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Seriously. It Was Running Out At Rolling Stone. First Of All, They Didn't Feel The Need For A Dissident Conservative Voice In A World Where Certain Conservative Aspects Had Become Intellectually Dominant. I Would Actually Argue Against That, But On The Surface Of It, In The [bill] Clinton Years The Market Economy Triumphed, Certain Libertarian Ideas Became Ordinary, And Certain Early-20th-century Ideas About Centralization Of Government And Economic Planning And Socialism With A Small "s" Had Obviously Gone Out The Window. The Cold War Was Over, Blah Blah Blah.

-P. J. O'Rourke

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Seriously. It Was Running

P. J. O'Rourke

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Seriously. It Was Running Out At Rolling Stone. First Of All, They Didn't Feel The Need For A Dissident Conservative Voice In A World Where Certain Conservative Aspects Had Become Intellectually Dominant. I Would Actually Argue Against That, But On The Surface Of It, In The [bill] Clinton Years The Market Economy Triumphed, Certain Libertarian Ideas Became Ordinary, And Certain Early-20th-century Ideas About Centralization Of Government And Economic Planning And Socialism With A Small "s" Had Obviously Gone Out The Window. The Cold War Was Over, Blah Blah Blah.

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Fortunately, I'm Married To Someone Who's A Pretty Excellent Parent!

The Australian Language Is Easier To Learn Than Boat Talk. It Has A Vocabulary Of About Six Words.

Keeping House Is As Unpleasant And Filthy As Coal Mining, And The Pay's A Lot Worse.

I Am A Journalist And, Under The Modern Journalist's Code Of Olympian Objectivity (and Total Purity Of Motive), I Am Absolved Of Responsibility. We Journalists Don't Have To Step On Roaches. All We Have To Do Is Turn On The Kitchen Light And Watch The Critters Scurry.

Journalists Are Notoriously Easy To Kid. All You Have To Do Is Speak To A Journalist In A Very Serious Tone Of Voice, And He Will Be Certain That You Are Either Telling The Truth Or A Big, Important Lie.

Seriously. It Was Running Out At Rolling Stone. First Of All, They Didn't Feel The Need For A Dissident Conservative Voice In A World Where Certain Conservative Aspects Had Become Intellectually Dominant. I Would Actually Argue Against That, But On The Surface Of It, In The [bill] Clinton Years The Market Economy Triumphed, Certain Libertarian Ideas Became Ordinary, And Certain Early-20th-century Ideas About Centralization Of Government And Economic Planning And Socialism With A Small "s" Had Obviously Gone Out The Window. The Cold War Was Over, Blah Blah Blah.

There Is A Fine Line In The Third World Between Half A Dozen Customs Officials Waiting For You To Offer Them A Bribe And Half A Dozen Customs Officials Waiting For You To Offer Them A Bribe So They Can Throw You In Jail.

If You Spend Seventy-two Hours In A Place You've Never Been, Talking To People Whose Language You Don't Speak About Social, Political, And Economic Complexities You Don't Understand, And You Come Back As The World's Biggest Know-it-all, You're A Reporter.

No One Has Ever Had A Fantasy About Being Tied To A Bed And Sexually Ravished By Someone Dressed As A Liberal

In General, Life Is Better Than It Has Ever Been, And If You Think That, In The Past, There Was Some Golden Age Of Pleasure And Plenty To Which You Would, If You Were Able, Transport Yourself, Let Me Say One Single Word : Dentistry.

Everything That's Fun In Life Is Dangerous. And Everything That Isn't Fun Is Dangerous Too. It's Impossible To Be Alive And Safe.

Then There Was Communism's Weak-tea Sister, Socialism. Socialists Maintained That We Shouldn't Take All The Money Away From All The People Since All The People Don't Have Money. We Should Take All The Money Away From Only The People Who Make Money. Then, When We Run Out Of That, We Could Take More Money From The People Who...hey, Wait! Where'd You People Go? What Do You Mean You're "tax Exiles In Monaco?"

Then Basically What Was Happening Was That It Was The Middle '80s, And Rolling Stone Realized That A Lot Of Their Readers Had Voted For [ronald] Reagan, And They Were Going, "gosh! We Need A Republican! Does Anybody Know A Republican? Wait A Minute! I Think P.j.'s A Republican!"

The Principal Feature Of American Liberalism Is Sanctimoniousness. By Loudly Denouncing All Bad Things — War And Hunger And Date Rape — Liberals Testify To Their Own Terrific Goodness. More Important, They Promote Themselves To Membership In A Self-selecting Elite Of Those Who Care Deeply About Such Things.... It's A Kind Of Natural Aristocracy, And The Wonderful Thing About This Aristocracy Is That You Don't Have To Be Brave, Smart, Strong Or Even Lucky To Join It, You Just Have To Be Liberal.

Like Rick In Casablanca: "we'll Always Have Paris." When What We'll Always Have Is, Like, Brooklyn And Arguments About [lev] Trotsky.

