 
### 1492 AND ALL THAT

A Fool's History of the USA

by

Richard Minadeo

Smashwords Edition

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Published on Smashwords by:

Richard Minadeo

1492 and All That

A Fool's History of the USA

Copyright 2010 by Richard Minadeo

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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### PREFACE

Far be it from these slim pages to challenge the deep footprints of Messiers Sellerman and Yeats, the immoral authors of the equally deathless _1066 and All That_. They were two immassively towering talents, after all, whilst I am but five-foot-five and shrinking.

I do promise nonetheless to sirloin as much of their matchless schtick as I can possibly manage, not excluding their justifiable pride in the 103 Good Things that they have exhumed from the rich soil of British History. Even so, I promise not only to Top Nation that impressive number but (this being America) to offer up only Very Good Things in their stead, all culminating in One Rare and Beautiful Thing that only Yankee Doodle dares dream of.

I also wish to thank Kenneth C. Davis, whose book, _Don't Know Much About History_ , was my exclusive research source in compiling this study. Mr. Davis, by the way, knows a whole lot more about history than he lets on.

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### DEDICATION

To Sofia and Lucas

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### CONTENTS

PART I FROM COLUMBUS TO MONROE

PART II FROM JACKSON TO LBJ

PART III THE QUESTIONS

PART IV THE AMERICAN MIND

PART V AMERICAN CULTURE

PART VI FROM NIXON TILL NOW

ENDNOTES

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PART I

### FROM COLUMBUS TO MONROE

CHAPTER 1

THE EXPLORER

American History began in 1492, when Christopher Amerigo Columbus sailed into the Bay of Haiti, which he mistook for India. Christopher therefore didn't exactly discover _America_. This honor went to the Spanish explorer, Punchy de Leon, years later, while he was searching for Florida.

Punchy not only located Florida, but he found, capped and absconded with all he could tote (ten gallons) of the magical Fountain of Youth. He was last seen selling pencils on a Las Vegas street corner in 1958. He was a lad of fourteen at the time.

Nor was it all roses for Christopher, either. He never did locate India, and Haiti turned out to be the Vale of Tears of the Western Hemisphere. Also, he left millions dead of the strong killer germs he imported with him from Spain and, in return, poisoned the lungs of the Old World with the sweet smell of Cubano.

CHAPTER 2

THE FONDLER

But, whoa. Who will ever forget the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Lucia of grade-school fame? And who ever heard of Vespuccia University or Punchy, Ohio? Before Columbus sailed, the world was thought to be an immassive cube. Sail West and you plunged off the edge or, worse (because it was more jagged), the corner of the world straight into the bottomless Abyss.

Columbus sailed. He didn't plunge. For Corleones alone, he deserves to be called the Fondling Father Number One of all America that he undoubtably is. This is a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 3

NEW BLOOD

Then came the French, the Dutch and the Spaniards (or vice versa), and, hanging a left, the Spaniards discovered El Dorado, that is, rivers of Gold and Silver Bunions. Bearing right, the others discovered the romantic Northwest Passage to India— useless because frozen shut three-hundred-and-sixty-five days a year. So, jointly, the explorers petitioned the Pope to extend the year by a hundred days, but managed (after many decades) only Nine. This was a Very Memorable Failure.

CHAPTER 4

THE LOST COLONY

Sir Walter Raleigh, the sexual favorite of the Virgin Queen ( _viz.,_ Victoria) planted the first English Colony, a hundred strong and romantic Souls, in a nice warm spot down South and hurried back to England, for the Queen was waiting. When he returned next Spring, Raleigh couldn't find the spot (Jamestown) where he had planted those Souls. Hearing the Rumor that one Soul had eaten his wife's dead corpse out of sheer hunger, he tried but couldn't recall if he had left the settlers with any provisions at all.

Undented, Sir Walter planted another hundred Souls the following Year, and this batch took root. He named the place Virginia in honor of the same romantic Queen. It was rumored that Raleigh forgot the Queen herself at a wedding function some years later, but this is doubtless a Coproful.

CHAPTER 5

POCAHONTAS

Captain John Smith, Jamestown's most memorable strong man, was about to have his skull bashed in by a native North American Chef called Powerhat, when, according to Smith himself, the Chef's eleven-year—old daughter, Pocahontas, embraced his (Smith's) head and begged for his life. She got it.

Pocahontas later married not Smith, however, but the strong and handsome Indian brave, Hiawatha, who survives in Song and Story till this day. So was America saved, a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 6

THE PIGEONS

Next arrived the God-fearing Pigeons. Shooed out of England because of their depressing gray coats and coo-coo behavior, the Pigeons honed in on Plymouth Rock and landed spot-on. Because this modest folk refused to wear the Naughty Wigs of the day, they were also called Roundheads and Puritans.

The last name suited them fine, for Pure they were and Thrifty. To save on heating bills, they would bundle up their memorable teenagers two or three to a sleeping sack, sleepover guests included, without fear of Sin. The practice became so second-nature to the Teenies that they would bundle in the Summer as well, if the situation arose, and even in the afternoon.

If anyone erred, he/she would have to wear the disgraceful scarlet letters BC (Bundling Criminal) on his/her chest till age twenty-one, whereupon it was changed to a simple F.

CHAPTER 7

WITCHERY

The Pigeons were strong and memorable Witch-Hunters, bagging more Frequent Flyers per square mile than any other known society in the history of the World. One strong, memorable remedy for witchery was Waterboarding (dunking in the stocks), which always drew a festive crowd; others were sleep-depravation and, for the shy, forced Nakedness.

CHAPTER 8

THE FIRST THANKSGIVING

This was a Myth. True, the Pigeons invited the memorable King Philip—not the UK menarche, but a Colonial look-alike—to a turkey supper but with inferior motives. Philip, a big-time Indian Chef, knew innumerous Squaws, and the Pigeons wanted a few memorable specimens for the romantic Capt. Miles Standish, who had just lost Priscilla Arden to her brother, John. Philip was happy to comply at first, but soon he became merry with drink and started popping browned turkeys galore with his Singing Arrows.

CHAPTER 9

KING PHILIP'S WAR

This meant War. King Philip was no mere bow-and-hatchet chef, however. He came at his new Enema (the Pigeons) with Musk and Canon and caused the rivers to run with blood, according to a temporary source. In return, the Pigeons conducted innumerous Midnight Scalpings of innocent victims and finally prevailed. It is a little-known fact, indeed, that the Indians learned the art of Red-Heading from the Pigeons and that a well-tressed Indian Scalp would soon bring in a good hundred pounds (a good $23,345,000.00 in current Coin). This was a Very Tempting Sum.

CHAPTER 10

THE QUACKERS

The stretch between this fierce little War and the great American Revelation was filled with scalp-hunting, colony-building, slave-trading, church-forming, pulpit-thumping, maple-draining, cotton-picking Zeal. But the Best Good Thing was the arrival of that fine and immoral religious sect, the American Quackers.

This was the first religion to devote itself wholly to Friendship, Peace and Philadelphia. Plain and Modest by nature, they dressed like undertakers. Their churches were constructed of no steeples, no windows, no pews, no acorns, no sermons, no floors, no choirs, no gee-gaws and no clergy. They entered the Place of Worship, went down into the strong Mystic Mazurka position and, when the Spirit moved them, began to quack uninhabitably like a Duck for as long as the Spirit lasted—sometimes all night long.

CHAPTER 11

THEIR INFLUENCE

This was the cause of the Declaration of Independence, the Revelation, the Constitution, the memorable Bill of Rights and all the freedoms and privileges that Yankee Doodle has come to enjoy. This was a Very Good Thing. They also quacked strong for the rights of Slaves, Indians and Women of every stripe and condition.

Naturally, they were loathed and despised by rival Churchmen for such audacities. They were therefore regularly torched and murdered, very irreligiously, by those same Churchly Rivals.

CHAPTER 13

BIG BEN

Benjamin Franklin was the smartest of the Fondling Fathers and also the most intelligent. He invented not only the fire hose and the Post Office, but also the kitchen stove and (with a key) lightning and electricity. Possibly, he may even have invented the paper kite.

He had tremendous sea-legs, necessary for his many Atlantic crossings as Ambassador to the romantic City of France. There he enlisted the excellent aid of the Marquis La Folette, who came to be Washington's right-hand man and also that amiable Pothead, Toqueville, who wrote many beautiful vinaigrettes of America in those days. Franklin also raised memorable sums of money and solidarity to support the Revelation.

CHAPTER 14

POPULAR SAYINGS

Loved by untold ladies, Big Ben was the most popular human of his day. Even the Enema population of London admired him, naming their huge Town Clock (Big Ben) after him.

Also, he couldn't stop inventing Memorious Sayings, like a Stitch in Nine Saves Time, Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May, Fart Proudly and Beware the Eyes of Marge. He was much too intelligent to covet elective office, the Oval Office in particular.

CHAPTER 15

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR

When the French forced the Indians to drink wine instead of their ancestral Wampum, war broke out between the two parties, and a tall, young Virginian named George Washington joined the hostilities on the British side. He fought gallantly, but when the Brits refused to reward him with a commission, he parted ways in a High Dungeon and took the road to Yorkville.

CHAPTER 16

THE BOSTON TEA PARTY

Now a rabble-rousing bankrupt named Sam Adams cold-brewed a shipload of British Tea in Boston Harbor. The Rednecks responded by mowing down eight sassy Bostonians in the memorable, vicious Boston Marathon.

Sam's brother, John, a future vice-president, played mouthpiece for the offending Rednecks and got them all off the hook. This was a Very Good Thing, but it only stroked the Fires of Revelation, and soon the strong, memorable cry went ringing out, "The Rednecks are coming! The Rednecks are coming!" on the moonlight ride of Paul Revere.

CHAPTER 17

BUNKER'S HILL

Sam Adams lined up a hundred sexual dysfunctionals ("Minute Men") around the crest of Bunker's Hill in Lexington and Concordia and ordered them to wait for Orders. When the Rednecks (who were also there) advanced to within fifty paces, Adams crowed, "Don't shoot until you see the whites of your eyes." As a result, only one Shot was fired, but it was heard round the World. The American Revelation had begun. This was a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 18

YANKEE DOODLE

On the Fourth of July of that year, the Colonies declared their independence from the British Crone, and Yankee Doodle was born. And what a lucid, memorious Declaration it was. Big Ben's hand was there, as were those of other Fondlers, but above all it was Thomas Jefferson, the immoral Sage of Campobello, who voiced those Thrilling Words that were soon on everybody's lips: "We the people of the United States of America, in order to perform a more perfect Onion..."

Unperishable.

CHAPTER 19

GREAT UTTRANCES

Let us pause to clear up the confusion between Nathan Henry, Ethan Hale, Patrick Allen et al. and the strong and memorable Uttrances they were heard to remit. All three of these Statesmen said (on different occasions), "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party." It was the good Admirable Farrowgut who bravely insisted, "Give me Liberty and give me Death." Nobody whatsoever ever said, "Surrender in the name of Jehovah and the Continental Congress!" And, for the record, it was the great Bullgoose, Teddy Roosevelt, who bellowed (when storming Guantanamo) "Damn the Mosquitos, full speed ahead!"

CHAPTER 20

GENERAL GEORGE

George Washington was named Yankee Doodle commander-in-chief. George Washington was the tallest man in Virginia, the best dresser, the best horseman, the best athlete and the most memorable surveyor, but George Washington had Zero experience to be commander in chief.

Also, he didn't photograph well, because he wore wooden teeth (Hannibal sported a wooden eye), concealing which gave him a tight-mouthed, grim expression. This was not a Very GoodThing.

CHAPTER 21

THE OPPOSING SIDES

The Rednecks, meanwhile, had the best-trained, most experienced, strong and memorable Army in the World. Ditto the Navy. By contrast, the Americans were a rag-tag affair, no uniforms, no rifles, no training, no boots, no bullets and no pay. Also, no Navy. No way they could win, said the touts at Epsom Salts, who spotted them five touchdowns.

CHAPTER 22

A GENERAL IS MADE

Washington proved unbeatable at surprise parties and lightning retreats. He was slippery, sleeping in up to nine different beds in one night and keeping at least two HQ going at a time, in order to confuse the Enema (the Brits especially). He showed his slippery stuff first and best at Princeton, which went as follows.

Besides all else, the Rednecks had innumerous Russian Mercenaries (a third of their entity) among their forces. These haled from the tiny little kingdom of Hess, and so they hired themselves out for pay. They were a strong and memorable problem right up till Xmas, when the slippery Washington attacked by Boat from Delaware (see the famous photograph), surprising them in their cups (Vodka) and shattering them, cups and all.

This was Yankee Doodle's first armed encounter with the Soviets, and it convinced the Czar that we could win. And win we did, Washington accepting Cornfallus' drooping sword at Yorkville. No historian has ever shown how this was Possible.

CHAPTER 23

THE NEW ARITHMETIC

Now came the Constitution. The Framers (a.k.a. Farmers, Fathers and Fondlers) of the document were the same as earlier: Big Ben, Washington, Jefferson et al., but they had a strong surprise for young Yankee Doodle.

Every slave in the land was now a slave and three-fifths! This was a Very Good Thing! At a blow, the cotton supply was sixty percent vaster, or nearly so, since by definition four out of every ten limbs were missing among these Marvelous New Beings. Better yet, the three-fifth slave could vote (while the old, full-deck slave, of course, had no Rights at all!).

The slaveowners did the actual voting for the three-fifthers, inedibly so, since they were on average forty-percent deficient in Brainspace. This was called the Missouri Compromise and, wise men opine, it kept the South in the driver's seat right up to the Silver War.

(Speaking of spontaneous souls, there are forty million born-agains in the USA at the moment. Plainly, this number of fresh-minted Souls doubles the voting power of the memorable Christian Right, which in turn assures a conservative majority in our fair land for the rest of recorded time. This is an Awesome Thing, which admits of no argument and no cure.)

CHAPTER 24

THE FERAL BRANCHES

The Constitution also established three limbs of government (most Constitutions have only one or two): the executive (the Presidency), the judicious (the Serene Court) and the powerful congregational (the Legislature). The Legislature churns out the laws, the Prez enacts them and the Court weighs them. (Most, mercifully, came in under two pounds in those romantic days.)

