Atheists From The United States

"Unfortunately, I am involved in a freedom ride protesting the loss of the minority rights belonging to the few remaining earthbound stars. All we demanded was our right to twinkle."

"I'm a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me, because of the image they've made of me — and that I've made of myself — as a sex symbol. They expect bells to ring and whistles to whistle, but my anatomy is the same as any other woman's and I can't live up to it."

"I know I will never be happy but I know I can be gay! Remember I told you Kazan said I was the gayest girl he ever knew; believe me, he has known many. But he loved me for one year and once rocked me to sleep one night when I was in great anguish. He also suggested that I go into analysis and later wanted me to work with Lee Strasberg. Was it Milton who wrote: "The happy ones were never born"? I know at least two psychiatrists who are looking for a more positive approach."

"It's a bad habit, I know, but I believe that you shouldn't do anything in life until you're ready. Half of life's heartaches come from decisions made in a hurry. One should make haste slowly."

"For life: It is rather a determination not to be overwhelmed. For work: The truth can only be recalled, never invented."

"Everyone's childhood plays itself out. No wonder no one knows the other or can completely understand. By this, I don't know if I'm just giving up with this conclusion or resigning myself — or maybe for the first time connecting with reality. How do we know the pain or another's earlier years, let alone all that he drags with him since along the way at best a lot of leeways is needed for the other — yet how much is unhealthy for one to bear? I think to love bravely is the best and accept — as much as one can bear."

"I had the radio on."

"Success makes so many people hate you. I wish it wasn't that way. It would be wonderful to enjoy success without seeing envy in the eyes of those around you."

"A lot of people were very upset, especially people in Palm Beach County, who were saying that they had accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan, which was clearly a mistake. Even Pat Buchanan admitted this."

"But when it came to eloquence, George [H. W.] Bush was Winston Churchill compared with his vice president, the legendary J. Danforth Quayle. You never knew what Dan was going to say next, and the wonderful thing was, Dan clearly didn't know either. He'd be asked a question, and he'd start talking, and you could see in his eyes that he was thinking, Ohmigod I'm talking and I HAVE NO EARTHLY IDEA WHAT I'M TRYING TO SAY! I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT I'M SAYING RIGHT NOW!"

"The Constitution of the United States of America, Article V, Section 1: "There shall be a National Anthem containing incomprehensible words and a high note that normal humans cannot hit without risk of hernia.""

"When I purchase a food item at the supermarket, I can be confident that the label will state how much riboflavin is in it. The United States government requires this, and for a good reason, which is: I have no idea. I don't even know what riboflavin is. I do know I eat a lot of it. For example, I often start the day with a hearty Kellogg's strawberry Pop-Tart, which has, according to the label, a riboflavin rating of 10 percent. I assume this means that 10 percent of the Pop-Tart is riboflavin. Maybe it's the red stuff in the middle. Anyway, I'm hoping riboflavin is a good thing; if it turns out that it's a bad thing, like "riboflavin" is the Latin word for "cockroach pus," then I am definitely in trouble."

"People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them."

"There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness.""

"There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is: age 11."

"A few years ago I got into a heated argument with the 18-year-old son of a friend of mine. Actually, it wasn't so much an argument as it was me getting angry at him for something he said. What he said, basically, was that he wished there was a war like Vietnam going on right then, so that the members of his generation would have something big, something exciting, in their lives. I told him that this was a reprehensible thing to say; I told him he should not want people to die to keep his generation amused. But in retrospect- although I obviously don't want another Vietnam- I see what he meant. He didn't want people to die; he wanted there to be something to give his life significance, something to mark his formative era that would be more meaningful than whatever TV sitcoms were popular at the time. We Boomers had that; we had a lot going on, maybe too much."

"Actually, I have fond feelings toward Gerald Ford, largely because of a semi-encounter I had with him in 1995, when he was in his eighties. We had both given speeches at an event in Bakersfield, California, and we were both among the passengers aboard a small, two-propeller commercial plane headed for Los Angeles, where most of us were making connections. The flight was running late, and although everybody was anxious to get going, we figured we had no choice but to sit through the safety lecture from the co-pilot. "Ladies and gentlemen," he began, "I'd like to take just a few minutes to..." "Let's just go!" snapped Gerald Ford, former president of the United States. "Okay, sir!" said the co-pilot, sitting down immediately. That is my kind of leadership."