The Real Truth About Children Is They Don't Speak The Language Very Well. They're Physically Uncoordinated. And They Are Ignorant Of Our Elaborate Ideas About Right And Wrong.

I Like To Do My Principal Research In Bars, Where People Are More Likely To Tell The Truth Or, At Least, Lie Less Convincingly Than They Do In Briefings And Books.

Imagine If All Of Life Were Determined By Majority Rule. Every Meal Would Be A Pizza. Every Pair Of Pants, Even Those In A Brooks Brothers Suit, Would Be Stone-washed Denim. Celebrity Diet And Exercise Books Would Be The Only Thing On The Shelves At The Library. And - Since Women Are A Majority Of The Population - We'd All Be Married To Mel Gibson.

There Is That Kind Of Happiness. There Is The Love And Marriage And Family Kind Of Happiness, Which Is Exceedingly Boring To Describe But Nonetheless Is Important To Have And Dreadful Not To Have.

Love And Marriage

Even A Band Of Angels Can Turn Ugly And Start Looting If Enough Angels Are Unemployed And Hanging Around The Pearly Gates Convinced That All The Succubi Own All The Liquor Stores In Heaven.

The People I See On Bicycles Look Like Organic-gardening Zealots Who Advocate Federal Regulation Of Bedtime And Want American Foreign Policy To Be Dictated By Unicef. These People Should Be Confined.

Apparently Bolivia Is The Key Source Of Lithium In The World. So We're Gonna Trade The Saudis For The Bolivians.

Everything That's Fun In Life Is Dangerous. Horse Races, For Instance, Are Very Dangerous. But Attempt To Design A Safe Horse And The Result Is A Cow ... It Is Impossible To Be Alive And Safe.

If We're Free To Do What We Want, Why Does Government Always Have A Plan For Us?

When Politics Are Used To Allocate Resources, The Resources All End Up Being Allocated To Politics.

To Grasp The True Meaning Of Socialism, Imagine A World Where Everything Is Designed By The Post Office, Even The Sleaze.

Moscow Has Changed. I Was Here In 1982, During The Brezhnev Twilight, And Things Are Better Now. For Instance, They've Got Litter. In 1982 There Was Nothing To Litter With.

We're Told Cars Are Wasteful. Wasteful Of What? Oil Did A Lot Of Good Sitting In The Ground For Millions Of Years. We're Told Cars Should Be Replaced With Mass Transportation. But It's Hard To Reach The Drive-through Window At Mcdonald's From A Speeding Train. And We're Told Cars Cause Pollution. A Hundred Years Ago City Streets Were Ankle Deep In Horse Excrement. What Kind Of Pollution Do You Want? Would You Rather Die Of Cancer At Eighty Or Typhoid Fever At Nine?

Republicans Are The Party That Says Government Doesn't Work, And Then They Get Elected And Prove It.

Good Manners Consist Of Doing Precisely What Everyone Thinks Should Be Done, Especially When No One Knows Quite What That Is.

Hunter S. Thompson Brings A Lunatic Genius To Ordinary Events, And I Bring An Ordinary Sensibility To Lunatic Events.

I Figured If I Could Put Together Being Funny About Stuff And Actual Events, Maybe I Could Do Something That Wasn't Being Done Much. Because The Reporters That I Met Out There Were Funny, And They Had Hilarious Stories That Just Didn't Fit In The Ap/upi/new York Times Foreign-correspondent Style. They Couldn't Use The Things They Had. But I Could.

Never Strike Anyone So Old, Small Or Weak That Verbal Abuse Would Have Sufficed.

In The Wake Of Animal House, All Of Us At The Lampoon Had A Lot Of Hollywood Opportunities. We Could Definitely Get People To Return Phone Calls.

To Mistrust Science And Deny The Validity Of The Scientific Method Is To Resign Your Job As A Human. You'd Better Go Look For Work As A Plant Or Wild Animal.

[friedrich] Hayek Is Not Protesting That Things Like Child Labor And Stuff Are Good. He's Just Trying To Show That When Government Undertakes To Make Everything Good For Everybody, This Is What Happens. And He Addresses It To Socialists Of All Parties.

Hunter S. Thompson And I Are Old Friends, But What We Do Is So Different. There Are Surface Similarities That Really Have To Do With Us Being Frustrated Poets.

Jesse Jackson Was Spending Time With His Family, Or Families.

Although Computer-generated Artificial Intelligence Eludes Us, Artificial Stupidity Has Been Perfected.

Popular Culture Has Become Engorged, Broadening And Thickening Until It's The Only Culture Anyone Notices.

Popular Culture

Off They Go On This Sort Of Camping Trip To Iwo Jima, Where They're Taken Around And Shown Where All The Battles Took Place. It's Very Moving. Disgusting Little Island, Though. Still An Active Volcano. Stinks Of Sulfur. There Are Dead Japanese Everywhere Under That Island. It's Icky. But I Knew I Would Never Have Another Chance To Go, So I Took The Job.