Also, this strong, memorable document (the Constitution) carefully provided for Checks and Balances. In successive weeks, the President wrote the checks, the Legislature checked the balances and the Serene Court cooked the books. Then they changed roles and the Court wrote the checks, the Prez checked the balances, etc., etc., etc. It provided strong busywork for the Fondling Fathers and is the one thing in the Constitution that even school children can explain. This is a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 25

THE WHISKEY REBELLION

President George Washington rode out into deep Pennsylvania at the head of more troops (7,500) than he had commanded at any one time during the entire Revelation, wearing the same spanking uniform he had worn at the Surrender of Yorkville and riding the tallest stallion he had ever mounted or dismounted.

The Whiskey Farmers had threatened to cut off Yankee Doodle's booze supply if a certain huge tax bill was not forgiven. The Prez had come out to knock some heads together. Then he remembered himself of the Revelation, how the war was started by a Beverage Tax in the first place.

He dismounted and, toasting the Revelation, had a double shot of Scotch neat, saluted all around and, horseman that he was, was back in bed at the Oval Office by midnight. It was, he told his dairy, the most memorious day he had ever spent in the State of Pennsylvania and altogether A Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 26

FAREWELL, FOND FONDLER

In his fifth Farewell Address (he had already made four by way of practice), the white-haired, toothless President warned earnestly against the formation of political parties. The parties of the day had weird names like Feralist and Wig, and so they soon disappeared.

But, waiting in the wings, wouldn't you know, were the parties we know today, the Publicans (Blue) and the Demagogues (Red). These were the parties the Wise Old Hero had in mind.

CHAPTER 27

THE BALD PRESIDENTS

John Adams slipped into the Oval Office between George Washington and the memorable Thomas Jefferson and rained for only one term. He was much too smart for the job to have rained much longer. He was also bald, which later became a strictly Disqualifying Factor for the Presidency.

Adams actually exchanged Love Letters with his brilliant, romantic wife, Albatross, every day, and then they both filled their dairies at night. John and Albatross had a son, John Quincy, who would also become a bald president. Quincy's case proves that the Colonials were flat-out different than us.

He could compose a sentence in errorless Latin with his Right Hand and, at the same time, do the same in Greek with his Left. Then, switching quills, compose in Latin with his Left and in Greek with his Right. Nobody is that ambidextrous any more.

CHAPTER 28

THE FIRST ALIENS

The major happening during John Adams' rain was the Alien and Seduction Act. It seems that a UFO visited an oak grove in Vermont and may have gouged out a perfect circle one hundred yards across in the immassive trees. It also abducted seven upstanding female Dowagers. Abductions by alien UFOs were immediately outlawed by the alert Legislature, which, despite Jefferson's sniggers, was not at all a Bad Thing.

CHAPTER 29

THE VICTIMS RESTORED

The Dowagers were found soon thereafter. They had confounded themselves in a remote cabin in order to do their quiltwork in Peace when the aliens struck. They would reveal nothing about their cosmic seducers except to say that they were released almost immediately upon capture. Some opine it was they who trashed the oak grove.

CHAPTER 30

THE BOSTON MANDOLINS

Though neither John nor Albatross' image has made it to the memorable and majestic honor of Mt. Rushmore, fittingly, both intellects have been enshrined among the strong, famous Boston Mandolins (a.k.a. Brahmsians), as was only Just and Inedible. This was a Very Good Thing. And let us also induct John Quincy, a Mandolin if there ever was one.

CHAPTER 31

THE TEMPLATE

Physically, Thomas Jefferson cut the template for Presidential Timber. Six foot-two with abundant hair and a good, square head, he looked every inch the romantic kingpin of the Virginia House of Buggers that he was.

Mentally, though, he had way too many IQs for politics, and that's why he didn't accomplish all that much in his eight years in the Oval Office. Yet, the one thing that he did get done—the purchase of the State of Louisiana from the Cajuns for twenty-four bucks—was a Very Good Thing indeed.

CHAPTER 32

PERSONAL CONFLICTS

He had, meanwhile, immassive inner personal conflicts. Like practically all true Virginia Gentlemen, he kept slaves. He also kept an Indented Sweetheart, and, many opine, he had Indented Offspring as well—who were, after all, practically inedible. Still, he was against slavery in principle and also the Missouri Compromise, which mandated no slavery to the left of the Missouri. Jefferson thought it should have extended further.

CHAPTER 33

THE SAGE OF CAMPOBELLO

Thomas Jefferson was a self-confident powerbrain and intellectual. He read the ancient Greek philosopher, Pluto, cover to cover _in Greek_ and pronounced him overrated. That takes enormous Intellectual Corleones.

A closet architect, he designed the memorious buildings of the University of Virginia, which he also fondled. This was a Very Good Thing. Likewise, he designed his own strong and memorable mansion at his beautiful Campobello retreat, a replica of Agrippa's Parthenon in Rome, which is still standing today. His architectural bent, in fact, was the basic Roman Arch.

Of course, he will be most romantically remembered for the haunting, never-to-be-forgotten lines of the Declaration of Independence—the American People's favorite document, according to a Recent Pole. Unforgettable stuff.

CHAPTER 34

A NEW POLITY

Last, but not least, he invented Jeffersonian Democracy, which was memorable, even though it didn't take root. It consisted of long Summer sunsets on purpled hills, work, sweat and Happiness, a pair of oxen, the smell of earth and manure, lots and lots of well-rotted manure. This constructed a well-run, happy state. He was, all opine, a memorable polygon of Moral Excellence and a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 35

THE DUALISTS

A "low-born scamp" to John Adams, Alexander Hamilton fought alongside Washington in the Revelation and was a huge Fondling Father. He was also the most confident Feralist of them all.

Trouble was, he hated people and especially Aaron Burr, the memorable Vice President of the moment. Insulted by Burr, he challenged him to a Dual— the real, romantic kind, except that they agreed to shoot harmlessly into the air, like men of Good Bleeding. This was a Very Good Thing.

Hamilton won the flip for first shot and, aiming high and wide, he bellowed as he fired, "Your people, sir, are a Great Beast." Burr, a prickly party at best, saw red and shot his adversary strongly between the ears.

Hamilton was able to explain before he croaked his last that he intended to insult not _Burr's_ people but _the_ People. Since Burr happened to share that exact opinion _re_ the People, he shed a warm tear of regret and was duly acquitted of all charges. Hamilton was then strongly engraved— undeservably, many opine—on the ten-dollar bill.

CHAPTER 36

WEE JIMMIE

James Madison was a Wee Fellow—five-foot-zero inches tall and ninety-nine pounds dripping wet—, but he rained in the presidency for eight straight years. Before that, he wrote the Feralist Papers, the Constitution and, with the help of the Quackers, the memorable Bill of Rights. The latter is a list of the first Ten Commandments to the Constitution—e.g., the Segregation of Church and State, the Rights of self-recrimination (the Fabulous Fifth) and of packing heat and other similar stuff that the Fondlers forgot or rejected the first time around.

CHAPTER 37

1812

Wee Jimmy started the War of 1812, but it was itself a Wee Thing, managing only to torch the White House and furnish Yankee Doodle with the National Anthem—in itself, of course, a Very Good Thing. Some opine, nevertheless, that only one in a million Americans understands the grammar of "The Star Spangled Banner."

Small wonder. The original was written in Latin, as were the Declaration, the Constitution, the Magna Charter, Shakespeare and the works of Cicero. And, let's remember, Frances Scotch Key was under serious bombardment (and possibly drunk) at the time.

CHAPTER 38

THE MAGICAL FOURTH

When offered the option by Dr. Jack Thanatos, Madison nixed dying on the Fourth of July, just like his old buddies, J. Adams and T. Jefferson (who both expired on the _same_ Fourth of July). Thus, completing a ripe old age, he fell off the vine a couple of weeks later. Which proves once again the memorable old saw that Wee Fellows last longer.

CHAPTER 39

THE MONROE DOCTRINE

The next President, the memorable James Monroe, was a good disciple of John Adams in that he cultivated a healthy loathing for un-Americans. With Adams, it was Space Aliens (q.v.); for Monroe it was all foreign governments and peoples. The good old USA was brand new, and he wanted to keep it that way.

So he posted Keep Out signs all along the Atlantic seaboard, and that meant everybody. This was the Monroe Doctrine. It worked wonderfully while he lasted (not long), but, inedibly, the country began to show signs of age. Nay, it grew older and older — fifty years, one hundred years, one hundred and one, etc., etc.

Eventually the Doctrine was abandoned, to be replaced by the equally memorable policy of Isolationism. Jamie's rain might thus have gone down in the anals of history as a dud. Far from it. It went into the books as the Era of Good Feelings, an immassive achievement considering that the gifts of Mary Jane were all but unkown on Colonial Shores. This was a Very Good Thing.

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PART II

### FROM JACKSON TO LBJ

CHAPTER 1

JUST PLAIN ANDREW

Andrew "Stonewall" Jackson (not to be confused with Andrew Johnson, who was never called "Stonewall") was the next huge Oval Officer. He is credited with inventing a whole new kind of Democracy (Jacksonian), because he was the first president born on the other side of the Mountain— the first, consequently, to know no Latin and less Greek, a real man of the American people.

He was a great general— the hero of New Orleans— a savage Indian Fighter, a tireless Indian-Remover (especially the Greek Nation, but also the memorable Kariokee), an ardent dualist and a Murderer.

Abnormally popular, he was known as "Old Hickory" (because of his Oaken constitution) to his friends and admirers, but as "Long Knife" to the Native North Americans.

Jackson enjoyed a lifelike presidency and then continued to serve the Cause as a Southern general during the Silver War. Thus the amusing sobriquette, "Stonewall." He died of strong Friendly Fire while chasing down routed Yankee troops at Chancellorville or elsewhere. He was ninety-seven years old at the time, and in due course his head was mounted on the twenty-dollar bill. This was a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 2

THE ALAMO

David Bowie, the romantic knife-blade, was making a courtesy call at the Alamo when the savage war hero, Santa Anna, President of Mexico, attacked at the head of innumerous Sombreros. Bowie bit the dust, as did the memorable Betty Crocker, who once started an immassive coon-cap craze in the Nation's capitol.

Cruel Santa Anna ("Saint Ann") annihilated the place, all save three pitiful non-belligerents, and galloped proudly off. This was a Terrible Thing.

"Remember the Alamo," croaked every red-blooded American in chorus until the unforgettable Sam the Man Hudson rose up and drove Santa Anna whimpering back to Mexico City with her tail between her legs. This was the cause of Texas, a Very Big Thing.

CHAPTER 3

THE WAY WEST

As the name indicates, the first Prairie Schooners were refitted ocean-going vessels, and for many years they were dragged by mule-trains westward ho from Boston and Baltimore to the ever-far horizon. The pioneers, up to a hundred at a time, would simply make themselves comfortable amidships and enjoy the day's progress.

Two problems arose. First, the mules were slowed by innumerous obstructions in the dragway, so that a typical journey required five and a half years and at least that many mule-trains just to reach the Rockies. Next, no combination of mules proved able to drag a Schooner _over_ the Rockies.

Along came a Navaho brave named Limping Bear, who suggested a new way to tow. He advised the Wagonmasters to strip the Schooners of their

Keels, attach a set of Wheels, hook up some horses, etc., etc., etc.. It worked!

This was the memorable birth of Yankee Ingenuity, envied then and now throughout the World and beyond. And this was a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 4

THE GOLDEN GLYPHICS

The Angel Moroni appeared to Joe Smith about this time with a set of Gold Tablets inscribed with Hairy Glyphics. Once shorn of the Hair, the Glyphics offered Joe no trouble. Then, starting with Joe, the resulting religious sect of Morons (<Moroni) spread the Faith from Salt Lake City to Timbuktu. They were so pious a folk that they believed they were transformed into Saints in the Afternoon (i.e., Latter Day Saints), and they preached that a man sincerely committed to Moronism deserved to have as many wives as he wished.

Since females of Mobile Age soon became scarce by this method, the majority of Saints today, like everyone else, put up with only one or two spouses at a time.

CHAPTER 5

MANIFOLD DESTINY

More important, they established the memorable Moron Trail that ran all the way to romantic California. By this route, innumerous settlers, speculators, miners, Tourists and murderers made their way to the Golden West, not all of them Morons, to be sure, but Yankee Doodles of every star and stripe.

Grouped along with the Cumberland, Organ, Santa Fe, Gism and the Trail of Tears, this made the Moron Trail a charter force in Manifold Destiny. This was a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 6

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

Now we come upon the United States of America's most awesome hero, Ms. Henrietta Tubeman. No, my dear Doodler, not a heroine. Dolly Pitcher was a heroine, but Ms. Tubeman, experts agree, had Corleones galore.

It was she who built the memorable Underground Railroad, which transported runaway slaves out of the clutches of the Kook Klutz Klan (q.v.) and the likes of Simon Degree.

She dug a Tunnel from Maryland to Canada, got rid of the rubble, laid the tracks, punched the tickets, shoveled the coal, drove the train and rode the caboose from dawn to dusk on every Trip. She did it with a little help from the Quackers, of course, and a few other memorables who were unafraid of the Soot and Crime.

The Considerate South put a bounty of forty-thousand dollars on her head. Forty-thousand smackers, let us remember, amounts to forty million and one in today's Coin. Not even the head of Osama ben Larsen is going for that much, and he took down the Twin Peaks!

CHAPTER 7

WHY WAR

Whoever wishes to plump the Causes of the Silver War (640,000 dead) must bear in mind three important factors. First, Zaney v. Scott. Zaney wore the broad stripes of the Chief Justice of the Serene Court. (Everyone else wore a simple black dress.) In the strong and interesting Dread Scott case, Zaney laid down the Principle: Once a Slave, always a Slave. He also added, memorably, that a man's slave is as much his Possession as is his wife or mistress.

Second was an immassive self-skewering by the first President of the Consideracy and the last, Jefferson Davies. "Are we to be free men or slaves?" Davies asked rotorically, condemning the "Tyranny of the North." Hello? How about the Tyranny of the Consideracy?

Factor three is more Romantic. Yankee Doodle always had an unrequired Yen for the hot, memorable Ms. Dixie. Still has. He scored early and often with the likes of the Misses Liberty, Columbia, Chatanooga and America et al., but all he ever got out of Dixie, macaroni and all, was an enematic smile.

CHAPTER 8

HONEST ABE

Abraham Lincoln was born in a Log Cabin in Kentucky not far from Daniel Boone, who was not home at the time.