"1973- This was the year that the war finally ended. Nixon called it "peace with honor," although he surely knew that the Communists would take over, just the same as if we had never gotten involved over there in the first place- except of course for the hundreds of thousands of people who got hurt or killed. So you tell me why the whole thing was not a terrible, criminal waste. You tell me why Henry Kissinger got the Nobel Peace Prize, instead of being required- along with all the other "leaders" who kept sending Americans over there long after they knew the war was pointless- to get down on his knees and beg the forgiveness of the American veterans, and their families, and the Vietnamese people. Everybody knew that "peace with honor" was bullshit, but nobody cared at that point. Everybody just wanted it to be over. When it finally was, there was no joy, only relief."

"The waterbed trend was similar to the fulfillment movement, in the sense that you paid for something that was supposed to bring you happiness, but you wound up with something less fulfilling, in this case motion sickness and water damage."

"The antiwar protests led to pro-war- or more accurately, anti-anti-war- protests, including a big one in Manhattan in which thousands of people, many of them construction workers, marched through the streets. I went out and watched that one during my lunch hour. My main memory is of two men, both about my age: One was a crew-cut protestor, wearing a tool belt; the other was a long-haired guy on the sidewalk. The long-haired guy started yelling "STOP THE WAR! STOP THE WAR!" The crew-cut guy ran over to him and, stopping just short of making physical contact, began yelling "BETTER DEAD THAN RED! BETTER DEAD THAN RED!" The two of them stood there, close enough to exchange spittle, screaming slogans at each other. That was political discourse in 1970."

"You may have gone to college and learned how to solve all of society's problems, but when you get out in the real world, nobody ever asks you to how to solve all of society's problems. In the real world, what people ask you are questions like: "Can you make coffee?" and "Where's the rent money?""

"1968- This is when it began to dawn on me that there was a serious competition going on in America to see who could be the biggest group of assholes: the right-wing assholes who thought that the Vietnam War was a good thing, as long as they personally did not have to go over to Vietnam and get shot at; or the left-wing assholes who thought that what we really needed was for more people to shoot each other here at home. It seemed as if both sets of assholes were winning in 1968. The King assassination did, in fact, result in terrible riots; and the Vietnam War, despite its growing unpopularity, became the longest in American history, with more U.S. troops over there than ever, and more men being drafted, and no end in sight."

"Do you remember that little vent that cars used to have on the front windows, so on coolish days you could let a little fresh air in without causing a big draft? WHO THE HELL TOOK THAT LITTLE VENT AWAY?"

"And thus Detroit gave us the Ford Falcon, the Chevrolet Corvair, the Studebaker Lark, and the Plymouth Valiant (my mom's car). As the Germans, and then the Japanese, began to send over better and better economy models, Detroit shrewdly countered with a whole parade of stunningly bad cars, including the Ford Pinto, which exploded; the American Motors Gremlin, which appeared to have been designed by very young, poorly coordinated children; and of course the legendary Chevrolet Vega (I had one of these), a car that apparently had rust installed on the assembly line. You know how, in old Star Trek episodes, when people get beamed up to the Enterprise, their bodies become sort of transparent, and then they disappear entirely? Well, the Vega would do that while you were driving it."

"In consumer news, the American automotive industry, continuing its tradition of meeting basic consumer needs, came up with two major technological advances in 1959: 1. The Edsel. 2. Even bigger tailfins. Despite these accomplishments, increasing numbers of ungrateful Americans were purchasing the cheap and reliable Volkswagen Beetle, even though it had hardly any chrome and no fins whatsoever. At first the U.S. auto industry laughed at the VW, but finally realized that, faced with this new low-end competition, it had to start making smaller, cheaper cars. But these would not just be any small cars; no, by God, these were going to be really crappy small cars, the theory being that consumers would be unhappy with them, and thus resume buying traditional American models that were designed more along the lines of freight locomotives."

"If I had to pick one year to represent the Fifties, I'd pick 1958. For one thing, it was the year that the folks at Wham-O, always looking for new ways to raise the level of American culture, gave us the Hula Hoop. This was a bright-colored plastic hoop that you spun around your hips using a hula-type motion. I realize that this sounds stupid, but you must trust me when I tell you, as one who participated extensively in this fad, that it really was stupid. In terms of intellectual content, the Hula Hoop made the Frisbee look like international championship chess."

