Now For Good Or Ill,

Each American Embassy Comes With Two Permanent Features - A Giant Anti-american Demonstration And A Giant Line For American Visas. Most Demonstrators Spend Half Their Time Burning Old Glory And The Other Half Waiting For Green Cards.

Freedom Is Not Empowerment. Empowerment Is What The Serbs Have In Bosnia. Anybody Can Grab A Gun And Be Empowered. It's Not Entitlement. An Entitlement Is What People On Welfare Get, And How Free Are They? It's Not An Endlessly Expanding List Of Rights - The "right" To Education, The "right" To Food And Housing. That's Not Freedom, That's Dependency. Those Aren't Rights, Those Are The Rations Of Slavery - Hay And A Barn For Human Cattle.

Journalists Aren't Supposed To Praise Things. It's A Violation Of Work Rules Almost As Serious As Buying Drinks With Our Own Money Or Absolving The Cia Of Something.

In The Past A Man Was Expected To Give His Seat On A Bus To A Woman. Today It Would Be Much More Courteous For That Man To Give Her His Job.

Hunter S. Thompson And I Are Old Friends, But What We Do Is So Different. There Are Surface Similarities That Really Have To Do With Us Being Frustrated Poets.