Abe was born Tall and Honest, but stone ugly, and he suffered from lifelong depression as a result, as do many presidents. Had he been born bald on top of ugly, of course, he could have kissed his shot at the Oval Office good-bye, but he turned out plenty hairy, which proved to be his salvation.

It is opined, e.g., that the five-dollar bill without the beard wouldn't be worth a Buck today. (By way of illustration, the penny, which also bears his likeness, is already worth Zero and is probably headed lower.)

CHAPTER 9

THE SILVER WAR

He won the Silver War against the combined Considerate forces of the brilliant Robert E. Lee with immassive mutual bloodspattering all around. Afterwards, he gave a helluva brief and beautiful speech in Gettysburg on behalf of liberty, equality and the fallen dead— so brilliant that everybody still remembers the first, opening words and most of the last nineteen.

He also freed the slaves, thus smiting a heavy blow against slavery in general in this fair land, and he preserved the memorable, all-important Onion. This was a Very Good Thing, which won him a memorial in Washington, D.C. (The Lincoln Memorial) where he still sits in State today.

CHAPTER 10

THE TRAITOR WETBOOTS

He was assassinated soon after the Gettysburg Address by one John Wetboots, an unemployed actor (always a dangerous breed), while attending a musical show at the Ford Theater. Ironically, he thought he would be attending a performance of _Julius Caesar_. (Next Week.)

Wetboots leapt from Abe's booth to the stage after the Bastardly Act and thereby broke his leg. Thus, actors urge their fellows even now to "break a leg" every time they are about to expose themselves on Stage. This is a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 11

TO THE ANGLES

When Lincoln expired, his Secretary of War, Stanton (or, Stimson), remarked, "Now he belongs to the Ages." Others heard, "Now he belongs to the Angels." It does not help, unfortunately, that fifteen years later Simpson insisted that his exact statement was, "Now he belongs to the Sages."[1]

CHAPTER 12

OBSEQUIES

The train bearing Abe's remains, including his Corpse, chugged hither and yon about the landscape, emitting great Sobs of Sorrow amidst the innumerous tons of citizens lining the way. Back in Kentucky, a bold-faced attempt to sirloin the corpse was foiled when the coffin proved to be too long for the getaway wagon.

CHAPTER 13

DAVIES' ESCAPE

To finish with the memorable Jefferson Davies, he attempted to escape detection after the Silver War by donning women's garb, but he was betrayed by his immassive Big Beard. This was a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 14

SUSPENDING HABEAS

Honest Abe's one biggest mistake was to suspend Habeas Corpus. Poor Habeas was found guilty of Gross Impunity by a jury of his pears and sentenced to death by hanging. Lincoln commuted the death part, but Habeas' neck sure got a strong, memorable stretching— although nothing close to the recent stretchings at the hands of President George W. Arbusto and his so-called "Singing Executioner," John Arsecroft, which have resulted in poor Habe's chin bouncing off his knees whenever he walks or talks.

Some opine that the abdominal lynchings committed by the Kook Klutz Klan and its sister.org, the Imperial Buzzards, were inspired by the abuses of poor Habeas, but this would be a Stretch.

CHAPTER 15

THE RUBBER BARONS

There were no presidents of importance between the Silver War and Theodore Roosevelt but only empty top hats. This was a Very Good Thing. If there was an effective president, it was (the unelected) Jay Gould, who gave his name to the times, the memorable "Goulded Age."

Gould was a huge Rubber Baron, that is, a lawless business magnet (or "maggot" or "mongul") of immassive propositions. Other such maggots were J. P. Organ, Andrew Melon, Rocky Rockerfella, "The Earl of Oil," and Andrew Canary, the big steel magnet. Inedibly, they all grew fat, sleek and crapulent at the country's expense, but they were far from evil, as most opine. For, collectively, they were nothing more or less than the Young Nation flexing its Industrial Muscles and the romantic cause, therefore, of the Gay Nineties.

CHAPTER 16

THE MAGGOTS AND THE ONIONS

The maggots were hell on the labor Onions, no doubt. But even the workers hated the Onions because of the stinking dues they were compelled to pay. Hence the governments, such as they were, sent in police, militias, thugs, armies, whatever it took—e.g., bayonetting and, later on, Generalissimo Douglas MacArthur— to suppress the Onions long enough for the Rubbers to stretch their Iron Bands from sea to shining sea.

CHAPTER 17

THE GAY NINETIES

As for the Nineties, not everybody was Gay in that memorable decade. As ever, it was the Affluent and the Romantic Rich that were Gay. The Monguls had created an enlarged big-bucks class, and increased prosperity naturally stimulates an upswell of Gay Feelings. (See under Fruits of Prosperity.) Those were the Nineties— gay feeling mounting into even gayer spheres of gaiety, but nothing degenerate like the Brits or the Frogs.

CHAPTER 18

BULLGOOSE

Let us welcome Teddy Roosevelt. Though legally blind, "Bullgoose" traveled wildly in Africa, shooting up the landscape everywhere along the way. He was, at the same time, the world's number one conversationist, saving endangered species, both Flora and Flauna, left and right.[2] As a result, he boasted that he knew more about Ostriches than all other presidents put together.

He also was able to speak, read and write three foreign languages, which blows away the competition as well. He was fearsomely huge in the tooth and also an accomplished Yodeler. This was a Very Good Thing.

He was called "Bullgoose" because, one, he loved to bully and, two, he once wrestled a savage Goose to its knees, using only a few soft obscenities and a Big Stick. This too was a Very Good Thing. He laid the Big Stick on Organ, Melon and the other business monguls and busted their Trusts. Meanwhile, he dug the Panama Canal and invented a Country (Panama) to put it in.

CHAPTER 19

IMPERIALISM

The strong, memorable President Yolk (a really good egg) had fired up American imperialism fifty years earlier by his sirloining the rest of Texas from the arms of its Mexican Mother, and Teddy was now extending the courtesy on the body of Mother Spain.

He charged romantically up San Juan Hill in the Cuban affair and might have carried the day by the force of his maddened glare alone had the Rough Riders not kept him shielded from the bristling Enema. He then launched a long, murderous arm to bloody the Philippines, creating an immassive pile of dead corpses in the process, thereby alienating the Japanese as well. He simply thought it was the Right Thing to Do.

Theodore was never assassinated, impeached, cited or indicted for war crimes. Rather, when he died (reluctantly), he was induced among the Fondling Fathers and buried on Mt. Rushmore with the rest of the Greats.

CHAPTER 20

TEATOPS

One must be careful about the Teapot Dome Scandal, which comes about now and devours the robust Oval Officer of the day, Warren G. Hardening. First, it had nothing to do with a Teapot, nor, surprisingly, with a teapot lid. Also, it had nothing to do with Tea. Finally, it wasn't even much of a scandal— nothing like a Harmonica Winsky, say. Once these perimeters are established, however, the pot pours nicely.

CHAPTER 21

WWI

The good ship _Lithuania_ was sunk by German U Boats before we entered the Great War. It wasn't an American ship, but one hundred Yankee Doodlers were drowned in the incident. "Remember the _Lithuania_ ," chorused the Land, "Remember the _Lithuania_!"

That Chant got us into the war, a pointless, bloody mess, most opine, that America won. But the Oval Officer at the time, Woodrow Wilson, might better have been discouraged from pursuing the post. Another undoubted Mandolin, he was way too overqualified for the job.

CHAPTER 22

THE END OF WAR

For instance, he headed for Versailles and its strong, memorable Hall of Horrors with a sixteen-point agenda he insisted on pushing. "Even God Almighty had only ten," snarked Clémenceau, his French counterpoint. Wilson wanted to End all Wars, an idea so far behind the times that it hasn't surfaced again since. Then, also, he fathered the League of Notions so far prematurely that the Congress in its Wisdom deep-sixed it at first sight. Now its time has finally come with the strong, memorable United Notions, whose incorrigible inefficiency everybody admires.

CHAPTER 23

TOP NATION

Wilson caught a thrombosis in the middle of it all, whereupon his wife, Edith, took it upon herself to finish the remainder of his term as Oval Officer in secret, which, if the unfeminized males of the time had known it, would have caused them to Blow Chunks. What it proved is that the ladies are ready to seize the helm of Power at any time— a Very Good and Reassuring Thing.

Still, it was under President Woodrow that the Good Old USA became the Great Old USA—Top Nation—the Very Best Thing Yet.

CHAPTER 24

THE ROARING TWENTIES

With the release of tensions when the memorable hostilities of War ceased, the Twenties got off with a helluva romantic Roar. Babies roared and neophytes, kittens, kettles, everything that could roar roared. This caused the Prohibition (which at first pertained only to noise), which spawned, in turn, the biggest Alcoholic Binge in history outside of the Soviet Onion, and the hangover was the strong, memorable Great Depression. It was a Very Good Time while it lasted—Top Nation's birthday party, if you will—but, most opine, way too loud.

CHAPTER 25

THE GREAT DEPRESSION

The great cause of the Great Depression was Heebert (or Humbert) Hoover (or Heever), not to be confused with the suave and romantic J. Edgar. Every few months after the Economy started to crumble, Hubert assured its innumerous victims that it (the Economy), would turn the corner as soon as they learned to trust in their "Ragged Individualism." Then, when election time came and the worst had only gotten worse, he was vastly surprised to be ushered ignoramously out of office. To cap all, FDR, his snooty successor, gave him the cold shoulder as they motored together to the Inauguration Sight.

CHAPTER 26

NO FREE LUNCH

Meanwhile, he refused to offer free lunches of any sort to anybody because it might favor the Onions and promote "Creepy Socialism." He was also devoting immassive energy and Cash to blunting the Communist Menace at the time.

But he did build innumerous "Hoovervilles," cardboard-box sidewalk condos (no pets allowed) in every city throughout the Great Land. Here the destitute could rest their weary bones, especially the soldiers of the memorable "Bonus Army"—impoverished veterans of the Great War who had descended on Washington to demand their Damned Bonuses.

CHAPTER 27

THE MAN ON HORSEBACK

Here Herbert provided a debut for Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who rode on horseback among the struggling Veterans, sabre drawn, prodding them to be real soldiers. It is worth noting that, in independent, impartial assessments, Harry the Hat Truman and Ilike Ike Eisenhower were to adjudge MacArthur a "dumb bastard."

Some opine that Herbert Heever deserved the same rating. Often amidst the general suffering he would dine richly with his whole family on the White House lawn in order to assure the Hungry Masses that all was not lost. He was a wonderful piece of work, most agree, who buggers description.

CHAPTER 28

FDR

Comparison is inedible when it comes to the two Roosevelts: who really deserves to be on Mt. Rushmore, Teddy or Franklin? Teddy was smarter, but, remember, it was Frank who bore the sobriquette the Sage of Monticello. Whatever the truth, FDR had a big crush on his dramatic cousin, so he started his own Presidency with a blockbuster declaration: the Only Thing we have to fear is Fear Itself.

The message was obvious to Yankee Doodle. The people _had_ to fear fear and nothing else. So folks went about it with a Dedication—and, remember, this was the Greatest Generation. "Fear fear" became the national mantra. Children learned to fear fear itself and fear of fear itself swept the nation's nursing homes.

The purpose? If you fear fear and (importantly) only fear, you shan't fear death, famine, hunger, taxes and war, and that's a Very Good Thing. That's what got Top Nation through the Great Depression, most opine, and the Second World War that followed.

Some contend that such a laserlike concentration on fear itself brought on the memorable Age of Anxiety. This, they contend, was especially true among males and females. However that may be, we must applaud FDR for delivering Top Nation from the Sludge of Despond (and all in ten easy words) to the marvels of Social Security.

CHAPTER 29

ALPHABET SOUP

To be sure, the Big Deal helped. This was an immassive flow of alphabet soup that nourished the suffering masses throughout the hard times of the Thirties and cured (especially the chicken-alphabet consummé) the Great Depression.

The Publicans demurred. Big Deal, hell, they grumbled. They hated the soup and even got the Serene Court to declare three of its tastiest noodles—the N, the R and the A—unconstitutional.

It was not the soup, the Publicans insisted, but WWII that ended the Depression. They may have been right, but who got the U.S. _into_ WWII if not FDR?

Roosevelt responded by trying to sack the Serene Court, but this proved to be even more unconstitutional than the soup. So, he desisted, regaling each of the Big Nine with a Silver Ladle instead.

CHAPTER 30

THE ENEMAS

Yankee Doodle's three strongest Enemas during WWII were, number one, Adolph Hitler, the memorable Nazi Furrier of Germany, with his crazed ideas of an Alien Race and his thirty crack Lederhosen divisions, the best (and best dressed) military units in the world; number two, the energetic but equally mad Japanese dictator, Hideki Mojo; and, third (though not everybody knew it at the time), "Pappa Joe" Stalin, FDR's one Bloodiest Mistake. The Italian Buffo, Benito M. Linguini, was also taken as a Strong Enema at first, but he turned out to be only a false report. This was a Very Good Thing.

There's no finer testament to the integument of the U.S. Constitution that we have been able not only to survive such an array of Enemas but to leave all behind ourselves.

CHAPTER 31

PEARL HARBOR INVITE

FDR itched to get into WWII. Not only was it another Great War but he had a Great Generation to fight it. He therefore sent secret letters to the Japanese Emperor, Hitherhereto, inviting Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and so give the U.S. an honorable pretext (war was inedible between the two powers, both agreed) to blast back.

The Emperor responded that these matters were not his department —his function was strictly to be an immassive exaltation to his people— and urged his friend to get in touch with Generalissimo Mojo. FDR did so with due thanks and apologies, but Mojo declined the offer "at this time."

CHAPTER 32

THE HAND THAT ROCKED THE CRADLE

Now, the President had practically evacuated the docks at Pearl Harbor of Worships, leaving only a few garbage scows for the sake of very similitude. This way, his strong, memorable fleet would escape destruction and he would get his romantic pretext for War at small cost. His offer rejected, he moved the fleet back to its immemorious moorings.

Then Mojo attacked, killing the _Arizona_ , the _Maine_ , the _Moniker_ , the _Santa Maria_ and innumerous other crafts. Roosevelt responded with his famously indigent "The Hand That Rocked the Cradle" speech[3] and, of course, got his pretext for War.