"Dad was busy earning money so that the family could purchase the new Buick, which boasted 44 pounds of chromed trim. The Russians may have had working space satellites, but they had nothing like that."

"Guess who got punished for this. Do you think it was the grown-ups, who let the Russians get ahead? Of course not. It was the same group that had to get the polio shots: us kids. All kinds of experts came crawling out of the academic woodwork to declare that Americans were science and math morons, frittering away our brainpower playing Davy Crockett while Russian children were learning about the cosine. And so I remember 1957 as the year when school became less fun. From that point on, we spent a lot less time making authentic medieval castles out of papier-mâché, and a lot more time learning about the ionosphere. I suppose this change also had to do with the fact that we were getting older, but at the time I viewed it as yet another reason to hate the Russians."

"1957- There was big trouble this year for the Boomers. There we were, innocently enjoying our childhoods, when, without warning, the Russians launched the first man-made, Earth-orbiting godless satellite, named Sputnik. America went crazy. Until then, we had just assumed that we were far superior to the Russians, because they were just a bunch of vodka-swilling potato chompers wearing bad suits, whereas we were a highly advanced consumer society with color televisions and Amana freezers and record players with as many as four speeds. And suddenly we find out that the Russians were BEATING US IN THE SPACE RACE!!!"

"Americans loved Disneyland, because it gave them something good, something decent, something that epitomized a quality that vacationing American families value above all else: clean toilets."

"On the business front, by 1955 the United States was being flooded with cheap, shoddy products from Japan. We of course laughed at these products and at the Japanese; we could not imagine in our wildest dreams that they would one day stomp on our consumer-electronics industry the way Godzilla stomped on Tokyo. If somebody had told us that the Japanese would eventually try to sell us cars, we would have laughed and laughed, and then we would have gone back to trying to start our flooded Nash Ramblers."

"If someone is nice to you but rude to the waiter, they are not a nice person."

"I'm Really Serious. Do Not Turn the Page. You Will Regret It."

"We're just beginning to scratch the surface of the capabilities of this incredible tool. Just as the people who were alive when the telephone was invented had no way of knowing that the new device would someday make it possible for virtually every person on Earth, regardless of physical location, to be interrupted at dinner, so are we fundamentally ignorant of the ways in which the computer will ultimately change our lives. We cannot see the future; we do not know what lies around the next bend on the Information Superhighway; we cannot predict where, ultimately, the Computer Revolution will take us. All we know for certain is that, when we finally get there, we don't have enough RAM."

"The next major advance came soon after the war, with the construction of the first commercially available electronic digital computer, UNIVAC. This device, which contained 20,000 vacuum tubes, occupied 1,500 square feet, and weighed 40 tons; there was also a laptop version weighing 27 tons. UNIVAC was capable of performing 5,000 mathematical calculations per second (Although it did get most of the answers wrong), which, although slow by today's standards, meant it was now possible for a single corporate employee to do something that formerly was impossible- play solitaire on the computer screen. The modern electronic office was born."

"But it was not until World War II that the U.S. government began to unleash the true power of this technology, when our intelligence forces first employed computers to break enemy codes. Probably the most famous example concerns a top-secret cable sent from the Japanese military high command to Japan's ambassador in Washington on December 3, 1941. The cable, intercepted by U.S. agents, read: E-WAY ILL-WAY ATTACK-AY EARL-PAY ARBOR-HAY -TOKYO This cable was immediately fed into the U.S. War Department's top-secret code-breaking computer, code-named CODEBREAKER, which consisted of thousands of interconnected electronic switches, or "relays." Unlike human intelligence analysts, CODEBREAKER was able to work on the problem nonstop, 24 hours a day, never taking a coffee break (Although it did go to the bathroom four times), until finally, in March of 1944, it gave up. Before it quit, however, CODEBREAKER was able to correctly identify "Tokyo" as "a city in Asia"- information that was to prove vital in the war effort."