Armenians And Azerbaijanis In Stepanakert, Capital Of The Nagorno-karabakh Autonomous Region, Rioted Over Much Needed Spelling Reform In The Soviet Union.

Well The Planet I've Got A Chance To Visit Is Earth, And Earth's Principal Features Are Chaos And War. I Think I'd Be A Fool To Spend Years Here And Never Have A Look.

Finally, One Night We Were Smoking Pot [with Michael O'donoghue] And Talking About The People That Are Invariably In High School, Whether You Go To Prep School Or Public School Or Ghetto School Or Rich Suburban School. And Actually, It Spun Off From A Kurt Vonnegut Quote.

Something That Comes To Us, Some Gym Shoe That Comes To Us As A Result Of Child Labor From A Brutal Dictatorship, Where People Do Not Have Basic Freedoms, It Wouldn't Bug Me To Tax The Living Dickens Out Of That Thing Or Even To Forbid Its Importation Whatsoever. But That's A Moral Question, Not An Economic Question.

Liberalism Is Just Communism Sold By The Drink.

Politics Are For Foreigners With Their Endless Wrongs And Paltry Rights. Politics Are A Lousy Way To Get Things Done. Politics Are, Like God's Infinite Mercy, A Last Resort.

Some Women Want The Strong Silent Type, So They Can Tell Him To Shut Up And Rearrange The Furniture.

Politicians Are Always Interested In People. Not That This Is Always A Virtue. Fleas Are Interested In Dogs.

Everybody Wants To Save The Earth; Nobody Wants To Help Mom Do The Dishes.

How Much Fame, Money And Power Does A Woman Have To Achieve On Her Own Before You Can Punch Her In The Face?

There's No Telling What Might Have Happened To Our Defense Budget If Saddam Hussein Hadn't Invaded Kuwait That August And Set Everyone Gearing Up For World War Ii. Can We Count On Saddam Hussein To Come Along Every Year And Resolve Our Defense-policy Debates? Given The History Of The Middle East, It's Possible.

A Politician Who Commends Himself As 'caring' And 'sensitive' Because He Wants To Expand The Government's Charitable Programs Is Merely Saying That He's Willing To Do Good With Other Peoples' Money.

The Russians Could Have Some (warheads) Aimed At Japan, So If We Act Up They Can Destroy Our Economy.

What Use Is It To Endure The Dutch Rubs And Indian Rope Burns That Are Politics If You Can't Obtain Mastery Over People And Give Them Noogies Back?

Guns Are Always The Best Method For A Private Suicide. They Are More Stylish Looking Than Single-edged Razor Blades And Natural Gas Has Got So Expensive. Drugs Are Too Chancy. You Might Miscalculate The Dosage And Just Have A Good Time.

Because Of Their Cuisine, Germans Don't Consider Farting Rude. They'd Certainly Be Out Of Luck If They Did.

Humans Have Trouble With Economics, As You May Have Noticed, And Not Just Because Economic Circumstances Sometimes Cause Them To Starve. Humans Seem To Have An Innate Inability To Pay Attention To Economic Principles.

I Don't Watch Much Television. Yeah, That's Pretty Funny. I Don't Know Where The Daily Show Stand Politically, Do You?

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Just As Some Things Are Too Strange For Fiction, Others Are Too True For Journalism.

The Founding Fathers, In Their Wisdom, Devised A Method By Which Our Republic Can Take One Hundred Of Its Most Prominent Numbskulls And Keep Them Out Of The Private Sector Where They Might Do Actual Harm.

Humor Is A Terrific Tool For Explaining Things, Especially When What You're Explaining Is Frightening Or Dull And Complicated.

Cars Would Be Safer On Rails!

The Day Was Warm And Clear. Kids Were Playing Soccer In The Parking Lots And Women Were Sunning Their Babies And Having Their Tea All Over The Lawns. The Scene Was Entirely Too Cheery For Journalism.

In Theory, Taxes Should Be Like Shopping. What I Buy Is Government Services. What I Pay Are My Taxes.

A Little Government And A Little Luck Are Necessary In Life, But Only A Fool Trusts Either Of Them.

We Have No One To Blame For The Kennedys But Ourselves. We Took The Kennedys To Heart Of Our Own Accord. And It Is My Opinion That We Did It Not Because We Respected Them Or Thought What They Proposed Was Good, But Because They Were Pretty. We, The Electorate, Were Smitten By This Handsome, Vivacious Family. . . . We Wanted To Hug Their Golden Tousled Heads To Our Dumpy Breasts.

You Know, If Government Were A Product, Selling It Would Be Illegal. Government Is A Health Hazard. Governments Have Killed Many More People Than Cigarettes Or Unbuckled Seat Belts Ever Have.

It Is Very Hard Now To Shock People Into Thinking About Government Regulation And The Extent Of Government Involvement In Life.

When A Thing Defies Physical Law, There's Usually Politics Involved.

