I Come Des Moines. Somebody

Des Moines Is Like Your Typical American City; It's Just These Concentric Circles Of Malls, Built Outward From The City.

It Is A Slightly Arresting Notion That If You Were To Pick Yourself Apart With Tweezers, One Atom At A Time, You Would Produce A Mound Of Fine Atomic Dust, None Of Which Had Ever Been Alive But All Of Which Had Once Been You.

Nearly A Quarter Of American Men Were In The Armed Forces. The Rest Were In School, In Prison, Or Were George W. Bush.

Not One Of Your Pertinent Ancestors Was Squashed, Devoured, Drowned, Starved, Stranded, Stuck Fast, Untimely Wounded, Or Otherwise Deflected From Its Life's Quest Of Delivering A Tiny Charge Of Genetic Material To The Right Partner At The Right Moment In Order To Perpetuate The Only Possible Sequence Of Hereditary Combinations That Could Result -- Eventually, Astoundingly, And All Too Briefly -- In You.

Most Big Companies Don't Like You Very Much, Except Hotels, Airlines And Microsoft, Which Don't Like You At All.