Now a True Confession. All of the above is a Coproful. It never happened that way. But how else to explain the Folly of leaving all that hardware so vulnerable to attack by so crafty and inedible a Foe? It buggers all reason.

CHAPTER 33

THE BOTTOM LINE

Still, when all is said, FDR ranks as one of Top Nation's Top Presidents of all Times and perhaps the most inspiring. In part, this is so because, though stricken with Polio in his young adulthood, which left him carrying twenty pounds of iron bracing at all times thereafter, he is rumored to have enjoyed at least two hush-hush romances in his Primal Years. It was all Plutonic, to be sure. Twenty pounds is twenty pounds in any man's league. But just to entertain two strange, warm ladies under such conditions and keep them harmonious with his War Aims and such required Mensch Enough, according to leading experts in the Field, and was very Inspiring.

Beyond that, from the homily Fireside Chat to four Inaugural Addresses and beyond, he was orotorically number one in the land. No less than Winnie across the sea, he talked an unprepared nation through a perilous war and kept Yankee Doodle safe for Democracy. Nonsense, say his memorable distractors. Deeds, not words, win wars, and the war was won by the gallant American Soldier. No one can say nay to that, but we can all say, "The Sage of Monticello," and that's a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 34

HARRY THE HAT

Harry "the Hat" Truman, so-called after the famous photograph, succeeded FDR and accomplished three strong, patriotic things during his rain. He ended one War, started another, and he sacked Douglas MacArthur.

He dropped two memorable Atomic Bombs on the Japanese to end World War II. The first he called the Enola Gay, a name Yankee Doodle has never understood—a gay Bomb? The second he dropped when the

Japanese failed to respond to the first. This one he dubbed the Lizzie Borden, which even the Enema seemed to understand. This was a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 35

THE GENERALISSIMO AGAIN

General MacArthur had won his spurs by beating up on peacefully protesting American war veterans during the memorable Hoover Depression (see Bonus Army). Later, he abandoned his troops at Bataan in the Philippines, promising, "I shall return," which he did in a brilliant photo-op, but only after they had suffered a literal Death March.

After Harry the Hat dumped him for insubordination, the Generalissimo had the Corleones to sing all six verses of "Old Soldiers Never Die" before a joint session of Congress, wearing only his immassive Hollywood sunglasses and his spurs.

CHAPTER 36

LOW EXPECTATIONS

Harry the Hat was not expected to win a second presidential term. He was opposed by the romantic Thomas E. Dewey, who was thought a shoo-in until his two hips were discovered to stand exactly equidistant from the ground—or, the floor, as the case may be.

This alone established strong grounds for suspicion against him, and he was found to be memorably over-exact in innumerous other particulars as well. Bottom line, he was well spared the Oval Office, as his brief presidency of _The Chicago Tribune_ and its hapless readership amply demonstrates.

CHAPTER 37

THE PALESTINIAN QUESTION

Harry the Hat created the State of Isreal according to the dictates of the strong, memorable Ballfour Declaration, which granted the Jews the territory of Palestine for a homeland—a Very Good Thing. The trouble was that, according to the Jews themselves, Palestine didn't exist. Hence, the Jews were still without a homeland—a Very Bad Thing.

Then, the romantic Premier, Goldie Meyer, and others came to the rescue by pointing out that it was the _Palestinians_ who did not (and never did) exist and not Palestine. Moreover, the Israelis insisted that the proper spelling of the place was not "Palestine" but "Palestein." Obviously, this opened up the territory for a free and democratic Jewish Influx.

CHAPTER 38

IMPASSE

Those millions of people who called themselves "Palestinians" insisted nonetheless that they did too exist and in "Palestine." _Oy Vey_ , sighed the Jews, if this folk could only accept its non-entity, we and they could breathe a big sigh of relief and move on. Is non-entity so bad, they pleaded. Where are the Snowballs of Yesteryear?

Luckily, it's not an American problem.

CHAPTER 39

ILIKE IKE

Ilike Ike, so called because you just couldn't help liking the guy, was the first bald president since John Quincy Adams, who was, we will recall, a polygon of baldness. Ike's only other flaw was a terrible temper, which, some opine, cost him his hair in the first place. An overheated cranium roasted the roots, it was adduced. This is doubtless a Coproful.

Even so, Ike may have won the presidency only because his opponent, Addley Stevenson, was an equally bald operative, who toiled besides under the doubly whammy of an unsayable and unspellable name and a scorchingly high IQ. (He was well spared the Oval Office.)

CHAPTER 40

GALAHAD

To illustrate the honor of his Intentions (to kill Germany), Ike rode all over romantic England for years in a jeep driven by a lengthy, delightful fashion model with the honeyed name of Kay Summersbee, and he never laid a nude finger on either her Uppers or her Nethers. Sir Galahad. And all of this romantic self-mastery he practiced just before launching the immassive Norman Invasion, potentially so perilous to his Life and Limbs. If another general had harbored Amorous Institutions, in other words, he would have played the mercy card. Not Ilike Ike.

True, he did kiss Ms. Summersbee under the Middletoe one memorious Christmastide at Bath (they needed one badly), but just once, mind, and no skin! Most opine that this was Ike's most shiney hour.

CHAPTER 41

GENERAL IKE

Militarily, his motto was that of every thinking dogface: Do Nothing. Delegate all the tough stuff to glorydogs like Mutton and Montgomery and just wave the baton from the wings, so to speak. That's the way he handled the Norman Invasion—by remote control from Beaches in Omaha, if History is to be trusted, and Utah.

That's how he ran the presidency too. The one time he tried to do something constructive and memorable, he was caught with his hand in the crookie jar by the Crapulent Soviet Chairman, Crushoff, and was forced to eat a Crow (U2). The Bird he enjoyed, but he was deeply embarrassed.

CHAPTER 42

SUMMING UP

When his eight eventless years in the Oval Office were finished, he saved everything for his Farewell Advice to the Nation: Beware a Military-Industrial Complexion—code words for "Richard Millhorse Nixon (his now-memorable Vice-President at the time)." Of course, no one listened.

All in all, Ilike Ike was a Very Good Thing Indeed for the country. He rained over Yankee Doodle's most prosperous decade, the Fifties, when nobody did anything but scarf ice cream sundaes and dream the American Dream (q.v.)—precisely Ike's own favorite activities throughout his long and brilliant career. This was a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 43

WINNIE

Winnie (not "the Pooh") Churchill was the Chandler of England during WWII. Thereupon, armed with the greatest triumph the Western World had ever known, he was dumped from office without alimony by the bored and weary (and nearly manless) sovereign electorate of England. Still, the bold lizard had one last, memorable Great Thing up his sleeve.

He invented an Iron Curtain in Concordia, Missouri (of all places) long enough to circumcise the entire World.

Also, he was credited with being the only recorded Human Being ever to paint with a lit cigar. There's more. While in an "artistic trance," according to his wife, Sara, an amiable Woman who looked like a Man, he once sat working for forty-eight hours straight with a Cubano clenched tight in his bulldog jaws (the dog, sad to say, hated the stogie, but, never fear, he survived to sire a hundred happy hounds in his time).

The Pooh meanwhile wrote the entire first volume of his memorable _History_ in that trance. He was a cherubic little man with a rotund belly and a perfectly round nose. This was a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 44

THE DESIGN

The Iron Curtain was not designed to keep the Soviets out, Pooh explained, but to show that East is East and West is West, no less than in Kipling's day. Kipling, though long dead, protested that he never said "any such bloomin' thing." The jury is still out on this difficult matter.

CHAPTER 45

THE KENNEDYS

The Kennedys were a strongly romantic set, but also very Tragic. Jack and Jackie lived a fairy-tale marriage. They were wed memorably in Camelot, and Jackie soon conducted Yankee Doodle on a top-rated, gracious TV tour of the whole of Albion. But the couple made the fairy-tale mistake of renting the Castle for only a Thousand Days.

Jack, who had a terrible bad back, nonetheless had a strong, romantic pinchant for blondes, redheads and brunettes, especially if they started with an M (q.v.) or M-M-M (who wished him "Happy Birthday" big-time right on the Tube). The pubic and the pepperoni enjoyed the glamour as much as the principal participants (Jackie perhaps excluded), and soon the lease was up.

CHAPTER 46

PRESIDENT JACK'S WORDS

Jack, who had very strong hair, was consequently very strongly eloquent. Case in point: "Ask not what you can do for your Country, but what your Country can do for you," also: "From this day forward, the Torch has been passed to a New Generation of Americans." What makes this last so effective is that no one actually ever saw this memorable Torch that had been passed. Was it an Electric Torch? Was it a Firebrand? It's all in the unforgettable Rotoric.

CHAPTER 47

HIS DEEDS

Jack gave Top Nation the Peace Corps, a kind of boot camp for the high-minded, which has been straightening out innumerous American Youths of all Races and Genders ever since. This was a Very Good Thing.

He conducted the smelly, dangerous Bay of Pigs foray which failed to turn up a single Pig aside from that wily bore, Nikita Crushoff, who was sent packing back to the U.S.S.R. along with his illicit Nucular Missals. Jack's One Biggest Mistake was to deal himself into a high-stakes Dominoes game in Indo-China, where he lost an immassive Heap of national treasures and beaucoup Monies besides.

CHAPTER 48

THE BERLIN AIRLIFT

General Curtis Lemay, who later stared in the blockbuster film, _Dr. Strangeglove_ , had bombed fragile Dresden back to the Stone Age during WWII. About now, the East Berliners (Commie) built a wall to West Berlin (Free), cutting off the West's food supply and its Liberty.

Lemay offered two memorable solutions. One, bomb West Berlin back to the Stone Age, so that the Enema couldn't get his hands on it; two, airlift West Berlin further West to the area of Ulm, say, or Sauerbraten and set it down there out of harm's way. Lemay said he had the bombers and the skyhooks needed to do the job, whether bombing or lifting. Wisely, JFK declined both offers.

CHAPTER 49

THE MEMORABLE SINGLE-BULLET THEORY

The so-called Warren Commission, headed by the helmetless president-to-be, Jerry Ford, found that a single bullet sped from the Texas Book Suppository in Dallas entered and left and entered again the limo in which Texas John Connoley (the Suppository's real target?) was riding, passed clean through his unscathed body and then proceeded fatally _backward_ to blast out the rear of the President's massive head (which was also in the car at the time) and then nearly nicked the Fast Lady as she scrambled out of harm's way.

The assassin, according to the Commission: Lee Harvey Oddball. The motive? He hated Irishmen. A puff of smoke above the Greasy Moll to the right-front of the limo (whence, most opine, the bullet undoubtably came) signifies nothing, according to Ford and Company. There's always a puff of smoke above the Greasy Moll.

CHAPTER 50

MR. CONSERVATIVE

About now, Barry Goldfinger, a one-time merchandising maggot from Arizona, wrote and published a book called _The Conscience of a Conservative_ , which established that, once you get down to the rock bottom of it, Conservatives have no Conscience. (Otherwise, most opine, the C word would occur at least _once_ somewhere in the text.) The book went on to become a cult classic, honing the political fangs of all power Publicans ever since. They even had a Mantra of their own, the strong, memorable Three No's: No Onions, No Taxes, No Foreign Aid and No Government. So far, so good.

CHAPTER 51

THE IMPOTENCE OF JAWS

Goldfinger went on to be clobbered in the next election by LBJ. This was a Very Bad Thing for his career. He had jaws of granite, a rival of FDR himself in presidential jawryand he very palpably would have made a memorable Oval Officer on this asset alone if his luck had been better.[4]

But, not to worry. Waiting in the wings was the immemorious Ronald Reagan himself, Goldfinger with a Twinkle. Meanwhile, nobody has ever figured out what Conscience Goldfinger was thinking of.

CHAPTER 52

MLK

Capping off a memorable March on Washington, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. reported a Dream. He climbed a red hill in Georgia (in the dream) and saw down below white children sitting together with black children at the Table of Brotherhood. This particular Table has yet to be located in waking hours.

Scoping the horizon, he saw the same Table in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, the Carolinas and, possibly, in Arkansas and Tennessee. These Tables also remain under intensive search.

This Vision so endeared MLK to the dream-loving Yankee Doodle (see the American Dream) that he was awarded a day of commemoration all his own. He also rang up the Noble Peace Prize, and he was duly elevated next to Henrietta Tubman in the Top Galaxy of Black American Luminaries. Even though the top lady (Henrietta) doesn't have a day of her own, they remain twin polygons of Great American Corleones all over the world. Meanwhile, a Table-Sighting has been reported in California.

CHAPTER 53

LBJ

A Demagogue's Demagogue, Lyndon Banes Johnson was a great Texan. He dreamed Texas Big, and he dreamed most of all of building a Great Society. This stuck in the craws of the Publicans, who thought we already had a Great Society. Who's Top Nation anyway, they croaked and cawed reasonably. So, nothing much came of the idea except innumerous spent monies, which also galled Hell out of the Publicans.

CHAPTER 54

MAJORITY MAN

Johnson had better luck earlier on as Senate Majority Leader, coercing his memorable Demagogic colleagues to see things his way. With a romantic Texas smile, he would demonstrate to the Press how he would lift the Lawmakers off the floor two at a time by their ears and shake and conk them till they came up with the correct, patriotic answer to his advisements.

Only he'd perform the act not with the statesmen themselves, but with Him and Her (his own two beagles), just for the photo opportunity. The dogs did not like it one bit, observers reported, and neither did the conked, memorable statesmen.

CHAPTER 55

THE KING KONG

The war with Ho C. Min (King Kong Chairperson) was begun, as indicated earlier, by President Kennedy. Some opine that Ilike started it, but Ilike was just too nice a guy to have started a dumb, immassive war like that. He ended them. So, LBJ simply inherited the fracas, and, it must be said, he fracked it up pretty good.

Many opine that he regarded it as his own personal toy. Consider the Tonka Golf affair. He cooked up an attack on a U.S. worship to get us into a short pitch-and-putt situation with the Enema. (The reader will remember the _Lithuania_.)

He chose this course because his generals kept seeing lights at the end of tunnels, forgetting that there are a million tunnels in Viet Nam, all filled with innumerous King Kong worriers. The big brass were just scoping up the wrong ones.

CHAPTER 56

THE TIT PERPLEX

His bitterest pill was the Tit Erection. The slippery King Kong pulled off a surprise uprising on the holy day of Tit all over enema (U.S.) territory. Yankee Doodle kicked their buts, yet the memorable American Press called it a defeat. Why? Because we didn't suspect the Kong had the resources to pull off such a large Erection.