[al] Franken Is Left-wing And Funny. He's A Pretty Good Political Humorist.

Most Of The People Who Have Grabbed Hold Of Climate Change And Greenhouse Gases, Pollution, Oil Dependency - They Have Another Motive, And Their Motive Is To Attain The Appearance Of Virtue Without Having Actually Done Anything Virtuous.

Farm Policy, Although It's Complex, Can Be Explained. What It Can't Be Is Believed. No Cheating Spouse, No Teen With A Wrecked Family Car, No Mayor Of Washington, D.c., Videotaped In Flagrante Delicto Has Ever Come Up With Anything As Farfetched As U.s. Farm Policy.

If You Are Young And You Drink A Great Deal It Will Spoil Your Health, Slow Your Mind, Make You Fat - In Other Words, Turn You Into An Adult.

The Tenth Commandment Sends A Message To Socialists, To Egalitarians, To People Obsessed With Fairness, To American Presidential Candidates In The Year 2000 - To Everyone Who Believes That Wealth Should Be Redistributed. And That Message Is Clear And Concise: Go To Hell.

There's No Such Thing As A Trade Deficit.

The Soviet Constitution Guarantees Everyone A Job. A Pretty Scary Idea, I'd Say.

Fiscal Conservatism Is Just An Easy Way To Express Something That Is A Bit More Difficult, Which Is That The Size And Scope Of Government, And Really The Size And Scope Of Politics In Our Lives, Has Grown Uncomfortable, Unwieldy, Intrusive And Inefficient.

There's A Whiff Of The Lynch Mob Or The Lemming Migration About Any Overlarge Concentration Of Like-thinking Individuals, No Matter How Virtuous Their Cause.

Many Reporters, When They Go To Work In The Nation's Capital, Begin Thinking Of Themselves As Participants In The Political Process Instead Of Glorified Stenographers.

The Great Thing About Starting Golf In Your Forties Is That You Can Start Golf In Your Forties. You Can Start Other Things In Your Forties But Generally Your Wife Makes You Stop Them, As Bill Clinton Found Out.

Gay Marriage Acceptance Is Happening In The Blink Of An Eye.

If We Do Our Deficit Spending On Weapons, At Least We Get Weapons. Then If We Need Weapons, We Have Them. If We Don't Need Them, No Harm Is Done.

One Of The Enduring Problems With Certain Societies In The World - And This Is Certainly True Of A Lot Of Places In The Middle East - Is That The Capacity For Self-governance And Self-organizing Just Isn't There. It Has To Do With History.

Ideology, Politics And Journalism, Which Luxuriate In Failure, Are Impotent In The Face Of Hope And Joy.

[wave Of Bestselling Conservative Commentators] It's Kind Of Like Reading The Power Of Positive Thinking, Or Any Other Advice Or How-to Book. All They Do Is Reassure People Of Their Basic Opinions, And Then They Can Continue To Act Like They've Always Acted. I'd Say It's Time To Move On To Something Else, But I Don't Know What It Would Be.

God Has No Role To Play In Politics Except To Make Sure Politicians Go Where They Belong. To Hell.

Asia Is The Continent Rhythm Forgot. At Best Asian Music Is Off-brand American Pop, Like Sonny Bono In A Karaoke Bar. At Worst Asian Music Sounds As If A Truck Full Of Wind Chimes Collided With A Stack Of Empty Oil Drums During A Birdcall Contest.

We Are A Nation That Worships Speed And Power. And For Good Reason. Without Power We Would Still Be Part Of England And Everybody Would Be Out Of Work... Bicycles Are Too Slow And Impuissant For A Nation Like Ours. They Belong In Czechoslovakia.

The Preamble To The Constitution States: "we, The People Of The United States, In Order To Form A More Perfect Union, Establish Justice, Insure Domestic Tranquillity, Provide For The Common Defence, Promote The General Welfare..." It Doesn't Say "guarantee The General Welfare." And It Certainly Doesn't Say "give Welfare Benefits To All The People In The Country Who Aren't Doing So Well Even If The Reason They Aren't Doing So Well Is Because They're Sitting On Their Butts In Front Of The Tv".

Government Usually Doesn't Work. It Doesn't Work Because It Is Political. People Who Are Wise, Good, Smart, Skillful, Or Hardworking Don't Need Politics, They Have Jobs. The Difference Between The Political Process And An Honest Life Is The Difference Between Parading Around Waving Picket Signs While Hollering Catcalls In Front Of The White House And Getting Up In The Morning To Go Make A Living.

France In August When You Can Travel Through The Entire Country Without Encountering A Single Pesky Frenchman Or Being Bothered With Anything That's Open For Business.

Germans Respond Well To Lies. At Least, They Always Have Historically.

In Comparative Terms, There's No Poverty In America By A Long Shot. Heritage Foundation Political Scientist Robert Rector Has Worked Up Figures Showing That When The Official U.s. Measure Of Poverty Was Developed In 1963, A Poor American Family Had An Income Twenty-nine Times Greater Than The Average Per Capita Income In The Rest Of The World. An Individual American Could Make More Money Than 93 Percent Of The Other People On The Planet And Still Be Considered Poor.

