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Thus The White Men And Native Americans Were Able, Through The Spirit Of Goodwill And Compromise, To Reach The First In What Would Become A Long Series Of Mutually Beneficial, Breached Agreements That Enabled The Two Cultures To Coexist Peacefully For Stretches Of Twenty And Sometimes Even Thirty Days, After Which It Was Usually Necessary To Negotiate New Agreements That Would Be Even More Mutual And Beneficial, Until Eventually The Native Americans Were Able To Perceive The Vast Mutual Benefits Of Living In Rock-strewn Sectors Of South Dakota.

-Dave Barry

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Thus The White Men

Dave Barry

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Thus The White Men And Native Americans Were Able, Through The Spirit Of Goodwill And Compromise, To Reach The First In What Would Become A Long Series Of Mutually Beneficial, Breached Agreements That Enabled The Two Cultures To Coexist Peacefully For Stretches Of Twenty And Sometimes Even Thirty Days, After Which It Was Usually Necessary To Negotiate New Agreements That Would Be Even More Mutual And Beneficial, Until Eventually The Native Americans Were Able To Perceive The Vast Mutual Benefits Of Living In Rock-strewn Sectors Of South Dakota.

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Beneath Their Surface Differences, There Are A Lot Of Deep, Underlying Differences.

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

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."

The Democrats Believe That If God Did Not Want Them To Raise Taxes, He Would Not Have Created The Internal Revenue Service.

My Therapist Told Me The Way To Achieve True Inner Peace Is To Finish What I Start. So Far Today, I Have Finished 2 Bags Of M&m's And A Chocolate Cake. I Feel Better Already.

Eventually Everyone Has To Die, Except Elvis.

Of Course, The Truth Is That The Congresspersons Are Too Busy Raising Campaign Money To Read The Laws They Pass. The Laws Are Written By Staff Tax Nerds Who Can Put Pretty Much Any Wording They Want In There. I Bet That If You Actually Read The Entire Vastness Of The Us Tax Code, You'd Find At Least One Sex Scene. ("yes, Yes, Yes!" Moaned Vanessa As Lance, His Taut Body Moist With Moisture, Again And Again Depreciated Her Adjusted Gross Rate Of Annualized Fiscal Debenture...)

To An Adolescent, There Is Nothing In The World More Embarrassing Than A Parent.

I Really Need To Know Where I'm Going With Fiction To Write It In A Way That At Least I'm Happy With. And I Really Think That A Lot Of Fiction Books End Badly Because Terrific Writers Said, "i'll Just Figure It Out" And Plunge In, But Have Created So Many Problems That They Are Kind Of Impossible To Solve. I Mean, I'm Talking Really Good Writers Do This And You Can Tell When They Got To The End They Either Had To Do Something Preposterous Or They Just Don't Really Resolve Things. So For Fiction I Spend A Lot More Time Outlining And For Humor I Really Don't Do Much Of It.

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.

You've Read Newspaper Stories About Elderly Widows Who Die And Leave Their Entire Estates To Their Pet Cats, Right? Well, Your Cat Reads Those Stories Too, And Has Spent Most Of Its Skulking, Devious Little Life Dreaming About Inheriting All Your Money.

Snowboarding Is An Activity That Is Very Popular With People Who Do Not Feel That Regular Skiing Is Lethal Enough.

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.

You Can Be The Smartest Person In The World - Which Bill Clinton Is, And If He's Not, His Wife Is - And Care More Than Anybody Else In The World - Which He Does, I Don't Doubt That For A Minute. And You Can Care So Much That You're Willing To Be Dishonest - You Can Tell People One Thing But Do Another Because You Really Know It's For Their Own Good. And You'll Still Screw It All Up. Because The Whole Premise Of What You're Doing Is Wrong!

Never Assume That The Guy Understands That You And He Have A Relationship.

If The Security Personnel Do Their Job Properly, They Just Might Cause You To Miss Your Plane, Thereby Possibly Saving Your Life.

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.

Most Recently I Read Michael Lewis "boomerang." The Other Guy I Love Is Bill Bryson.

First, A Few Words About This Title. It Isn't Easy, Coming Up With Book Titles. A Lot Of The Really Good Ones Are Taken. Thin Thighs In 30 Days, For Example. Also The Bible.

We Don't Shoot Somebody Soon, I'm Gonna Forget How

The Problem Was That Panama Technically Belonged To Colombia, Which Refused To Sign A Treaty Leasing It To The United States. So Roosevelt Sent A Gunboat Filled With Marines Down To Panama, Just On The Off Chance That A Revolution Might Suddenly Break Out, And Darned If One Didn't, Two Days Later. Not Only That, But The Leaders Of The New Nation Of Panama-talk About Lucky Breaks!-were Absolutely Thrilled To Have The United States Build A Canal There. 'really, It's Our Pleasure,' They Told The Marines, Adding, 'don't Shoot.'

The Question Is, Why Are Politicians So Eager To Be President? What Is It About The Job That Makes It Worth Revealing, On National Television, That You Have The Ethical Standards Of A Slime-coated Piece Of Industrial Waste?

Ethical Standards

In Fact, Just About All The Major Natural Attractions You Find In The West- The Grand Canyon, The Badlands, The Goodlands, The Mediocrelands, The Rocky Mountains And Robert Redford- Were Caused By Erosion.

