Hi! I’m Amy!
To be honest, I don’t watch much TV news. The 24-hour cable stations focus too much on garbage I don’t want my kids to see. And what with working as a cashier at ShopCo, I don’t have time to read a newspaper. So, I mostly get my news from Time and Newsweek and Modern Bride and the other news weeklies on the rack. A glance at their covers is all I need to keep me in touch with what’s going on in the world.
And let me tell you, it is a mess. Just look at Iraq. “Can We Win?” Or “Is It Too Late to Win the War?” I guess it all depends on “How Soon We Can Get Out.” “Looking for a Way Out” is part of “The Way Out,” but we can’t forget there are “6 Ways to Fix It” and “75 Ways to Make Your Wedding Fabulous!” I think everybody over there just needs to “Stress Less, Relax More” and “Have Vacation Sex Without Leaving Home!”
Plus, from what I gather, “The Search for Historical Jesus” is going no better than “The Search for the Real Jesus” or even “The Search for Jesus.” And until we find Jesus, “The Search for Mary” seems like jumping the gun.
Of course, we’ve got problems here at home, too. I have to wonder, “Toxic Toys? Are Kids Safe?” For that matter, “Are Kids Too Wired For Their Own Good?” “Do Kids Have Too Much Power?” “Are We Giving Kids Too Many Drugs?” But, most importantly, “Do We Care About Our Kids?”
One thing’s for sure. We should all “Be Worried. Be Very Worried.” Especially because, even though our brains are “Wired for Worry,” no one really knows “Why We Worry About the Wrong Things.” “Is Anything Safe?”
It gets so bad that some days, the only thing that gives me hope is that “Space Tourism May Be Closer Than You Think!”
Well, that’s my break. Gotta get back to the Express Lane. Lotta pressure. See you “Inside the iPhone!”
Bye!
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Gut Teaser™
THE “LIMO PROBLEM”
A limo driver has been dispatched to bring Tucker Carlson, James Carville and A Boston Cream Pie from MSNBC headquarters in New Jersey to a big-time press event in Manhattan.
Unfortunately, due to cutbacks at MSNBC, the limo can only carry one thing at a time. The limo driver can’t leave Carlson alone with Carville, because Carville is insane and will attack and destroy Carlson, and of course one can’t leave a Boston cream pie alone with Tucker Carlson. How will the pundits and the dessert get across the Hudson River to the event?
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OP-ED Illusion
Is this Bob Novak arguing with Paul Begala, or just a very poorly constructed vase?
Newsmedia Mix-em-up!
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fig 13. STEPHEN COLBERT
CHAPTER 11
CLASS WAR
“We’re moving on up! To the East Side! To a De-luxe Apartment in the Sky!”
–George Jefferson, Dry Cleaner and Civil Rights Leader
TALES FROM THE HEART: LET ME TELL YOU A STORY. GROWING UP, I LIVED IN A CLASSIC AMERICAN NEIGH BORHOOD. IT WAS A MELTING POT OF HARDWORKING IRISH, BRITISH, ENGLISH, SCOTTISH, SCOTS-IRISH, WELSH AND NORTHERN IRISH. EACH MORNING, MY POP WOULD RISE AT THE CRACK OF DAWN and walk a mile to pretend he was going to the store to pick up our breakfast. In the winter months, he’d chop down a neighbor’s woodshed so we would have fuel to burn. When he got home, he would polish our shoes. If we couldn’t afford shoes, he’d polish our feet. Then he’d send us off to school, with our sack lunches of pinecones and salt. Once he knew we were taken care of, he’d leave for his job working for the local rich guy.
More of a “melting keg.”
All day in class, I would think about what my dad did for us, how hard he worked, and that I never wanted to do any of that. I wanted to be the local rich guy. Today, I am.1
Don’t ruin the text. Let your tears fall here
REALITY CHECK: What is the point of my story? Through clean living, moral fortitude, and the foresight to narc out Channel 7’s coke-addicted news anchor, and then take his job and win a regional Emmy for my coverage of his downward spiral, I changed my class status. That’s right, folks. I’m talking about Class.
Also, Mike the prompter guy? Hopped up on Screamers
WHAT IS CLASS? Class is a way of looking at society that divides people into different categories based on how much money they’re willing to make.
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BY THE NUMBERS: Every society has its own class structure with a unique number of classes. France has five: Les Aristocrats, Les Bourgeoisie, Les Petit-Déjeuners, Les Grand Mal, and Les Moonves. India has one of the most rigid and complex class structures. Based upon their behavior in past lives, all Indians are born into different stratas of society called “castes.” These castes forever determine what level of tech support questions they are allowed to answer.