Fashionably Amusing Table Manners Are A Matter Of Breaking The Right Rule At The Right Time.

The Democrats Said, "we Don't Know What's Wrong With America, But We Can Fix It." The Republicans Said, "there's Nothing Wrong With America, And We Can Fix That."

I Like Making Things. I Have A Wood Shop At Home. I Am A Terrible Carpenter But I Love Doing It.

If I Do, I Say So. That's The Only Way Out Of That. If There Are Three Words That Need To Be Used More In American Journalism, Commentary, Politics, Personal Life... It's The Magic Words "i Don't Know." I Mean, There Are Certain Basic Principles, Like The Dignity Of The Individual And The Individual's Responsibility, And Certain Basic Economic Principles, Like How When Something Costs Less, More Of It Will Be Consumed... There Are Certain Things That I Feel Pretty Confident About.

I Was Managing Editor For A While [in National Lampoon ], And It Does Cause Business Problems When Your Circulation Goes Up.

The American Political System Is Like Fast Food - Mushy, Insipid, Made Out Of Disgusting Parts Of Things And Everybody Wants Some.

Watching Republicans In Washington Is Like Watching Lemmings, If Lemmings Jumped Into Cesspools Instead Of Off Cliffs. Splash! There Goes Mark Foley!

One Nice Thing About The Third World, You Don't Have To Fasten Your Seat Belt. (or Stop Smoking. Or Cut Down On Saturated Fats.) It Takes A Lot Off Your Mind When Average Life Expectancy Is Forty-five Minutes.

I Can Understand Why Mankind Hasn't Given Up War. During A War You Get To Drive Tanks Through The Sides Of Buildings And Shoot Foreigners - Two Things That Are Usually Frowned On During Peacetime.

Abstract Anger Is Great For Rhetorical Carrying On. You Can Go On Endlessly About The Post Office, But It Doesn't Mean You're Mad At Your Mailman.

And Worrying Is Less Work Than Doing Something To Fix The Worry. This Is Especially True If We're Careful To Pick The Biggest Possible Problems To Worry About. Everybody Wants To Save The Earth; Nobody Want To Help Mom Do The Dishes.

A Woman Should Dress To Attract Attention. To Attract The Most Attention, A Woman Should Be Either Nude, Or Wearing Something As Expensive As Getting Her Nude Is Going To Be.

Wherever There's Injustice, Oppression, And Suffering, America Will Show Up Six Months Late And Bomb The Country Next To Where It's Happening.

You Can't Get Something For Nothing. Everybody Remembers This Except Politicians.

Authority Has Always Attracted The Lowest Elements In The Human Race

The Problem Isn't A Congress That Won't Cut Spending Or A President Who Won't Raise Taxes. The Problem Is An American Public With A Bottomless Sense Of Entitlement To Federal Money.

How A Peaceful, Uncrowded Place With Ample Wherewithal Stays Poor Is Hard To Explain. How A Conflict-ridden, Grossly Over-populated Place With No Resources Whatsoever Gets Rich Is Simple. The British Colonial Government Turned Hong Kong Into An Economic Miracle By Doing Nothing.

West Germans Are Tall, Pink, Pert And Orthodontically Corrected, With Hands, Teeth And Hair As Clean As Their Clothes And Clothes As Sharp As Their Looks. Except For The Fact That They All Speak English Pretty Well, They're Indistinguishable From Americans.

I Think It's Been Hard For People To Understand How Islam Can Be A Good Religion, And Yet The Islamists Are Evil. Those Of Us Who Have Had Experience With Islam Understand This, Just As We Understand The Difference Between Snake Handlers And People Going To Church On Sunday Morning.

The Real Alternative To Power Of The Rich Is Not Power Of The Poor. It's Just Plain Power.

Because Of Their Size, Parents May Be Difficult To Discipline Properly.

Stay Away From Girls Who Cry A Lot Or Who Look Like They Get Pregnant Easily Or Have Careers.

Government Subsidies Can Be Critically Analyzed According To A Simple Principle: You Are Smarter Than The Government, So When The Government Pays You To Do Something You Wouldn't Do On Your Own, It Is Almost Always Paying You To Do Something Stupid.

Any Person Who Has Spent Time Outdoors Actually Doing Something, Such As Hunting And Fishing As Opposed To Standing There With A Doobie In His Mouth, Knows Nature Is Not Intrinsically Healthy.

Anyway, No Drug, Not Even Alcohol, Causes The Fundamental Ills Of Society. If We're Looking For The Source Of Our Troubles, We Shouldn't Test People For Drugs, We Should Test Them For Stupidity, Ignorance, Greed And Love Of Power.

The America's Cup Is Like Driving Your Lamborgini To The Gran Prix Track To Watch The Charter Buses Race.