Congress, After Years Of Stalling, Finally Got Around To Clearing The Way For Informal Discussions That Might Lead To Possible Formal Talks That Could Potentially Produce Some Kind Of Tenative Agreements.

The Books All Say That Barracuda Rarely Eat People, But Very Few Barracuda Can Read.

American Consumers Have No Problem With Carcinogens, But They Will Not Purchase Any Product, Including Floor Wax, That Has Fat In It.

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.

Now, Once Again, We Find Ourselves Facing Rising Gas Prices, And The Question Is: This Time, Are We Going To Learn From The Past? Are We Finally Going To Get Serious About Energy Conservation? Of Course Not! We Have The Brains Of Mealworms! So We Need To Get More Oil Somehow. As Far As I Can Figure, There's Only One Practical Way To Do This. That's Right: We Need To Clone More Dinosaurs. We Have The Technology, As Was Shown In Two Blockbuster Scientific Movies, Jurassic Park And Jurassic Park Returns With Exactly The Same Plot. Once We Have The Dinosaurs, All We Need Is An Asteroid.

Is There A Medical Rule That Requires Doctors-office Personnel To Treat You As Though You Have The Iq Of A Cheeto?

Trails Need To Be Reconstructed. Please Avoid Building Trails That Go Uphill.

For The Benefit Of Those Of You Who Have Real Jobs And Are Not Involved In The News Business, I Should First Explain That . . .

A Secret Society Within A Secret Society.

Proofread Carefully To See If You Any Words Out.

Harry Is Heavily Into Camping, And Every Year In The Late Fall, He Makes Us All Go To Assateague, Which Is An Island On The Atlantic Ocean Famous For Its Wild Horses. I Realize That The Concept Of Wild Horses Probably Stirs Romantic Notions In Many Of You, But This Is Because You Have Never Met Any Wild Horses In Person. In Person, They Are Like Enormous Hooved Rats. They Amble Up To Your Camp Site, And Their Attitude Is: 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.

At Least Once Per Year, Some Group Of Scientists Will Become Very Excited And Announce That: •the Universe Is Even Bigger Than They Thought! •there Are Even More Subatomic Particles Than They Thought! •whatever They Announced Last Year About Global Warming Is Wrong.

Every Year I Write A Tax Advice Column And I Used To Always Make Fun Of That. One Year, One Of My Favorite Irs Commissioners, I Think His Name Was Roscoe Somebody, Wrote That One Of The Most Often-asked Questions By Taxpayers Was, "how Can I Contribute More?" Well, I Tell Ya, Ol' Roscoe's Really Been Doing Situps Under Parked Cars Again. I've Heard A Lot Of People Ask A Lot Of Questions About Taxes, But I Never Heard Anybody Say, "how Can I, The Ordinary Person, Send More Money For No Reason?"

When I Say "dogs", I'm Talking About Dogs, Which Are Large, Bounding, Salivating Animals, Usually With Bad Breath. I Am Not Talking About Those Little Squeaky Things You Can Hold On Your Lap And Carry Around. Zoologically Speaking, These Are Not Dogs At All; They Are Members Of The Pillow Family.

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.

Sat Tests Are Designed By Huge Panels Of Experts In Education And Psychology Who Work For Years To Design Tests In Which Not One Single Question Measures Any Bit Of Knowledge That Anyone Might Actually Need In The Real World. We Should Applaud Kids For Getting Lower Scores.

I Bought Windows 2.0, Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1415926, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows Rsvp, The Best Of Windows, Windows Strikes Back, Windows Does Dallas, And Windows Let's All Buy Bill Gates A House The Size Of Vermont.

Do Not Spit Gum In The Drinking Fountains.

To Enter Europe, You Must Have A Valid Passport With A Photograph Of Yourself In Which You Look Like You Are Being Booked On Charges Of Soliciting Sheep.

I Haven't Been Able To Slam-dunk The Basketball For The Past Five Years. Or, For The Thirty-eight Years Before That, Either.

How Can You Be Afraid Of Women?” “those Ain’t Normal Women.

Always Remember That If Editors Were So Damned Smart, They Would Know How To Dress.

Professional Marriage Counselors Agree That The Most Productive And Mature Way To Deal With Marital Anger Is To Stomp Dramatically From The Room. You Want To Make Your Move Before The Opponent Does, Because The First Person To Stomp From The Room Receives Valuable Argument Points That Can Be Redeemed For Exciting Merchandise At The Marital Prize Redemption Center.

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

Why Do We Shave? It Doesn't Seem Like A Natural Activity. There Are No Examples Of Shaving In Nature. The Only Creature That Comes Close Is The Male South Pacific Groping Beetle, Which Sometimes, Just Before Mating, Will Slap On A Little Aqua Velva. But We Think This Resulted From Atomic Testing.

You Should Never Say Anything To A Woman That Even Remotely Suggests That You Think She's Pregnant Unless You Can See An Actual Baby Emerging From Her At That Moment.

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.

The Word Aerobics Comes From Two Greek Words: Aero, Meaning “ability To,” And Bics, Meaning “withstand Tremendous Boredom.

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