Staggered Out The Front Door, Weighed Down By Hundreds Of Pounds Of Concealed Vandalism Supplies, Including Enough Raw Eggs To Feed Somalia For Decades. By Morning, Thanks To Our Efforts, The Entire Neighborhood Would Be Covered With A Layer Of Congealed Shaving Cream And Toilet Paper That, Around Certain Unpopular Neighbors' Homes, Was Hundreds Of Feet Thick. This Is How The Appalachian Mountains Were Formed.

The Hardest Thing About Being A Guy Is That Women Don't Accept That You Really Are Just A Simple, Pathetic, Labrador Retriever-like Creature. That We Live In A World Were Women Actually Expect You To Think Thoughtful Thoughts, And Have Real Emotions, Which We Don't Have. Having To Try To Live Up To The Imaginary Ideal That Women Have Of What Men Are, Instead Of Just Being What You Are, Which Is Just A Pathetic Creature, But Still.

Computers Are Getting Smarter All The Time. Scientists Tell Us That Soon They Will Be Able To Talk To Us. (and By 'they', I Mean 'computers'. I Doubt Scientists Will Ever Be Able To Talk To Us.)

This Book Is Dedicated To Wilbur And Orville Wright, Without Whom Air Sickness Would Still Be Just A Dream.

I Think Twitter Is Kind Of Fun, It's Not Deep And It Never Will Be, But It's A Great Way To Communicate One-liners And To Sort Of See What People Are Laughing About. It's A Terrific Source Of Misinformation.

What May Seem Depressing Or Even Tragic To One Person May Seem Like An Absolute Scream To Another Person, Especially If He Has Had Between Four And Seven Beers.

Why Else Do We Have Miami, If Not To Give Me Material?

In 1765, Parliament Passed The Stamp Act, Which, As Any American High School Student Can Tell You, Was An Act That Apparently Had Something To Do With Stamps.

A Long Memory Is The Most Subversive Idea In America. A Tautology Is A Thing Which Is Tautological. A Witty Saying Proves Nothing, But Saying Something Pointless Gets People's Attention. If Your Kids Look Like You, It's Hereditory. If They Look Like The Neighbor, It's The Environment. Although Golf Was Originally Restricted To Wealthy, Overweight Protestants, Today It's Open To Anybody Who Owns Hideous Clothing.

People Don't Think Of Writers As Sex Objects. The Women Who Write To Me And Suggest That We Ought To Have Sex Usually Turn Out To Be, Like, Eighty. And Their Letters Always End With, "just Joking."

Although Humans Tend To View Sex As Mainly A Fun Recreational Activity Sometimes Resulting In Death, In Nature It Is A Far More Serious Matter.

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