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England has 2: Cockneys and Guv’ners.
We in America have three classes: Upper, Middle and Lower.
When I was growing up, we were in the Lower, and today, I’m in the Upper.
Middle class: get off the fence. We’re at War. Pick a side.2
SO WHICH CLASS ARE YOU?
Ever have a nagging suspicion that you’re poor? I know my staff does. And that’s one of the reasons I devised this handy “Know Your Class” chart.
Class distinctions aren’t just used to figure out where you sleep on a cruise ship. They are also used by pollsters and advertisers to better understand our buying habits.
If you know which class you belong to, you know which commercials you should pay attention to.
INSTRUCTIONS
For each question, circle the response that’s closest to your answer. Good Luck.
Now count up your circled answers by column.
The column with the most circles is your class!
(If you feel like your answer is in between two responses, making you, say, “upper-middle class,” you should remember that the phrase “upper-middle class” is a meaningless term created by the Upper class to keep the Middle class from joining with the Lower class when the Revolution comes.)
Based on your score, fill in the blanks.
Introduce yourself this way from now on, and you’ll quickly learn if you’re at the right party.
WANT TO CHANGE YOUR CLASS? HERE’S HOW.
As a pundit, it’s my job to fight for the little guy. In terms of the percentage of population, that means the Upper class. But all Americans are important to me. I won’t be satisfied until everyone is in the top one percent.
Don’t tell the poor about the escalator.
See, we’re lucky here in America. We live in a free market society. Think of it as a ladder. No matter what rung you’re born on, you have the exact same opportunity as everyone else to get to the top. Sure, you might say that some folks have less distance to climb than others, or that many of the lower rungs are slippery because they’re covered with garbage and your high school didn’t have an AP Ladder Climbing class, and the rung right above you is out of order and your landlord keeps saying he’s going to fix it but he never does and all the while the guy who hangs out on the corner of your rung is constantly trying to get you high, and you’re wondering if maybe you could get a little help up this ladder? Well, Mister, all the help you need is at your fingertips, if your fingertips are touching your ankles. I’m talking about bootstraps.
You can always pull yourself up by your bootstraps or turn the lemons life has given you into lemonade.
When life hands you a farm, make Farm-Aid.
Clearly, America has no shortage of metaphorical opportunities for the poor. But some people would rather stay poor just to make us feel guilty. Well, don’t look for any sympathy here. Instead of getting rich and paying their own way, they’d rather go on welfare, and the liberals are more than happy to give it to them.
No sympathy here either
Now, I’m not the smartest knife in the spoon, so explain this to me. We’re supposed to help folks ou
t of poverty by giving them a financial reward for being poor? Doesn’t add up. If being poor is a never-ending money party, where’s the incentive to get rich?
Answer me this: what’s going to help a shiftless vagabond more, a page of food stamps or the page from this book where I explain the free market “ladder”?
Hint: My paragraph gives him motivation and maybe even teaches him what a ladder is.
AT THIS POINT: You’re probably wondering why I titled this chapter “Combat of the Class Commandos: The Coming Cashpocalypse.” My editor may have changed it to something else. But he’ll regret it. Publishing 101: Alliteration sells books. (I spent hours trying to make that rule alliterative, but it’s impossible.)
Buy book. Big bargain, bro.
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GUT SPEAKING: Now some people might say it’s callous not giving food stamps to poor people. They would say it’s just another example of class warfare. Well, there is no class war in this country. The Upper class has such a tactical advantage that if the Lower class makes a sudden move we’ll have a class massacre.
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“Classacre” for short
If you ask me, the Upper class shows admirable restraint. They could easily freeze out the poor and man their factories with robots or mice. Instead, they offer them the opportunity for a decent wage, and up to two bathroom breaks.
If you’re reading this in the bathroom, get back to work!
But do folks in the Lower classes respond with even a simple gesture of gratitude like giving up a decent wage and one of those bathroom breaks? No. Instead, they form unions, which they use to bully our nation’s factory owners with walkouts, strikes, and that one Sally Field movie where she plays a labor organizer with sixteen personalities.
Steel Magnolias?
Don’t feel guilty, scabs. You help with the healing.
ARE YOU IN A UNION? (Please circle one)
Yes
No
Thank you for filling out my labor questionnaire. If you circled “yes,” know that I could have you replaced with a single phone call. There are hundreds of scabs out there who can read my book just as well as you can. Don’t tempt me.