This Country Is So Urbanized We Think Low-fat Milk Comes From Cows On Nutri/system Weight-loss Plans.

It Is A Law Of Governance That Democracies Have To Spend Themselves Dizzy. Citizens Of Democracies Can, After All, Tell Their Government To Give Them Things.

Democracies Have

Remember That All Tax Revenue Is The Result Of Holding A Gun To Somebody's Head. Not Paying Taxes Is Against The Law. If You Don't Pay Your Taxes, You'll Be Fined. If You Don't Pay The Fine, You'll Be Jailed. If You Try To Escape From Jail, You'll Be Shot. ... Therefore, Every Time The Government Spends Money On Anything, You Have To Ask Yourself, 'would I Kill My Kindly, Gray-haired Mother For This?'

There Was An Austerely Dignified Award Ceremony. By That I Mean We Had To Buy Our Own Drinks - In Clear Violation Of The International Journalists'code Of Truth, Fairness And An Open Bar.

Smoking Crack Is A Way For People Who Couldn't Afford College To Study The Works Of Charles Darwin.

Every Generation Finds The Drug It Needs.

People Shouldn't Be Treated Like Objects. They Aren't That Valuable.

Intelligence Collection Has Been Given An Additional Bureaucracy To Correct The Problems Created By Too Much Bureaucracy In Intelligence Collection.

People Have A Right To My Food, A Right To My Housing, And A Right To My Good Job For My Decent Pay.

Lampoon Was Exactly The Opposite. The Work Was A Lot Of Fun, But The Office Environment Was Hell. You Cannot Put 20 Humorists Together.

The Proper Behavior All Through The Holiday Season Is To Be Drunk. This Drunkenness Culminates On New Year's Eve, When You Get So Drunk You Kiss The Person You're Married To.

Mankind Is Supposed To Have Evolved In The Treetops. But I Have Examined My Sense Of Balance, The Prehensility Of My Various Appendages, And My Attitude Toward Standing On Anything Higher Than, Say, Political Principles, And I Have Concluded That, Personally, I Evolved In The Backseat Of A Car.

There Aren't Many Political Humorists. Dave Barry Is Excellent, But He Doesn't Do It Much.

I Like Michael Moore, But I Think Of Him More As A Rabble-rouser.

There Was Also A Hunger Strike In Front Of The National Press Club, Which Seemed An Odd Place To Have A Hunger Strike (a Cocktail Fast, Maybe). Although The Bangladeshis Were Savvy Enough To Know To Know That If You're Going To Pester Journalists, Don't Go To Where They Work: You'll Never Find Them There.

Oh, God. The Sixties Are Coming Back. Well I've Got A 12-gauge Double-barreled Duck Gun Chambered For Three-inch Magnum Shells. And - Speaking Strictly For This Retired Hippie And Former Pinko Beatnik - If The Sixties Head My Way, They Won't Get Past The Porch Steps. They Will Be History. Which, For Chrissakes, Is What They're Supposed To Be.

[ I'm] Humorist, I Guess. Or Really More Of A Reporter. A Reporter Who Reports On Funny Things.

The Dominant Type Of Humor In The '60s Was Essentially Defensive And Self-deprecating, Using Humor As A Shield.

Satire Doesn't Effect Change.

There's Not A Woman In The Book, The Plot Hinges On Unkindness To Animals, And The Black Characters Mostly Drown By Chapter 29.

It's Much Better To Have Your Arguments Dismissed Because You Might Be Joking Than To Have Your Arguments Dismissed Because You're Not Telling The Truth.

Telling The Truth

Each American Embassy Comes With Two Permanent Features - A Giant Anti-american Demonstration And A Giant Line For American Visas. Most Demonstrators Spend Half Their Time Burning Old Glory And The Other Half Waiting For Green Cards.

There's A Certain Kind Of Behavior In The Arab World That, To Me, Resembles The Way Young Men Behave When There Is No Significant Influence From Women In Their Lives.

Never Steal Anything So Small That You'll Have To Go To An Unpleasant City Jail For It Instead Of A Minimum-security Federal Tennis Prison.

Ever Read Any [friedrich] Hayek? He's Great. The Road To Serfdom Is Like... I'm Not A Big Political-science Reader, But I Actually Dog-eared My Copy. I Ended Up Going Back Through It And Writing A Précis, I Was So Impressed By This Book. It's All About What Happens When Government Tries To Make Everything Right.

I'll Be 56 This Year, I've Got Two Kids, And I Think It's Probably Time To Go Back To Writing One-glove Jokes.

The Morning Meal Was Served In Traditional Socialist Fashion - Very Slowly, With The Courses Out Of Order So That The Jelly Arrived Half An Hour After The Toast And The Coffee Didn't Come Until We'd Called For The Check. However, It Was Hard To Be Angry At A Place That Had Ice Cream, Beer, And Cigarettes On Its Breakfast Menu.