It almost sounds like the young Arbusto thirty years later. We kick beaucoup Iraqi but, and even though Arbusto Jr. announces it so smartly on the deck of the high seas —a big PR coop—, the press calls it a defeat. This too galls the Publicans. It hardly pays to start a war any more, they grumble, much less win one.

CHAPTER 57

BACK AT THE FARM

Johnson knew he had to go once he blew the King Kong caper, so he announced his glum decision not to seek remuneration, all unaware that he was leaving the door open for his old Nemesis, the honorable senator from Transylvania, Tricky Dicky Nixon. LBJ retreated to his big Texas ranch, where he drove his Caddy convertible rough, hard and fast over its rugged by-ways from dawn to dusk—often running out of gas without a fill-up in sight—brooding over his Miseries.

On his days off in Crawford, the young, disgraced Arbusto cleared brush on his Texas spread with Gusto and no hint of melancholy or regret, and the retired Ronnie Reagan criss-crossed his California holdings on horseback in a benign Daze whenever he could; but nobody came apart at seams as indignominously—or so adolescently, some opine— as the strong, memorable LBJ.

CHAPTER 58

LEGACY

By his own estimate, Johnson's finest accomplishment was the Voting Rights Act. This was a Very Strong Measure that vouchsafed to all African-Americans the same free access to the Ballot Box already guaranteed to them by the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Silver War, most plainly a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 59

BOBBY

Bobby Kennedy was more of a family man than Brother Jack, turning out nine children before he was nineteen. He looked like Bugs Bunny before his brother's assassination, whereupon he began to resemble the great Ancient Greek Tragedian, Aeschylus. This miffed J. Edgar Hoover, the memorable Grime Czar of the FBI, who insisted that _he_ looked like the Great Ancient Greek Tragedian, Aeschylus.

The whole thing ended in a messy run for the Demagogic Nomination, which found Bobby dead on the kitchen floor. After Jack and MLK and all, this was the Worst Bad Thing that could have happened, most Pundints opine, and Yankee Doodle didn't yodel for a year.

* * * * *

PART III

### THE QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 1

THE INDIAN QUESTION

No other Question has been wrapped up and laid to rest more neatly than the Indian Question. At first, this and other questions were answered satisfactorily by never being asked, whereas, later, the answer was regularly "No."

Even when the Pigeons were few, they found themselves coveting more and more of Indian land. It was only natural. Following the romantic dictates of Manifold Destiny, we rolled the Native North Americans back to the Pacific Ocean, reserving them Fertile Lands, of course, all along the Way. When that land turned out to be a little _too_ fertile, we displaced them again and settled them on real reservations (all Stone and Dust for hundreds of miles in all directions).

Unsatisfied, our Feathered Friends squawked for generations until, eureka! The Solution was found. Allow them Casino Licenses, let them rake it in like any other gambling maggot, and everybody wins—the American Way (q.v.).

Some complain that the casino money has stuck to the fingers of the Damn Few, but, hey, what's more Capitalistic American than that? Problem solved—a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 2

THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN QUESTION

The blacks have traveled an equally difficult Road, albeit they've enjoyed separate but equal accommodations along the way. This was Jim Crow, who ruled especially in Dixie, until he came into the combined sights of Rosie Parks and MLK. Jim croaked.

Then came Informative Action, so called because a series of Riotous Actions informed the establishment that something Huge had better be done quick. This is a law providing that all bright and brilliant African-Americans be given a free ticket to the Big Show. Then, after they've prospered, they would be in a position to help their less-gifted brothers and sisters rise from their own bootstraps.

The African-Americans, meanwhile, are the folk responsible for Yankee Doodle's one and only original contribution to world culture, to wit, Louie, Dizzy, Miles and Thelonius. They may yet be rewarded for this Awesome Thing, especially if it makes somebody obscenely Rich, but not yet.

Some—especially the likes of the Skinheads and the Imperial Buzzards— have hated Informative Action on sight, and the Publicans don't love it on principle, but look who's sitting in the Oval Office. This is a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 3

THE WOMEN'S QUESTION

Ever since the publication of _The Feminine Oblique_ , the American Woman has clamored to be free. There was a problem without a name, the ladies discovered, and the name was "Men."

So they showed some Strong and Memorable Magic. The elastic odor generated by bra-burning ceremonies wafted throughout the land. Instantly, men were turned into pigs—Male Calvinist Pigs, to be exact. Few men knew what a Calvinist was, but they all suspected the meaning of "pig," and they smarted hotly under the inflammation.

Most men soon came round, mumbling they had no idea. Why didn't the little ladies just say what they meant? Those who resisted were banished to the far right corner of the sty and fed a steady diet of Unmixed Scorn.

Free at last, women started working eighty hours a week, joining the Army as common dogfaces and punching each other silly in the Prize Ring. Men meanwhile discovered the Mop and the memorable Pail. This was a Very Good Thing! This is the American Way!

CHAPTER 4

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

But, sure as sin, success led to Political Correctness and soon you couldn't drink and drive or even smoke and drive at the same time. You couldn't call a Native North American an Injun and you had to wear a condom at all times. Why? Because it was brute Patriarchy not to, that's why.

Political correctness isn't easy. To illustrate, let's revert to the Indian Question for a moment. No Native North American had ever heard of an Indian before Columbus, and so he/she can no longer be called "Indian." So far, a Very Good Thing, but maybe not good enough.

Will "Native North American Summer" (to distinguish it from "Native South American Summer") fly in place of the romantic "Indian Summer?" And how about the memorable "Indian Burn?" "Native North American Burn?" We won't even touch "Indian Giver," unless they twist the phrase to mean giving a Native North American something you intend to take right back, like Native North American Reservations that are fertile and can support a few buffaloes.

CHAPTER 5

THE GAY BRIDAL VEIL

Immediately then the Gays demanded the Bridal Veil, children, divorce, tax breaks, alimony—the full catastrophe—just like the straits and heteros. Yankee Doodle didn't understand. In the military service, he knew, Gays enjoy innumerous Romantic Lesions and nobody says "boo."

So what shall it be for our gallant gaiety, we wonder, secrecy or the pubic altar? Only Top Nation can solve this romantic conundrum, and the answer, we are confident, will be a resounding "Yes!" This is a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 6

THE IRISH QUESTION (1)

Readers of the immoral _1066 and All That_ will recall that the memorable authors, Messiers Sailers and Yeats, had big trouble solving the Irish Question. We shall solve it here.

Ireland was first settled by Scotland, just as Scotland was first inhibited by Ireland. The first Invaders, nonetheless, were the Welsh Vikings. Thus the expression "Welsh on a boat."

This was also the cause of Brian (or Brien) BooHoo and, worse, of those tribes of sniveling arse-kickers who call themselves O'Brian (or O'Brien).

The grounds of the quarrels between the Irish and the Scots was their proudly different brands of Whiskey. We're not talking taste here or quality. We're talking Wallop. The shinbone of contention was which of the two brews would knock you on your Arse sooner, Irish or Scotch. This was a Very Good Thing.

Innumerous warring Alcoholic Contests between the two sides were slugged out, especially in the Green Hills of Northern Ireland. Each side offered a panel of twenty Lads Bred to the Brew. The contests were unbearably entertaining and loose, but never Decisive.

The first on his Arse was always an Irishman, but the Last Man Standing was also an Irishman—and not always the same Irishman. Thus, fistic (a.k.a. "mystic") squabbles continually broke out between the two parties and a writ of _nolo contendere_ had to be enacted.

CHAPTER 7

THE IRISH QUESTION (2)

HEXAGAMOUS HARRY

This attracted the attention of the Merry Menarche of Many Wives, Harry VIII. He attempted to annex Ireland—just because it seemed the Right Thing to Do—, but he didn't wholly succeed. To make a long story short, no English king or queen wholly succeeded. And no Parliament.

To illustrate, Essex (who was neither king nor queen), tried and failed—and in the process lost his inside track to the much coveted Virgin Queen, Victoria (see Raleigh).

CHAPTER 8

IRISH QUESTION (3)

CRUMWELL

Only the memorable, roundheaded P (for "Puritan") Crumwell succeeded. One day, as he scorch-earthed his way to Doblin, he asked an Old Woman lingering by the roadside for directions. "Póg ma thoin," said the Crone.

Crumwell was delighted. This was the only Irishperson to address him civilly since he invaded the place. "Póg ma thoin" means "Kiss my arse" in Gaelic.

THE IRISH QUESTION (4)

This, however, was not the Irish Question. The Irish Question was what in Hell to do with the Irish now that they had been conquered. There was Hell to pay right up to the heyday of Tom Collins, who made all the English drunk during the memorable Easter Erection and Beyond.

But the Potato Famine had subtly provided the answer. The Irish lived on potatoes, but the potato crop, unfortunately, was felled by a strong and incurable famine. Unfed, the plants all withered and died of hunger and innumerous Irish followed.

CHAPTER 10

THE IRISH QUESTION (5)

THE SOLUTION

Then somebody eurekaed: Embark for America! Half of the Refugees left for Boston and New York and Half (the memorable Protestants) left for Kentucky, where they mined Coal and caused the matchless Hillbilly.[5] Eddie Arnold, Hank Snow, you name it.

The romantic Catholics of New York and Boston became Cops and Politicians, and, thus, they mastered the Ancient Arts of Graft and Corruption. They thrived, drowned their Guilt in Drink and Song and so answered the Irish Question once and forever. This was a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 11

THE GERMAN-AMERICAN QUESTION

The great German-American Question is—where the Hell have you been, Hans?

The Germans came to America in greater numbers than any other Race, Nation or Creed. Nobody opposed them. Nobody mocked, thwarted, exploited, harassed or sneered them down.

They headed straight for the romantic Midwest, put down roots, tilled the soil, filled the granaries and, in short, they fed a HungryNation from strudel to schnapps. Peaceable, solid citizens, they made fine, patriotic Soldiers and so became the Backbone of the Nation.

They gave us Ilike Ike, Ruth, Gehrig, Steinbeck, Anheuser, Busch, Schwarzenegger and the handsome and romantic Lawrence Welk—nothing, though, in proportion to their numbers. And, Ilike aside, they have given us zero presidents. The Irish have given us at least eighteen!

Wise Kopfs see a silver lining, however. So, the German-Americans are a little retarded, they opine, but maybe they are just coming a little late to the party. Soon we will all be wearing Lederhosen and lifting our Singing Steins of Pilsner to salute a drunken Yankee Doodle at Oktoberfest. This is a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 12

THE ITALIAN-AMERICAN QUESTION

There is no Italian-American Question. This is a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 13

THE TEX-MEX QUESTION

Mexicans tend to look upon the Long Stare State and romantic California as Sirloined Mexico. So they like to visit often. It's only natural. Trouble is, Gringos tend to despise them because they are willing to do jobs—cheaply and well—that no one else is willing to do. This never changes. This is a Very Good Thing.

* * * * *

PART IV

### THE AMERICAN MIND

CHAPTER 1

THE AMERICAN DREAM

The American Dream started modestly as a Chicken in Every Pot and a Pot in Every Garage. This is what has drawn indignant Mexicans across the border in ceaseless droves ever since the days of Yolk and Santa Anna. This is what has lifted the hopes of the downtrodden and the depraved everywhere—to get to these shores and dream the good old, dependable American Dream.

But the Dream has expanded steadily of late (as befits Yankee Doodle's love of size) to include a long, healthy, prosperous life of unbroken pleasure and ease and the sure reward of Heaven. This is called Entitlement, and is therefore a Very Good Thing indeed.

CHAPTER 2

THE AMERICAN WAY

Every land has axions of honor and immoral shibboleths of behavior to live by, and Yankee Doodle (though way superior) isn't any different from the rest. Here's a look at the American Way, but only the tip of the Iceberg:

Honor the Flag

Honor the Stars and Stripes

Honor God

Honor Women

Honor the Elderly

Kick Some Arse

Kiss a Baby

Protect Children

Protect Your Gun

Root for the Underdog

Take Life's Knocks with a Smile

Fight Back

Give till it Hurts

Keep Your Mouth Shut

Win, Baby, Win

Never Say Die

Keep Your Powder Dry

Shoot to Kill

Never Point an Unloaded Gun

Never Beg

Never Apologize

Get Yours

Get All You Can

Shun Alimony

Shun Taxes

Shun Texas

Shun Death

Have no Mercy

Never Complain

Never Explain

And that's just the tip of the Iceberg.

CHAPTER 3

THE AMERICAN LOVER

Car romance remains a big thing in America. Some automobile lovers stick to exterior pleasures with their Babies—the color, shape and gleam of their Bodies, which they keep matriculously clean and blooming by their own Loving Strokes.

Others take their honeys entirely apart, examining their intestines like Dr. Humbert, probing their carburetors, sanding their plugs and reaming their romantic piston sleeves right down to their Exhaust Tubes. Generally, these lads are smeared with lubricant when they finally finish, and the cars love it. This is a Very Good and Wholesome Thing.

CHAPTER 4

DUMMIES

Big times are just ahead for the American Dummy. We're not talking robots or the like, but heartless, brainless blockheads, like the crash-test variety or the Kens and Barbies of the world. Top Nation scientists have come up with programs to teach any Dummy all that he/she needs to make it big in the complex economies to come, just like the most brilliant of human beings. Check it out. Calculus for Dummies, PCs for Dummies, Brain Surgery for Dummies and innumerous other programs of the kind are already available at your friendly corner bookstore.

The object is to allow the nation's memorable teens to remain the same mindless Narcissists they have learned to become in high school, while their personal Dummies pursue their careers in their stead and bring home their Bacons.

So, youngsters are urged to hold on to their Barbies, as they may soon be striding the streets with a purpose and climbing the corporal ladders of Success all on their own. This is a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 5

HAPPY AMERICA

Americans are happier, smarter and younger than people of comparable age anywhere else in the World, according to a recent Pole. That's because we are so much better fed. Memorably, we are all hated for this.

We are also strongly hated because we are fat, democratic and love the Death Penalty. Poor Yankee Doodle, many wouldn't mind subjecting _him_ to the Death Penalty himself, not to mention that "smelly old goat," Uncle Sam.[6] Let's just concentrate on cooling the Globe, we gently urge.

