Americans Like Fat Books And Thin Women.

Journalism Talk Is Part Of The Nonstop Background Noise Of American Life.

The Dirty Work At Political Conventions Is Almost Always Done In The Grim Hours Between Midnight And Dawn. Hangmen And Politicians Work Best When The Human Spirit Is At Its Lowest Ebb.

Urban People, Of Course, Are Terribly Scared Nowadays. They May Yearn For Society, But It Is Risky To Go Around Talking To Strangers, For A Lot Of Reasons, One Being That People Are So Accustomed Not To Have Many Human Contacts That They Are Afraid They May Find Out They Really Prefer Life That Way.

We Honor Ambition, We Reward Greed, We Celebrate Materialism, We Worship Acquisitiveness, We Commercialize Art, We Cherish Success And Then We Bark At The Young About The Gentle Arts Of The Spirit. The Kids Know That If We Really Valued Learning, We Would Pay Our Teachers What We Pay Our Lawyers And Stockbrokers. If We Valued Art, We Would Not Measure It By Its Capacity To Produce Profits. If We Regarded Literature As Important, We Would Remove It From The Celebrity Sweepstakes And Spend A Little Money On Our Libraries.

Is Fuel Efficiency Really What We Need Most Desperately? I Say That What We Really Need Is A Car That Can Be Shot When It Breaks Down.