You Know, If Government Were A Product, Selling It Would Be Illegal. ... Government Contains Impure Ingredients - As Anybody Who's Looked At Congress Can Tell You. ... Government Practices Deceptive Advertising. And The Merest Glance At The Federal Budget Is Enough To Convict The Government Of Perjury, Extortion, And Fraud. ... In A Nutshell: Government Should Be Against The Law. Term Limits Aren't Enough. We Need Jail.

The Political Process Consists Entirely Of Politicians Talking Out Of Their Butts.

Nothing Bad Is Going To Happen To Us. If We Get Fired, It's Not Failure; Its A Midlife Vocational Reassessment.

On Michael Moore Tv Show, When He Went To The Home Of The Guy Who Invented The Car Alarm And Set Off All The Car Alarms On The Block... Pretty Funny.

The Average Iq In America Is—and This Can Be Proven Mathematically—average.

A Dugout Is Much Superior To A Conventional Manufactured Canoe Because You Can Get Soaking Wet Without Bothering To Capsize It.

Sometimes You Need A B-2 Bomber And Sometimes You Need Your Mother.

Sloths Move At The Speed Of Congressional Debate But With Greater Deliberation And Less Noise.

Adam Smith Pointed Out That There Were Three Things That Make Us More Prosperous, In A General Sort Of Way: Freedom To Pursue Our Own Self-interest; Specialization, Which He Called Division Of Labor; And Freedom Of Trade.

Division Of Labor

Women Are Successful In The Business World Because The Business World Was Created By Men. Men Are Babies. And Women Aregood With Kids.

The Motorcycle Is A Device Created By The Team Of God And Darwin To Rid The World Of Useless Young Males.

Fishing... Is A Sport Invented By Insects And You Are The Bait.

If The Dollar Weakens, Then Presumably All The Things That We Make In The United States - Buicks, For Instance - Can Be Sold Cheap All Over The World, And Everyone Will Be Buying Our Goods, And We'll Get All Sorts Of Yen-denominated, Or Yuan-denominated, Or Euro-denominated Securities, And Then Everybody Else Will Be Worried.

Each Child Is Biologically Required To Have A Mother. Fatherhood Is A Well-regarded Theory, But Motherhood Is A Fact.

The Typical Old-fashioned Diet (in The Nineteenth Century) Was So Bad It Almost Assembled Modern Dieting.

Our Democracy, Our Culture, Our Whole Way Of Life Is A Spectacular Triumph Of The Blah. Why Not Have A Political Convention Without Politics To Nominate A Leader Who's Out In Front Of Nobody? Maybe Our National Mindlessness Is The Very Thing That Keeps Us From Turning Into One Of Those Smelly European Countries Full Of Pseudo-reds And Crypto-fascists And Greens Who Dress Like Forest Elves.

There Is A Remarkable Breakdown Of Taste And Intelligence At Christmastime. Mature, Responsible Grown Men Wear Neckties Made Of Holly Leaves And Drink Alcoholic Beverages With Raw Egg Yolks And Cottage Cheese In Them.

I Live In New Hampshire. We're In Favor Of Global Warming. Eleven Hundred More Feet Of Sea-level Rises? I've Got Beachfront Property. You Tell Us Up There, "by The End Of The Century, New York City Could Be Underwater," And We Say, "your Point Is?"

I Don't Think I'll Ever Be A Real Boat Reporter. My Rolex Isn't Big Enough.

The Purpose Of A Funeral Service Is To Comfort The Living. It Is Important At A Funeral To Display Excessive Grief. This Will Show Others How Kind-hearted And Loving You Are And Their Improved Opinion Of You Will Be Very Comforting.

There Are No Kinder Or Better People In The World Than Those Who Listen To You When You Are 18.

Staying Married May Have Long-term Benefits. You Can Elicit Much More Sympathy From Friends Over A Bad Marriage Than You Ever Can From A Good Divorce.

Rich Parents Are Famous Both For Miserliness And Astonishing Longevity. And, When They Finally Do Die, You'll Find They've Left Their Estate In Inviolate Trust To The Golden Retrievers.

Golden Retrievers

Microeconomics Is About Money You Don't Have, And Macroeconomics Is About Money The Government Is Out Of.

Mike Had Called Me And Said He Could Offer Me Less, And I Said, "you're On!" Because I Was Really Excited With What Mike Kelly Was Doing, And Now What Cullen Murphy Is Doing With Atlantic. It's A Really Cool Magazine.

It Doesn't Matter How Many Televisions And Computers And Pieces Of Stereo Equipment The Chinese Send To Us, Even If They're Sending Them To Us Only In Return For Some Funny, Little, Green Pieces Of Paper. That Is A Balanced Trade. They Got What They Wanted: The Green Pieces Of Paper. We Got What We Wanted: The Plush Toys, The Computers, The Stereo Components.

One Of These Suburbs Is Actually Named Stalingrad, Which Goes To Show That The French Have Learned Nothing About Politics Since They Guillotined All The Smart People In 1793.