"Clearly, nobody was going to stand in the way of this amazing new technology. But because of the extremely high cost and phenomenal inaccuracy of early computers, the only customer for them was the federal government. In 1890, for the first time, the government used computing machines to conduct the census; it was completed in a record two months, and it yielded much valuable information, including the startling fact that the United States had only twelve residents, all of them named "Earl A. Snepp." As you would expect, when the federal income tax was enacted in 1913, the Internal Revenue Service quickly embraced the computer. The model used by the IRS was a simple yet effective device that employed a bank of electrically charged nails and a series of cardboard cards with various patterns of holes punched in them; when the nails were pressed down onto a card, they passed through the holes and formed a complete electrical circuit by piercing the naked bodies of taxpayers who had been summoned for audits."

"It was the ancient Egyptians who first figured out that numbers could, if you added and subtracted them, be used to form mathematics; this made it possible, for the first time, to build the pyramids as well as keep score in bowling."

"The first human beings didn't need computers, because they had no numbers. This was a big problem for parents, because they had no way to control their children ("You kids stop that! I mean it! I'm going to count to... um... to... YOU KIDS STOP THAT!")"

"Buying the right computer and getting it to work properly is no more complicated than building a nuclear reactor from wristwatch parts in a darkened room using only your teeth."

"Contrary to what many women believe, it's fairly easy to develop a long-term, stable, intimate, and mutually fulfilling relationship with a guy. Of course this guy has to be a Labrador retriever. With human guys, it's extremely difficult. This is because guys don't really grasp what women mean by the term relationship."

"I think everybody should go to Bimini from time to time. I think President Bush and whoever is governing the Soviet Union this afternoon should meet there. They would definitely have a more relaxed kind of summit. ALICE TOWN, BAHAMAS- In a surprise development, the leaders of the two superpowers announced today that they have learned all the words, in English AND Russian, to "Conch Ain't Got No Bone." Maybe you should go to Bimini, too. Maybe I'll even see you there, and we can wave to each other, if we're not feeling too lethargic. Please address me as "Bonefish Dave.""

"In a few minutes we encounter dramatic proof that China's population is 1.1 billion: At least that many people are in a traffic jam with us. I have never seen a traffic jam like this- a huge, confused, gear-grinding, smoke-spewing, kaleidoscopic mass of vehicles, on the road and on the shoulders, stretching for miles and miles, every single driver simultaneously honking and attempting to change lanes. Our driver, Bill, puts on a wondrous show of skill, boldly bluffing other drivers, displaying lightning reflexes and great courage, aiming for spaces that I would not have attempted in a go-kart. Watching him, we passengers became swept up in the drama, our palms sweating each time he makes another daring, seemingly impossible move that will, if it succeeds, gain us maybe two whole feet. We pass an exciting hour and a half this way, finally arriving at the source of the problem, which is, needless to say, a Repair Crew. Providing security are a half-dozen men who look like police officers or soldiers, standing around smoking and talking, ignoring the crazed traffic roiling past them. The work crew itself consists of eight men, seven of whom are watching one man, who's sitting in the middle of the highway holding a hammer and a chisel. As we inch past, this man is carefully positioning the chisel on a certain spot on the concrete. It takes him a minute or so to get it exactly where he wants it, then, with great care, he raises the hammer and strikes the chisel. I can just barely hear the ping sound over the sound of the honking. The man lifts up the chisel to evaluate the situation. I estimate that, barring unforeseen delays, this particular repair job should easily be completed in 12,000 years. These guys are definitely qualified to do highway repair in the U.S."

"We need our highest judicial body to stop this childish bickering and get back to debating the kinds of weighty constitutional issues that have absorbed the court in recent years, such as whether a city can legally force an exotic dancer to cover her entire nipple, or just the part that pokes out."

"I would certainly never say anything judgemental about another culture, but in certain food-related areas, the Japanese are clinically insane. The new culinary rage when we were in Japan was to eat fish that were still alive. I cannot imagine doing such a thing unless I were really desperate to get into a fraternity, but according to news reports, people were paying top yen in Tokyo restaurants for live, gasping fish. The waiter brings you your fish, still gasping (I mean the fish is gasping, although I suppose the waiter could be, too.), then quickly slices it open right at your table; then you're supposed to eat it while the fish is staring at you with its nearer eyeball and a facial expression that says, "Go ahead and enjoy yourself! Don't mind me! I'll be dead fairly soon!" And that's not the weirdest culinary activity the Japanese engage in. There is also fugu. This is a kind of blowfish that the Japanese eat raw. So far, you are not surprised. You are saying: "Big deal, the Japanese eat a lot of fish raw." Well, what you are apparently not aware of, Mr. or Ms. Smarty Pants, is that fugu contains a lethal poison. The liver of the male and the ovaries of the female contain one of the most toxic substances in nature, for which there is no antidote, which means that if your fugu is not prepared exactly right, with all of the dangerous organs removed, you have encountered the Blowfish of Doom and soon are going to meet the Big Maitre d' in the Sky. Clearly this is a fish that Mother Nature is telling us we should leave the hell under water, but to the Japanese it is a great delicacy."