CHAPTER 6

A NEW ERA

On February 30, 2007, all American libraries officially closed their doors to the Common Reader for all time. Books, shelves, catalogues, librarians and all other printed materials were carted away to await recycling at a monster central Suppository in Kansas, Missouri.

They were then instantly replaced by endless banks and banks of Computers. "Way more sanitary," remarked the memorable Federal Commandant of Libraries, "and way more romantic," as he welcomed in "the new era of the American Mind." This is a Very Good Thing.

* * * * *

PART V

### AMERICAN CULTURE

CHAPTER 1

AMERICAN MYTHOLOGY

Yankee Doodle has no time for mythology because he was born, like the rest of the Fondling Fathers, in the Age of Enlightningment. So no self-respecting American believes any of those memorable old stories about anybody (except Jesus) mounting the Heavens or descending into Hell.

About the closest thing we have to offer is the memorable King of the North Woods, Paul Bunion and his blue-eyed ox named Baby. The reason for the blue eyes was the immassively Cold Temperatures the animal had to endure.

Bunion himself had no need for shelter, to be precise, so he assumed the same for his Chattels. He had a pet Bunny named Pete, for instance, who was blue for the same sub-zero reasons.

Paul was a polygon of great American Qualities. First, he could keep his mouth shut in all circumstances. Very American. Then also, he could take a beating with the best of them. Ditto. Also, though nearly Sexless, he was kind and gentle toward Women of every stripe and condition. Top-drawer Top Nation. Next, he could kick arse all day long. Strong, essential American. Besides, he would always help you out in a jam (or a pickle). Memorable, big-hearted American. Finally, he could barely read, also very Yankee Doodle.

Still, all in all, Paul just wasn't violent or kick-ass enough to last very far into the Twentieth Century, let alone stick out among the savage robo-heads of today.

Other potential heroes likewise faded on feet of clay. To illustrate, the memorable Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley opened an ice cream parlor together after their colorful careers were finished, but they couldn't make a go of it, as ice cream melts.

CHAPTER 2

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY

Emerston, Thorough, James, Santana and Dewey (who later ran for president) are all passé now, and so are all their strong, memorious thoughts and systems. This includes James' lovely Fragmatism, the most American philosophy of them all.

How so? As epismetology lost its spectacles a couple of generations ago, everything that was known philosophically began to get hazy and uncertain, and when the Heavy Thinkers finally put two and two together, they found that the French had sirloined the entire Field.

Worse, not content to control the Philosophical Future, they (the French) started deconstructing (i.e., demolishing to hell) the Philosophical Past. The inedible result was the Post-Modern World (sic).

Initially, this description was taken to signify (while itself remaining the signified) the day after tomorrow, so to say. Not so, said the wise and romantic Frogs. It signifies (sans signifier) everything that has happened or failed to happen since the discovery (Frog) that God is Dead. Accordingly, everything that exists now is the Future, but without essence.

Next, the French will tackle Space.

CHAPTER 3

AMERICAN ART

Fine painting in America started in the Hudson River, where our strong, memorable Dutch Uncles established a memorable Academy of Art, to wit, the Hudson River School, which is still standing today.

The art that came out of the River was clear as a bell. But then Yankee Doodle, embarrassed (if not disgraced) himself with the Frog-style drip-droppings of the twentieth century. Nobody could make out a thing.

The solution came in the strong, strange form of Andy Warhole. Warhole was so representational that his cans of Cannibal Soup have nourished innumerous hordes of the homeless (and hungry) in times of pressing need. This then caused the Garbage Can School. This was a Very Good Thing.

Andy also nourished the Spirit, bequeathing fifteen minutes of his Fame to every living being (including plants and fish) for as long as they endured. This was a mensch.

CHAPTER 4

AMERICAN LITERATURE

Melville, Wharton, Hawthorn, James, Ethan From et al., the classic American authors, need not detain us here, because nobody reads the classics any more.

Ernest Hemingway, who feeds us wounds, war and onion sandwiches, was the papa of the new Lost Generation, even though he was scarcely of age. The Generation itself, meanwhile, was only recently found and then, unfortunately, lost again. He was very romantic.

William Faulkner populated a whole imaginative County in Mississippi. He was given a medal for this strong, memorable deed and also the Noble Prize.

F. Scotch Fitzgerald gave us America's greatest plot, Jay Gatsby, a bootlegging Daydreamer, murdered in his magnificent swimming pool by a Nobody, who would never have done it if he had been invited to even One of Gatsby's fabulous bashes at his gay Long Island mansion. This was a true American Tragedy, mourned by many.

J. D. Salinger invented Holden Garfield, another Great American, and then had the Corleones to spurn Pubic Fame. Though he continued to write, he never published again. He therefore perished.

As a writer, John Updyke (aka the "Last Mandolin") was a professor waiting to be born for a good forty years. He is best known for flaying a Rabbit in broad daylight.

Tarmac McCarthy (the inedible Irishman) is subject to profound seizures of Violence and Browbeating, but is otherwise harmless. This is a Very Good Thing.

Thomas Pinchon ( _The Gravid Rainbow_ _)_ keeps writing huge, complicated Masterpieces that nobody ever finishes. This leads to forgetting his very name or else confusing it with Thomas Styron. This he doesn't really mind as he too spurns the Pubic Eye.

Vladimir Nabokov, the Fairest of them All, had the power to convey that a "Lolita" is identical to a "nymphet," neither of which had been remotely suspected in the previous Anals of American Literature. This is a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 5

THE POET'S CORNER

T. S. Eliot wrote _A Practical Book of Cats_ in poetic form, which, once it was turned into a musical comedy, rained for fifty years on the Boards. It is still raining. No verse had ever touched so many Americans over so many years since the Song of Salmon, who didn't even speak English.

Wallace Stevens gave us the strong, scary _Snow Man_.

Robert Frost proved that a poet needs leisure. Who else but a poet has the time to stop by a Woodside on a Snowy Evening, much less to watch the woods fill up with Snow? This is so rare it's almost Strange. And miles to go before he sleeps?

Emily Dickinson was a poetic genus if ever there was one. This is a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 6

THE AMERICAN PRESS

Newspapers (invented by Ben Franklin) started out as one-sheet affairs. Subtract the Crossword Puzzle and you barely had room left for a short editorial. This was a Very Good Thing, because Yankee Doodle likes nothing better than a Crossword Puzzle, especially if it's easy. Meanwhile, the sheets weren't big enough to wrap a middle-sized fish.

Next, the printers got nasty. The things Honest Abe was called shouldn't happen to a Dog. Then, when they grew up, the papers went the opposite way—toward even-handed objectivity.

The result was the strong, memorable Gray Lady, who raised the Doodler to the apex of his Intellectual Progress—this despite the fact that she stuck to strictly the news that was fit to print.

All has been a smooth downhill glide ever since. Radio cut into the news sheet. Then the camera buried the Gray Lady, especially the color TV camera. The newspaper has become brighter but smaller and smaller, so that, some opine, it will soon contract into the same form in which it started, a single sheet.

Now it's all TV. In that Quiet Hour when one used to relax with a paper, one skips the news entirely (boring) for Reality—people eating fresh worms or raw rat snouts to see who barfs first. This is a Very Good Thing. This is why they call it the Fifth Estate, of which, incidentally, few can name the first four.

CHAPTER 7

AMERICAN MUSIC

Now the Brits of England made their final counterrevolutionary move against Yankee Doodle when they unleashed Musical Forces like the romantic Bottles, the Rolling Clones and the memorable Dead Zeppelins across the sea. When the dust settled, all native strains of music (jazz foremost) were extinguished for a generation and a day.

This was the strong, memorable generation of the Baby Boogers, which had already been glazed over by sex, booze and the strong, romantic Cannibal Weed. It was these Booger Babies, in fact, who discovered the immassive joys of sex, and those that they didn't discover they borrowed from old picture books and hairy movies.

This is called Pronagraphy and the result was a Very Good Thing. Such seductions rendered the Boogers unfit for military service, and everybody partied till Dawn.

CHAPTER 8

THE AMERICAN GANGSTER

Americans love their gangsters, giving them cute nicknames like Babyface, Machine Gun and the ever-popular Bugsy. The most memorable grime family is the Goodfathers, surnamed Corleone, which gives you an idea of their Gentle Makeup. They were businessmen (Olive Oil) who specialized in offers (e.g., Extra Virgin) you couldn't refuse.

Young Michael Corleone, a college law school kid, makes one such offer to the chief of police himself and later on, less zestily, to his own duffus brother. He also loses his marriage to his Wife, who has no idea what family obligations are. He did know, and that's why Yankee Doodle took him to his bosom. That's why Spaghetti Sunday has spread throughout the land. We're all Family now, and that's a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 9

BASEBALL AND APPLE PIE

Because both originated in America, Baseball and Apple Pie are Yankee Doodle's favorite pastimes. Baseball was invented by that magnificent busybody, Benjamin Franklin.[7] Apple Pie, though its Origins are harder to pinpoint, is absolutely delicious.

Still, some say that it is misplaced in the formula (Baseball and Apple Pie) and that the combination should read, Baseball and Barbecue or Bottled Beer, or whatever, but, mark ye well, Baseball stays put in the formula, and that's because of Baby Ruth, the sport's hands-down strongest and most memorable Immoral.

Baseball is the house that Ruth built. Its foundations were laid in the Bronx, New York, and, with a certain inedibility, it spread brick by brick all the way to Japan. The Japanese had to grow some in order to play the game at the highest level, and, memorably, they did so, so that today they are everywhere in the Bigs.

Most observers are happy that the sport never spread to China. A beefy spurt of growth there would overcrowd an already overcrowded population and could cause problems for the entire Inhibited World.

CHAPTER 10

AMERICAN EDUCATION I

Everybody knows that American Education is the best in the world, but it wasn't always that way. Once teaching consisted only of Greek and Latin (see J. Q. Adams et al.). Kids hated it, as was only natural, and were learning almost nothing until the hocus and the pocus was eliminated around the beginning of the next century.

It was then travelers discovered that Latin wasn't being spoken, even in Rome, and hadn't been for centuries—in fact, it was Greek to everyone concerned. This was disconcerting only to those few Doodlers who had taken (and given pains) to master both Zombie Languages, right down to the last _honc._

Then American education broke into the clear. Take Engineering. To be brief, it was the principals of Yankee know-how that built everything soundly constructed everywhere in the known world ever since. To be even briefer, the whole process peaked with the construction of several strong, memorable Bridges to Nowhere.

The Publicans squawked at the expense, but these projects had their immassive upsides nevertheless. Not only was Shangri-La sighted, thanks to those romantic bridges, but innumerous Castles in Air. And, on the human side, Tonto, the Boogeyman and Daffy Duck. This was a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 11

AMERICAN EDUCATION II

Sad to say, none of these praises applies to the packaging engineers, those memorable sadists who force us to use pointed knives in order to open a pack of marshmallows. By rights, these should be subjected to a bamboo caning at least once a year and God forbid that they should ever set their hands to the human condom.

CHAPTER 12

AMERICAN EDUCATION III

The biggest jewel in America's educational crown is undoubtedly the Business School. Not the Business Program or Department but the full coup, the School of Business. The Greeks would have scoffed. They hated business, considering it beneath the dignity of a fully developed human being. But let's be fair. Look at what's become of their economy lately.

So the best and the brightest came in droves. Why not? Who hasn't dreamed of becoming a memorable Business Maggot and Master of the Universe? The last designation proved especially popular. Many successful masters took to wearing strong, colorful costumes à la Superman etc., and one memorable fellow lost his life trying to leap unshaved from a tall building. This was a Very Good Thing.

The Business Schools made the super-rich (their Graduates) a special class. Besides the daily pleasures of playing with their Derivatives (see fabulous Fabrice), they can name their own Bonuses, pack their own Golden Parachutes, bank offshore, get too fat to fail, and if all else blows up, count on a pubic bailout. This is a very good deal, unthinkable if the Business School had not parked the Arts and Sciences on a disappearing island.

CHAPTER 13

AMERICAN EDUCATION IV

As for K-12, experts agree that the only way to save these poor devils is to set them on the tried and true highroad of Greek and Latin studies. This is a Very Good Thing.

* * * * *

PART VI

### FROM NIXON TILL NOW

CHAPTER 1

THE ANTIMONIES

Enter the smiling, clumsy Richard Mulehose Nixon, God's own study in opposites:

1. He had an ever-ready Colgate smile and the body language of Count Dracula.

2. He was a Quacker and he hated Peace.

3. He sported the best whole-body V-for-Victory stance in the business, but he was the Biggest American Loser of the twentieth century.

4. He was a slick California lawyer, but also a moonlighting Plumber without portfolio.

5. He couldn't get enough of his darling pooch, Checkers, but also his ferocious attack mastiff, Hairy Harry Messinger.

6. And that's just the tip of the Iceberg.

CHAPTER 2

THE TRICKSTER

Richard M. was a born Trickster, and so he won the memorable moniker Dirty Tricky Dicky because all of his innumerous tricks seemed to be dirty.

He was way too smart for the Oval Office, it goes without saying, and way too paranoid. He thought that the Great Silent Majority (which he might have invented) disliked him, and he was 99% correct.

More important, everybody distrusted him, and that's why he finally won the Oval Office on the third try. Yankee Doodle needed a Slick Operator to get him out of the tangled toils of King Kong, and Dirty Dick was his Organ of Choice.

CHAPTER 3

THE PLUMBER

Nixon's biggest accomplishment was to tear down the Wall to China. His most embarrassing blunder was his botched attempted plumbing of the Watergate Hotel, without license, work order or permit.

In briefs, he broke into the premises under cover of darkness in order to adulterate the water supply of the Demagogic National Committee. "Not kill 'em," he informed his Heavy Hatchet Man, Charles Gullson, "but to scorch their gullets."

He was accompanied by the memorable C. Gordon Lady, a completely bald operative who toted the big wrenches. Mr. Lady also wore briefs.

Dirty Dicky couldn't find the Pipe he was looking for, as it happened, and, besides, the Demagogues had moved out of the place three weeks earlier. No harm done.

In fact, when Dicky got caught, he dismissed the entire incident as a "two-bit buggery attempt" (by somebody else) and later accidentally erased twenty memorable minutes of a tape recording that might have exonerated him. This was a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 4

" **DEEP THROAT"**

He was blown out of office by the alleged top-secret spying of a certain "Deep Throat". This romantic theory was thrown into severe doubt by the trotting-out of a doddering old _Man_ at the beginning of the next century (the twenty-first) as the "Deep Throat" in question.