WILL YOU TEMPT ME? (Please circle one)
Yes
No
I trust you made the right choice.
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CANARY IN A COAL MINE
Take a look at this little tit bit I found in The Chicago Tribune:
Seems some enviro-“mental” group, the Ecology Center, is claiming that the new-car smell we all crave is actually a deadly cocktail of chemical pollutants:
That New-car Smell May Be Newest Hazard Of primary concern are bromine used for flame retardants, chlorine used in Of primary concern are bromine used for flame retardants, chlorine used in plasticizers and lead used in plastics, as well as arsenic, copper, mercury and plasticizers and lead used in plastics, as well as arsenic, copper, mercury and nickel that have been linked to allergies, birth defects, impaired learning, liver nickel that have been linked to allergies, birth defects, impaired learning, liver toxicity and cancer. toxicity and cancer.
Now at first I thought this was just another buzz-shackle attempt by the envious hippie nut-jobs who can’t afford a new car every season because chaining yourself to a maple tree doesn’t pay what it used to in the 60s.
But then it hit me: something more insidious was going on here. Who spends a lot of time breathing in that new-car smell? The Upper Class.
Who’s loading those cars up with toxic chemicals? Factory Workers. The Lower Class.
So are we in a Class War? I don’t know, but if we are, it’s pretty clear who just fired the first shot.
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A SURPRISING ADMISSION
Sometimes I envy the folks in the Lower classes. Like the kid I was pretending to be in the story I made up at beginning of this chapter. They have so much to look forward to. Their bootstraps are so loose and fit for pulling. Mine can’t go any tighter. I’m losing circulation as it is.
But poor people have a very precious gift: something to strive for. But I’ve got nothing left to reach for because I’ve been so successful at everything I’ve put my hands on. Sometimes I can’t think of a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Luckily for me, I have a motorized bed. I like to drive it down to the rough side of town and give the people on the streets inspiration to work harder.
The Midas grope
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STEPHEN SPEAKS FOR ME
A CHANCE FOR AVERAGE AMERICANS TO AGREE WITH WHAT I THINK
Thomas Bindlestaff, Executive Assistant to Mr. Stephen Colbert
I am living roof that the American Dream is ossible! U ward mobility exists in this land of opportunity!
Explanatory note: I apologize, but my typewriter keyboard is missing the lowercase letter “p.” As my job is to make typewritten copies of all of Mr. Colbert’s personal correspondence, you might think this would rove challenging. Fortunately, Mr. Colbert rarely uses lowercase letter “p’s,” and when he does, I simply remove the sheet of paper from the typewriter, reinsert the sheet of paper upside-down, type a lowercase “d,” remove it again, reinsert it rightside up and then proceed as I had been proceeding peviously, despite my painful and persistent penman’s Gout.
As I was saying, I’m movin’ up! Already I make nearly $18,000 a year! And sooner or later (sooner, I dearly hope), I shall be the family’s first self-made twenty-thousandaire! In “Colbert Bucks,” that is.
Like all Mr. Colbert’s employees, my salary is aid in company Scrip. Mr. Colbert has thoughtfully provided a company store with a variety of fine dry goods. It has all the essentials: flour, salt, corn meal, rendered beef tallow, ticking and burlap. My wife has her eye on a tin of baking powder. The ladies do love to dream!
Oh! There’s the whistle! Is it dawn alreadyp I must get started on Mr. Colbert’s correspondence. His representative may be in today. I need to make a good impression. I’m hoping to get my youngest a position with the firm removing debris from the hydraulic ram shaft.
Only the wee ones will fit. Note to self: cut back on his ration of suet. Mark my words! I swear by the curvature of my spine, someday I shall be rich!
Your Humble Servant,
Thomas Bindlestaff
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How many differences can you find in these pictures?
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fig 14. STEPHEN COLBERT
CHAPTER 12
RACE
“Ebony and Ivory, live together in perfect harmony, Side by side on my piano keyboard.”
–Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, the surviving Beatles
THERE IS SOMETHING INTERESTING ABOUT WHAT MISTERS WONDER AND MCCARTNEY STUMBLED UPON HERE IN THEIR JAUNTY TRIBUTE TO THE PIANO. WITH A LITTLE IMAGINATION, THE LYRICS CAN ALSO ACT AS A METAPHOR FOR RACE. THE WHITE KEYS COULD REPRESENT WHITE PEOPLE, AND THE BLACK keys could represent non-white people. Because in America, people of all colors live in perfect harmony.
Asians represented by “Chopsticks”
I am America (and so can You!) Page 15