"In Hiroshima, a bellman arrived at our room, literally, within one minute. He had obviously been sprinting, and he looked concerned. He checked the faucet, found it was, indeed, malfunctioning, and- now looking extremely- concerned- sprinted from the room. In no more than three minutes he was back with two more men, one of whom immediately went to work on the bathtub. The sole function of the other one, as far as we could tell, was to apologize to us on behalf of the hotel for having committed this monumentally embarrassing and totally unforgivable blunder. "We are very sorry," he kept saying, looking as though near tears. "Very sorry." "It's OK!" I kept saying. "Really!" But it did no good. The man was grieving. The bathtub was fixed in under ten minutes, after which all three men apologized extravagantly in various languages one last time, after which they left, after which I imagine the hotel's Vice President for Faucet Operations was taken outside and shot. No, just kidding. He probably took his own life. That's how seriously they take their jobs over there."

"The mysterious thing about all this is that Japan- ask anybody who has been there- has superb service. And not just in nice hotels. Everywhere. You walk into any store, any restaurant, no matter how low-rent it looks, and I bet you that somebody will immediately call out to you in a cheerful manner. This happened to us all over. I never understood what the people were saying, of course. They could have been saying: "Hah! Americans! We will eventually purchase your entire nation and use the Lincoln Memorial for tofu storage!" But they always sounded friendly and welcoming. And they were always eager to wait on us. I couldn't help but think of the many times I've been in American stores, especially large ones, attempting to give somebody some money in exchange for merchandise- which I always thought was the whole point of stores- but was unable to do so because the store employees were too busy with other, high-priority activities, such as talking or staring into space. More than once, in America's stores, I have felt like an intruder for trying to give money to clerks. "Oh great" is their unspoken but extremely clear attitude. "Here we had everything going nice and smooth, and along comes this doofus who wants- of all things!- to make a purchase. In a store, for God's sake.""

"I never really did get accustomed to all the bowing. According to the guidebooks, there's an elaborate set of rules governing exactly how you bow, and who bows the lowest, and when, and for how long, and how many times, all of this depending on the situation and the statuses of the various bowers involved. Naturally, my family and I, being large, ignorant foreign water buffaloes, were not expected by the Japanese to know these rules. Nevertheless, we did feel obligated to attempt to return bows when we got them. This happened quite often. It started when we arrived at our hotel in Tokyo. As I was descending the steps of the airport bus, two uniformed bellmen came rushing up and bowed to me. Trying to look casual but feeling like an idiot, I bowed back. I probably did it wrong, because then they bowed back. So I bowed back. The three of us sort of bowed our way over to where the luggage was being unloaded, and I bowed to our suitcases, and the bellmen, bowing, picked them up and rushed into the hotel. We followed them past a bowing doorman into the hotel, where we were gang-bowed by hotel employees. No matter which direction we turned, they were aiming bows at us, sometimes from as far as twenty-five yards away. Bobbing like drinking-bird toys, we bowed our way to the reception desk, where a bowing clerk checked us in."

"No, subtlety and protocol are not the strong suit of Americans, which is one reason why the Japanese tend to view us as large, loud water buffalo, lumbering around without a clue, tromping and pooping all over their carefully arranged, exquisitely tended garden of a society. I certainly felt like a water buffalo when I got off the plane at Narita Airport, mumbling my one word of Japanese, taking my long vowels seriously, and weighing approximately four hundred pounds more than when I got on."

"The way I attempted to learn Japanese was by reading a book called Japanese at a Glance in the plane from San Francisco to Tokyo. This is not the method recommended by experts. The method recommended by experts is to be born as a Japanese baby and raised by a Japanese family, in Japan."