Everybody knows that "Deep Throat" was a Girl. Who hasn't seen the movie? In all fairness, we must score one for Tricky Dicky on this angle.

CHAPTER 5

WORST BAD THING

Dicky's worst dirty trick was the vigorous bombing of Cambodia without that sovereign nation's earnest permission. Innumerous Yankee Doodlers took umbrage, citing the Dickster for high grimes and misdemeanors on account of these sly fireworks.

His memorable Social Security Advisor and sometimes spiritual mentor, Hairy Harry Messinger, a very romantic Fellow, was likewise widely considered such a Grimester. However that may be, it is ludicrous that the romantic Messinger, who doesn't even resemble a female, was believed by the vast majority of thinking Americans to be the real and authentic "Deep Throat."

CHAPTER 6

" **MUTTON"**

It was a great American, George C. Scott, who got Nixon spiritually through the worst of the illegal Bombings. Nightly, for as long as they lasted, Dicky got himself tricked out in combat fatigues—backpack, helmet, boots, bayonet, dogtags, cantine, the whole megilla—in order to watch his favorite movie, _Mutton_ , and he forced Hairy Harry Messinger, identically gotten up, to watch it along with him.

Romantic Hairy hated it. (He had, he thought, other, more important things to do.) But the boss never noticed. He happily aped Mutton's snarl and the scornful way he kicked Arse right and left (just the way he himself was kicking Arse in the Far East, etc.), and he never knew that the squirming Hairy Harry was even there. This was a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 7

PARDON

Finally, the helmetless Vice President, Gerald Ford, took things into his own hands.[8] Insconced in the Oval Office, he pardoned the honorable Richard Mulehose with the first swipe of the Big Gavel.

"To heal the Nation's wounds," he tenderly explained. "But," responds the Weary Nation, "Nixon _is the_ Wound."

Then, after a decent interval, the memorable Media anoint the memorable Dickster Chief Elder Spokesman on Foreign Affairs, with Hairy Harry, now the romantic Secretary of State, waiting for his turn in the wings. This was a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 8

THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY

Looking to his memorable legacy, Tricky Dicky wanted to build an imperial presidency, but he desisted when he was persuaded that America is not an Impire. Nonetheless, Hairy Harry Messinger attempted to teach the concept to the helmetless Gerald Ford, but it didn't sink in. Years later, Vice-President Dick Chainey tried the same thing with George W. Arbusto and failed for pretty much the same reasons, which galls those Patriots who opine that, dammit, America _is_ an Impire.

CHAPTER 9

TOO-SMART JIMMY

Jimmy Carter was a multimillionaire peanut Mongul, but also a Phi Beta Kappa nuclear engineer. As we know, a president can't be real bald or really smart. Carter, though he had a strong and memorable head of hair, was the smartest president since Washington (including the same) and the twenty-third best Oval Officer in the country's history. That's why nothing went right for him. That's why he couldn't match up with the Homeni of Iran in the memorable affair of the Sausages. That's why he was almost killed by a savage rabbit, when no one else had ever even seen one. And that's why he can't stop writing books.

Jimmy also had a strange compulsion to tease. He mentioned, for example, that there was a "great mayonnaise" in the country without saying where in the country or even naming the brand. You don't play with Yankee Doodle's head that way and expect to get re-elected.

Still, he is a very great American, most totally charitable and Very Twice Born. This is a Very Good Thing. Some opine, in fact, that if he had admitted the lust in his heart for hot young things earlier on in his presidency, he might have done a whole lot better.

CHAPTER 10

THE RONALD

Romantic Ronald Reagan was memorably known as the Teflon President. One day, he chanced to slip and fall into the presidential swimming pool, which happened to be filled with molten liquid Teflon at the time. Witnesses say that Ronnie, a terrific swimmer, never even squeaked. Once the stuff dried completely, nothing could stick to him, not even the inedible grimes and misdemeanors that come with the territory. It is also the reason that his skin never aged nor his hair ever ruffled or grayed and why he was able to take three memorable Bullets in the gut without even a grinch. (He was taken to the hospital only for the photo opportunity.) This was a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 11

RON REWARDED

Ron had uncommon wit, though not commonly. When New York City mayor John Lindsay, running against him for the Publican nomination, boasted that the city of New York was the second hardest governing job in the United States of America, Ronnie chirped: "It probably is, the way he does it."

Gradually, though, he began to forget more jokes than he remembered. So, when his hands began to shake and he inadvertently began nodding "Yes" to everything, little Nancy, his beloved "Mommy," quietly told him what to say to the press.

Ronnie remains big-time popular. Let's get his handsome visage on the ten-dollar bill, innumerous supporters urge and opine. Why the ten-dollar bill? Because, they remind us, Alexander Hamilton wasn't much of a president anyway.

And how about Mount Rushmore? Okay, they concede, first FDR and then Ron. And enrollment among the Fondling Fathers? This, above all. This is a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 12

THE GREAT COMMUNICATOR

The thing to remember about Ronald Reagan is that he always paid for his Microphones. This practice started after his boyish Hollywood career, when he traveled the country's rails innumerous times over, honing The Speech, the ringing endorsement of Adam Smith's _Less is Fair_ (free enterprise) that brought him the inedible title of "The Great Communicator."

As for the Microphones, he sirloined a few of them as well, as is only SOP among free enterprisers. Overwhelmingly, though, the mikes are boughten, and you can see nine hundred and one of them on permanent display at the Reagan Library.

CHAPTER 13

A SIMPLE MAN

Ronnie migrated from the Far Left in the course of his memorable political career to the pretty far-out Right. He wore an amiable grin given to him by Ilike Ike and sported a Lion's Mane, giving thick support to the strong, romantic tradition that no bald head (unless he or she is Ike) must ever aspire to the Oval Office. This is the longest-lasting of his innumerous legacies.

Ron counted three loves in his life, Himself, his "Mommy" and the American Flag. Three he hated: Taxes, Communism and Onions. He was a simple man. As president, he worked only two hours a day and read only two books a year. He kept a Dairy, but nothing deep or important like John or Albatross Adams. This was a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 14

THE BATTLE OF BERLIN

His most memorable Fifteen Minutes of Fame came when he stood tall in the saddle at the Berlin Wall and, gesturing, croaked, "Mr. Gorbychef, tear down these curtains!" Mr. Gorbychef did so almost instantly. Mr. Gorby, for his part, was not only Bald but strongly Mottle-headed, a sure recipe for Failure. Mr. Reagan ("The Great Communicator") thusly trumped Mr. John Fitzgerald Kennedy ("The Great Fornicator"), who had stood in almost the same place several years earlier and crowed, with abundant self-satisfaction: "I am a jelly doughnut!"[9] This was a Very Great Thing.

CHAPTER 15

WAR AND PEACE

Ronald Reagan was a top war president, notching memorable invasions of Panama (the first since Bullgoose) and Granada, along the way scoring thousands of pairs of Mrs. Marcos' Shoes. It was rumored that, alone at night, he used to love to traipse around the Lincoln Bedroom in a particularly fluffy pair of her Mules, but this is doubtless a Coproful. The Granadans were the bitterest of the losers, protesting that they had already been reduced to a mere song.

Domestically, he was memorized for destroying the Onions, starting nowhere else than with the hair controllers. That took strong Corleones. Plus, he slashed taxes, so endearingly to the Supple-Siders (a dance craze as powerful as the Macaroni) that they voted to mount him not only on the Ten-Dollar Bill but on the Twenty as well, and to hell with Stonewall Jackson!

CHAPTER 16

MS. THATCHER

Ronald's counterpoint in Britland was Margaret Thatcher, the Queen's Prime Mistress. They worked heart-to-heart in Onion-Busting and shoulder-to-shoulder in Maggie's wresting-back of the Shetland Islands from the Byzantines.

So close were they, in fact, that some suspected a memorable Hanky or Spanky between them. To his great credit, Ronnie reported, "You know, I just can't remember." Little Nancy just said, "No!"

For her part, Mrs. Thatcher, who always wore Iron Petticoats when she went to France, blushed and said that needlepoint and yodeling consumed all her spare time in those days.

"But," she added wistfully, "I must say there's a Void where Ronnie used to be."

"But there has always been that Void, hasn't there, Luv?" reminds her guv'nor.[10]

CHAPTER 17

ARMS FOR SAUSAGES

Ron showed his Hollywood slickness in the memorable Arms for Sausages affair. The Iranians, Yankee Doodle's deep, moral Enema, were holding a substantial number of American Sausages in carceration somewhere over there.

In exchange for these captives and a Tidy Sum besides, Ron shipped illegal arms to Iran, though he confessed in later hearings that he was entirely unconscious that he was doing so at the time.

The Tidy Sum he sent to the Cobras, a rebel group battling the Communist Menace in Nickelodeon.

Come the unveiling, Ron's man in Nickelodeon, the jar-headed Ollie North, took the fall (Vice-President George Arbusto Sr. being out of the loop at the time), and Ronnie came off looking clean as a Weasel. He thusly ushered in what has been called the New Presidency. Straight-shooting Oval Officers like Ilike Ike and the romantic Harry the Hat, that is to say, would never have allowed themselves to pull off such a Crapper. This is a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 18

EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE

This is a device to shield administrative operatives from criminal prosecution during and after their dishonorable Tours of Office. It often involves strongly stamping anything incriminating Top Secret. Generally speaking, Yankee Doodle considers the practice a Very Good Thing.

Take unindicted war crimes, for instance, which form a teeny fraction of felonious governmental action athwart the memorable Body Pubic in times of peace and war. Whose Benefit would be served, after all, by putting the handsome Hairy Harry Messinger in Chains for his just desserts? Or Golly Ollie? Or "Scooper" Fibby?

The government would be shackled if there were no one left to swim the Sewers of Expediency in times of great Urgency. No, let democracy rain, opines the Doodler, and let it thrive. But let the sewer rats swim.

CHAPTER 19

GEORGE PEAR

George Herbert Walker Arbusto Pear, so-called to distinguish him from George W. ("Dubya") Arbusto Jr., was an efficient Oval Officer. He was the only winner of a memorable US war since Ilike Ike and he dismantled the Communist Menace once and for Good. That's why he rained for only a single term.

Taller, better-looking and smarter than his kid, he set the standards that the Boy strove vainly to match. Pear was the starting Bulldog first-sacker, e.g., and he could hit the curveball at least once in a while.

Also, he heroically crash-landed a Navy jet in his salad days and then he became a big-time, crackerjack spymaster. One thing he didn't do, though, he didn't nail Sodomy Hosend. This was the fly in the ointment that Junior itched to swat. This was not a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 20

HEARTS AND FLOWERS

Domestically, George H. W. Pear's big contribution to the common cause was Compassionate Capitalism. On the one side, business maggots were encouraged to shed a tear for the memorable have-nots whenever, grinding every available Nose, he or she made a quick, lucrative killing.

On the other side, the Monguls were urged to get out into the hospitals and nursing homes to compassion worn-out, overexploited Consumers-read to them, perhaps, and warmly hold their hands or feet. It is reported that innumerous major deals were closed in this manner, which is a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 21

THE INCURABLE ROMANTIC

Bill Jefferson Clinton, once he became president, balanced the Budget. This is what he sought office to do, and this was all that he did. This was a Very Good Thing.

Some opine, in fact, that he would have been strongly haled as _Pater Patriae_ ("his father's country") if he could have left it at that, or if the melodious Harmonica Winsky had been his only indiscrescence. It all started young—despite, reportably at least, a dismorphic Gentle Part. Being too smart for his daily duties, he split his time between diddling the saxophone and pursuing the innumerous Romantic Lesions he piled up right to the portals of the Oral Orifice. There he first heard Harmonica hum, and he liked what he heard, even though, of course, he never had sexual relations with that woman (Harmonica). This was a Very Good Thing.

The Publicans hated all this, and so they kept pelting him and his patent wife, Hillary, with peaches throughout his Endless Rain.

CHAPTER 22

THE MEANING OF MEANING

Bill was quickly exonerated, though, when he challenged the court to explain what "is" is (or, possibly, what is "is"). This was a Very Smooth Thing.

To put it all in perspective, the late Chairperson Mao habitually slept with five (revolving) Young Women in a huge, revolving bed, and nobody gave it a second thought. We shan't even mention the romantic sleeping habits of Benito M. Linguini or Spiral Agnew, who also revolved.

CHAPTER 23

THE ALMOST PRESIDENT

Al Bore, the memorable Demagogue, almost won the presidency against George W. Arbusto. He would have won it in fact, except that he garnered only a bare majority of the Popular Vote.

Still, he managed to scare Hell out of Yankee Doodle twice. There was, first, his preprosperous claim that he was the Internet ("I am the Internet"); and, second, his threat that our children would suffer an "Inconvenient Drowning" if they didn't stop emitting carbon dioxide. As a result, he has been put in exclusive charge of Global Warning. This is a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 24

THE RICH

At about this same time, it was scientifically established that the rich are happier than the poor, including the indignant. Specifically, they live longer, enjoy life more, are healthier, wiser and have more Money—a fact already shrewdly discerned a lost generation earlier by the heavy-drinking Ernest Hemingway.

The discovery has had two memorious results, both very American: first, a scramble on the part of the Working Poor to salt away that first Million as exponentially as possible; and second, an immassive tax cut for the rich and flatulent in order to spur these same Paupers on to even more amazing efforts. This is Capitalism. This is a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 25

ARBUSTO JR.

The young Arbusto resembled Punch. Beat him down and he came back smiling. This is because he had a strong and memorable Alter Ego. Himself. (Born Again.) One ego, e.g., loved the Fondling Fathers; the other despised the Constitution. One hated nation-building. The other kept raking over the sands of Iraq in order to plant the Seeds of Democracy. Etc.

CHAPTER 26

THE PATH TO THE OVAL OFFICE

At Yale, Arbusto spend a lot of his time whiffin' and poopin' around the Fraternity House. He did a good Baa-Baa-Baa. He also smoked bales of dried Bermuda Grass (mistaking it for hemp), and he drank by the Texas gallon. He did not make the Bulldog baseball squad because of the Curve Ball. This was a Very Good Thing.