I Suspect The Soviets Never Did Want To Use Those Bombs. The Most Stalinist Of Soviet Hard-liners - Stalin, For Example - Must Have Realized A Nuclear War Would Be A Hard Thing To Clean Up After.

Fish Is The Only Food That Is Considered Spoiled Once It Smells Like What It Is.

I'm A Rather Decisive Type.

Finland Is A Rich Country. What Have They Got? They Got Nokia Phones And Plywood. How'd They Get So Rich? Because They're Free.

The Only Really Firm Rule Of Taste About Cross Dressing Is That Neither Sex Should Ever Wear Anything They Haven't Yet Figured Out How To Go To The Bathroom In.

Men Generally Pay For All Expenses On A Date ... Either Sex, However, May Bring A Little Gift, Its Value To Be Determined By The Bizarrness Of The Sexual Request To Be Made Later That Evening.

I've Always Figured That If God Wanted Us To Go To Church A Lot He'd Have Given Us Bigger Behinds To Sit On And Smaller Heads To Think With.

Don't Send Funny Greeting Cards On Birthdays Or At Christmas. Save Them For Funerals When Their Cheery Effect Is Needed.

I Buy A Tractor Two Years Ago, And Four-fifths Of The Tractor Manual Is About Not Tipping Over, Not Raising The Bucket High Enough To Hit High-tension Wire... Not Killing Yourself, Basically. And In That Manual, I Found Out - And It Cost Me A Thousand Dollars - That When The Tractor Is New, 10 Hours Into Use Of The Tractor, You Have To Re-torque The Lug Nuts. If You Don't, You Will Oval The Holes. This Is Buried Between The Moron Warnings. I Never Found It. I Take The Tractor In For Its Regular Servicing, And They Say My Wheels Are Gone. How Am I Supposed To Know That? "it's In The Manual."

It Was To Be A Short Visit For The G-shevs. More Than Four Days In The U.s. And Raisa's Visa Card Bill Would Shatter The Fragile Soviet Economy.

You Can't Get Rid Of Poverty By Giving People Money.

Bachelors Know All About Parties. In Fact, A Good Bachelor Is A Living, Breathing Party All By Himself. At Least That Is What My Girlfriend Said When She Found The Gin Bottles Under The Couch. I Believe Her Exact Words Were, "you're A Disgusting, Drunken Mess." And That's A Good Description Of A Party, If It's Done Right.

I Like To Take Things That Are Boring-but-important And Try To Make Them Interesting. That Was Definitely What I Was After With Eat The Rich.

Everybody In 15th Century Spain Was Wrong About Where China Was And As A Result, Columbus Discovered Caribbean Vacations.

Children From The Age Of Five To Ten Should Watch More Television. Television Depicts Adults As Rotten Sob's Given To Fistfights, Gunplay, And Other Mayhem. Kids Who Believe This About Grownups Aren't Likely To Argue About Bedtime.

Politics Is The Business Of Getting Power And Privilege Without Possessing Merit. A Politician Is Anyone Who Asks Individuals To Surrender Part Of Their Liberty - Their Power And Privilege - To State, Masses, Mankind, Planet Earth, Or Whatever. This State, Those Masses, That Mankind, And The Planet Will Then Be Run By ... Politicians.

In The End We Beat Them With Levi's 501 Jeans. Seventy-two Years Of Communist Indoctrination And Propaganda Was Drowned Out By A Three-ounce Sony Walkman. A Huge Totalitarian System...has Been Brought To Its Knees Because Nobody Wants To Wear Bulgarian Shoes. Now They're Lunch, And We're Number One On The Planet.

Drugs Have Taught An Entire Generation Of Kids The Metric System

The Larger The German Body, The Smaller The German Bathing Suit And The Louder The German Voice Issuing German Demands And German Orders To Everybody Who Doesn't Speak German. For This, And Several Other Reasons, Germany Is Known As 'the Land Where Israelis Learned Their Manners'.

People Think The Free Market Is A Philosophy, They Think That It Is A Creed. It Is None Of Those Things. Free Market Is A Bathroom Scale, It Is A Measuring Tape, It's Simply A Measurement.

The Republican Convention, An Event With The Intellectual Content Of A Guns'n'roses Lyric Attended By Every Ofay Insurance Brokerin America Who Owns A Pair Of White Shoes.

Gambling Is So Pervasive In Nevada That Maybe The State Should Just Go The Whole Hog. There'd Be Gum Machines That Dispensed Chewing Tobacco If You Lost. You Could Gamble For The Toilet Paper In Public Bathroom Stalls. And Fill Out Keno Cards In An Attempt To Win Cancer Therapy At The Hospital.

You Can Keep The Dining Room Clean By Eating In The Kitchen.

Last Year, On A Long Car Trip, I Was Listening To Rush Limbaugh Shout. I Usually Agree With Rush Limbaugh; Therefore I Usually Don't Listen To Him. I Listen To Npr: "world To End-poor And Minorities Hardest Hit." I Like To Argue With The Radio.

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