"Mr. Gore, who has so far failed to attract the great droves of female voters a Democrat needs to get elected president, is going for lots and lots and lots of women on the podium. And more power to him. As the candidate himself pointed out the other day, he was raised to believe 'that men and women are equal, if not more so.'"
Allegations by WorldNetDaily.com that pornography was being downloaded at the White House:
"I can say, yes, West Wing'' people were involved, said WorldNetDaily's Deep Throat source. ``There was gay and bestiality stuff, too -- donkeys, goats and dogs,'' he added.
"I can think of several possible defenses the White House might have offered against these new charges. The press officers could have lied and claimed they were pure fabrication. Or they might have pretended that such questions are beneath the dignity of the White House -- though this strategy is less plausible than it used to be. They might even have argued that there was nothing wrong with pornography -- hey, a little bestiality never hurt anyone. At the very least, they could have pointed to the long history of fondness between the donkey and the Democratic Party. Had their lust object been an elephant -- now that would be hypocritical (if impressive)."
"The all-American lost poet Delmore Schwartz…deserves credit for the Caffeine Theory of the Enlightenment. By this account, the Age of Reason owed its brilliance, energy and encyclopedic ambition to the arrival, in Europe, of the java bean. Schwartz meant it as a joke. Yet cultural historians have spent many happy years researching the economic, social, literary and political (if not gastrointestinal) consequences of the coffeehouse for the rising bourgeoisie. And the example of Voltaire - who sucked down a few dozen cups a day whenever possible -- has long seemed to me to clinch the case."
"Yeah, I had some friends come in this past weekend, and last night we went to a shady bar that had, as advertised outside on the sign, Midget Wrestling. Imagine WWF with these two feet tall people, jumping off the ropes, beating the shit out of each other. They were hitting each other with folding chairs and two-by-fours. One guy even had this stick with barbed wire on it, just pounding the guy. I mean the blood was fake and all because they'd come out the next round with all the blood wiped off, but it was the biggest freak show ever! At one point, one midget took a box of thumb tacks--and they were real, like we picked some up off the mat and they were real tacks!--and dumped it all over the canvas. Then he pours like gasoline or something all over the tacks and set the thing on fire. And they were wrestling in this stuff! They were like dropping the other midgets on these tacks, and their back would catch on fire and shit, and they'd just jump up and down stomping on each other while they're on fire with thumbtacks all over them. It was the biggest freak show ever…."
"Mr. Bush is asking for the vote of every single American who supports restoring dignity to the presidency and not leaving a single child behind. Those yearning for an undignified chief executive and a pile of children stranded without transportation are just going to have to go elsewhere."
So the thing I'm learning about investment banking is that when you ask the question "Why?" the answer, more often than not, is "It just is." This for me is rather unfortunate. My favorite question to ask is why. I was one of those kids who not only asked why the sky was blue, but also why the toilet water always spins the same direction when you flush. (Tangent: the Simpsons in Australia allusion to this phenomenon is hilarious.) (Corollary: Urinals do not adhere to the laws of this natural phenomenon.)
"It just is." You put the numbers in, get it to balance, and all is fine and dandy. "It just is." No evidence for an understanding of cause and effect. No appreciation for the mechanics of a process. The world reduced to the "to be" verb form. Being. Static. Subject-less. Damn.
"Aug. 2, 2000 | JONESBORO, Ga. (AP) -- Police found the body of a 58-year-old woman buried in her yard Wednesday after her husband admitted killing her, saying he did so because she refused to have sex.
"Edward Heckman, 64, told investigators late Tuesday that he shot his wife, Janet, in the head and chest with a hunting rifle while she lay in bed, Clayton County police Sgt. Johnny Robinson said."
...just 16 miles south of where I was born and raised.
More Michael Lewis:
"The Internet has changed many things and one of them is the status of the Wall Street suit. On Wall Street the suit once was a symbol of power. Like the cigar and the red suspenders, it was a tool used by people in charge to remind everyone else of that striking fact. Walk into any meeting on Wall Street in the 1980s and you could guess who was boss by who had spent the most money getting himself dressed.
That has changed in the past few years as Northern California has imposed its own notions of business attire on the country. If you walk into a meeting in the Internet economy and find four guys in $2,000 suits and four guys dressed like beachcombers, you know right away that the beachcombers are in charge. The suits are just the hired help. They may as well be donning one of those royal retainer uniforms worn by the doormen at the Plaza.
This is what the Wall Street analysts, in their list of grievances, have picked up on. They aren't just uncomfortable in their new suits. They're embarrassed."
Michael Lewis, roughly quoted, said that it's the man with the jungle guide that gets out of the jungle and into the refrigerator full of beer the fastest.
I am currently searching--desperately--for a jungle guide....