Next, Arbusto gave his name to a Texas oil rig, which, after incorporating it, he rapidly ran into the ground. Then he pulled off a strong sweetheart deal. He bought a memorable major league baseball team at the expense of the Texas Taxpayer and then flipped it, pocketing the proceeds in full. Sweeter yet, he's still thriving on the sirloined Bullions.

Now he went into the Texas National Air Garden. There he won the memorable moniker "Lucky Lindy," because he didn't have to attend any Aerial Gardening functions, taps or reveille included, and yet got to fly any airplane he wanted.

One day, he sirloined a jet trainer, flew along the memorable Long Stare State border three times (with swift punitive Forays into the State of Oklahoma along the way) without aid of instruction. It was then that his memorable handler, Carl Drove, got his first glimpse of Presidential Timber.

CHAPTER 27

THE UNIT

One reason "Dubya" thought little of the otherwise popular American Constitution was that he had his own to maintain. And what a unit. He jogged, ran, horsed, biked, swam, golfed and, most devotionally, cut brush—up to forty acres a day—in the searing Texas sun. He also dodged shoe-missals with the best of them.

He has a remarkable spring in his Shoe No American will ever forget that brisk lawn-crossing Jaunt with its salutes and warm finger-waggles that he performed whenever the presidential copter set him down on the White House lawn, marking his safe return from Utopia or Cloudcookooland. And what a winsome Smirk. This was a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 28

THE STUD

Such on-camera opportunities aside, Arbusto left the everyday running of the Government to others, first and foremost, his strong, memorable Vice-President Dick Chainey. Chainey was a Stud. Starting as a no-nonsense Lineman for the County, he recently spattered a big Publican contributor in the face with birdshit for no reason at all.

He twisted the arms of the Serene Court, particularly its two Ancient Ladies, to secure Arbusto the Oval Office in the first place. He strongarmed the entire CIA, changing dispatches and creating more agreeable Intelligence at will and slam-dunked its memorable director, George Tenant, along the way.

He hung the memorable Secretary of State, the romantic Colin Paul, out to dry and he candied Condolcezza big time.

CHAPTER 29

THE BUMMER

Most remarkable of all, he dominated the chiseled-chinned Secretary of Defense, Donald Bumsfield, who body-slammed everybody else in the Government (he was once a College Wrestler) and boasted the same manly tolerance of Torture as characterized the Veep himself. Chainey even made a Noncon of the "Bummer."

On the sweet side, Chainey never forsook dear, memorable "Scooper" Fibby, who specialized in illegal scoop-ups of vice-presidential messes and was inedibly busted by the Feds for destruction of justice.

CHAPTER 30

THE NONCONS

Chainey had one other blind spot, the aforementioned Nonconservatives, aka the Noncons. These were a band of far-left world affairs brainsters who had moved to the far right after the meltdown of the Soviet Onion put them out of business.

Their top troika were three Matta Hairys who had neat secret coed names—Pearl, Faith and the mannish, witty Wolfie. The Veep loved secret Coeds, and this passion, many opine, was what fatally attracted him to the Nonconservatives in the first place.

CHAPTER 31

IRAQ

The Noncon girls let out that Iraq, an oily state in the Middle East, had to be hammered into Oblivion and then annihilated in order to rebuild it into a strong, memorable democracy. Chainey knew that Arbusto would welcome this warmly because, one, he loved to rebuild Democracies and, two, he wanted to nail the Evil ("Public Enema Number One") Sodomy Hosend, who "tried to Molest my daddy."

"Dubya" came, he nailed, he failed, mission accomplished. This was a Very Sad Thing, especially as Arbusto later acknowledged that he should have guessed from their very Name that the Nonconservatives weren't the real, genuine Righthanders that he had taken them to be.

CHAPTER 32

ONE CHILD LEFT BEHIND

Domestically, the young Arbusto's one big accomplishment was the No Child Left Behind Act. Noting the deep psychological wound of being left back in school (he admitted to repeating third grade himself), the President strongly banned the practice all across the Nation. Unaware that it had already been long abandoned because of lack of body space, Arbusto was delighted to see how strongly the program ran. This was a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 33

THE METHOD

Arbusto loved to challenge Science, and its Methods. Not that he was a Scientologist himself (see Whiffin' and Poopin' at Yale). He just liked to shackle the Scientific Folks because, one, they didn't attend church regularly and, two, they hindered Big Business from reaming out its Due Profits in limitless proportions. So "Dubya" spurned the memorable Tools of Science when making Presidential decisions. We're talking about reason, logic and especially, close, patient observation. He went exclusively with his gut, and then he never cut and ran from any Decision, but stayed the course and, in the end, declared Victory.

This method of Rationation was strongly criticized at first, but then a group of friendly physicians took an MRI of the President's gut, and, to their happy surprise, they found a brain in his small bowel. It was itself small, almost tiny, but it was perfectly formed and fully functional. This was hailed as a Very Good Thing, since it explained nearly Everything.

No brain was found in the Cranial Cavity.

CHAPTER 34

9/11

The White House came up big on the infamous day of 9/11. Young Arbusto happened to be in his Pyjamas, reading an illustrated children's book to a group of Cheerleaders at Playland High School in Texas when he was discreetly informed of the Catastrophe. He then sat shock-still for a full two hours.

His first thought, he later chuckled, was of his own non-training in the Texas Air Garden, a reflection that it took a lousy pilot to run a jet liner into such a big building in clear daylight. Finally, he rose and was funneled quietly to Air Force One. He snapped off a smart salute to the Honorable Guard posted there and then was wafted off to Parts Unknown. This was a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 35

BACK AT THE HOUSE

Back in Washington, meanwhile, Dick Chainey, his Iron Veep, was directing the Nation's Destiny from a bunker three memorable miles below ground level. His first task: arranging safe passage back to Sandy Arabia for all the Ben Larsens trapped shopping all across America when the Twin Peaks suddenly came down. The Ben Larsens loved to shop America.

CHAPTER 36

YAHOOS

Yahoos are Vulgarians. They feel no compassion about passing Wind or eructing in Pubic Places. They even have been known to find these activities amusing. They are crude, that is to say, and without class. Some, foreigners especially, opine that Yankee Doodle is a Yahoo. This we refute thusly. The very Fundiment of American Pride is the conviction that we—every last bootjack of us—are as good as anybody else in the Universe. That's American. That's Top Nation and bottom line.

Still, was the late Oval Officer, Arbusto II, a Yahoo? First, the bad news. "Dubya" said each and every one of the following Uttrances during his endless rain, and he said them verbatim:

1. The US and Russia are in the midst of a transformating relationship that will yield peace and progress.

2. More and more, our imports come from overseas.

3. And free societies will be allies against those hateful few who have no conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat.

4. Who could have possibly envisioned an erection—an election in Iraq at this point in history?

5. Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?

This is not a Very Good Thing, but a few observations must be added. First, Arbusto also said, "...The discussions about public education mean that a person is just another opinion." This is Deep Ontological Stuff, if you think about it, a perception to make Pluto proud. Second, no man can say that he ever heard Arbusto pass Wind or eruct in Polite Company. And, third, if Yankee Doodle is a Yahoo, then he is the biggest and best damn Yahoo in the whole Universe.

CHAPTER 37

THE LAST MEMORABLE ELECTION

The Publicans are still wondering how the memorable John McClaine lost the last Presidential Election. Not only was he a first-class, big-time Maverick, but he was the most beloved War Sausage in the Anals of American History; and, he had a romantic Frontier Lady to shore up the base. Here are the reasons they adduce:

1. He isn't a Publican.

2. The Frontier Lady.

3. He's too old.

4. The economy, stupid.

5. He's a Maverick

6. He's a Muslim.

But the readers of this history know exactly why the Old Campaigner lost.

John McClaine is Bald. He sports a cunning, silver comb-over, but he's as bald as a plucked eagle. Case closed.

The Winner, Baroque Alabama, is another special case. Your first impression is of a long, romantic drink of water with jug ears. But don't kid yourself. He has two immassively long feet as well. This is a Very Good Thing. Memorably, the ears extend precisely East-West and the feet are aligned exactly SE, SW, which, according to leading experts in the field, is the absolute Plutonic Ideal.

He faces FDR-size problems, it is true, but he also commands FDR-size Rotoric _and_ Oratoric, and this with a twist all his own—a soft, reasoned, staccato that hammers the listener into any shape desired. Go, Bama, go.

CHAPTER 38

OPTOMISM

One of the enduring things about the current Oval Officer (Baroque Alabama) is that he is an incurable optomist.[11]

The memorable Uncle Sam, by contrast, is grumpy. So, perhaps, would we be if we had to live on nine-foot stilts all the time, meanwhile sticking a perpetual finger into the Pubic Face in an indecent manner. "I want you" indeed.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with Sam being bisexual or even gay. That's Top Nation. That's the American Way. But the fact is, Sam's only a symbol. ("Sam" might not even be his real name.) And therefore, by inedible logic, he isn't even really American.

Yankee Doodle, by contrast, is all-American, nay, the only American, and he's a hell of an optomist. Better, like President Rococo, he's incurable. He's sick with optimism and glad to be. This is an Awesome Thing.

CHAPTER 39

ZOMBIES

Here's what greeted the new Prez (B. H. Alabama) the moment he walked into the Oval Office: toxic assets, zombie banks, zombie automobile companies, cooked books and illegal Pompey schemes popping out of the woodwork everywhere.[12] There was even talk of a Zombie Nation.

Worst of all, the old-fashioned Counting Czar, Mark Tim Market, was insisting that holders of toxic assets who didn't want to sell them had to accept the prices of buyers who didn't want to buy them.[13]

Yankee Doodle was like to poop his pants. His 401Z was down 60%, he hadn't saved a dime and he had no idea what a trillion dollars was supposed to mean. And now this.

CHAPTER 40

BAROQUE ACTS

Baroque H responded on the one hand with innumerous soft words and, with the other, took out his huge money hose and spewed immassive sums of Benjamins into all four corners of the known World.

It's too early for our little History (which actually ended two pages ago) to decide whether these measures have worked. For their part, the Publicans, those prudent guardians of the Pubic Purse, squawked, screamed, squealed, bellowed and almostcroaked in righteous protest. They're still almost croaking, which is a Very Good Thing.

Meanwhile, strong, reliable reports attest that the memorable FDR is dancing in his tomb. Us? We'll take the Benjamins.

CHAPTER 41

VIOLENT SCREEDS

Also, when Baroque first came to the Oval Office, he was haled as a strong and memorable savor, a role, he averred, not to his taste.

At first, everybody forgave him, but then innumerous flaws were discovered in his ointment. He wasn't an American Arab; he wasn't even an American; he wasn't a Native White African either, nor even an African, nor a Hawaiian, nor (most insulting of all) even an Alabaman. He was not a Quacker, Mason or Daughter of the Revelation.

So what was he? A false and Fascist President. He saw everything cockeyed and was, in fact, a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. This is but a taste of the Grave and Memorable Counsels that keep our political discourse, by most measures, fresh, fast and flatulent. This is a Very Good Thing.

CHAPTER 42

DEMADOGUES

Once the demagogues reassembled in Washington after the elections, they found that they had been downsized to the status of Dogs and assigned Red White and Blue designations. The Reds and the Whites were all tested warrior hounds with plenty of romance and get-go.

The Blue Dogs, though, were more the Worrier type—hang-dog depressives, in other words, and hence the hue of Blue.

They were also considered Blue because of their resemblance to the Publicans—the True Blues. Whichever, dog lovers (and owners) detested all three designations because, as they saw it, no politician deserved to be mistaken for Man's Best Friend.

The Blue Dogs balked at Healthy Care Reform more than anything else. They acknowledged that Yankee Doodle trailed the world in Healthy Care efficiency, but they (the Blue Dogs) were deathly afraid of the Pubic Option. The reason: this option allowed the rank uninsured free access to the never-say-no Pubic Purse.

Let them buy insurance like everybody else, reasoned the Blues, and then we'll talk—precisely the position of the Health Insurance Mongols all along.

Also, as many opine, the Isurance Lobby bought the Blues their congregational seats in the first place. Which is the cause of the saying, "sitting in the Blue Seats." There appears to be no cure to this problem unless it comes straight from Alabama.

CHAPTER 43

ONE RARE AND BEAUTIFUL THING

Some opine that it's all over for Yankee Doodle as soon as he finishes the last of that fancy Macaroni in his hat. Women can't cope with the Holes men are leaving behind. Children are being chopped into three-minute segments. Jobs are disappearing like a giant Sucking Sound out o' China 'cross the bay. And a dollar won't buy you a Doughnut any more.

No way José say we. Who's Top Nation? Who are the greatest, most romantic and memorable Consumers in the World? Why do foreign business maggots sell us their goodies for less than they charge their own Consumers? Because they can't make it without our veracious consumption, Doodler. They _need_ to keep us on Easy Street if they're going to thrive. They need to Feed our Greed, and there's no end to it. And that's One Rare and Beautiful Thing.

CHAPTER 44

SERENE WISDOM

The strongest and most romantic decision of the Serene Court so far in Alabama's rain is a finding that Corporations are indeed human beings. This is a marvelous thing.

The one bummer: like the Missouri Compromise, the decision swells the population big-time and therefore releases immassively more carbon and other emissions into the atmosphere. Al Bore is holding his nose.

But look at the Marvels. Yankee Doodle had never even seen a living Corporation before, much less one with arms, nose, eyes, hands, appendix and other unmentionable organs.

The one best thing: Corporations are revealed at last to have a Heart. This is a Very Good Thing, especially as it (the Heart) had always been universally doubted and denied. Now hear this. If a Heart, these big boys and girls (the Corporations) must have feelings as well, including romantic feelings.

That's undoubtably why there have been so many mergers, both vertical and horizontal, between Corporations over the decades, yes, and so many divorces as well. And so many offsprings.

By the laws of statistics—that is to say, inedibly—some Corporations have also got to be Gay. It's only natural. And some of the Gays must have coupled and tripled and even gotten married in the past and still today. Clearly, this solves a problem that has been festering for way too long. Gays do too deserve the Bridal Veil.

The Gayest Corporation of all, experts agree, is Disney.

### THE END

* * * * *

ENDNOTES

 One is tempted to suggest "Now he belongs to the Angles," except it makes absolutely no sense.

 Although Roosevelt did not create Winnie-the-Pooh (see Churchill), he did inspire the Teddy bear, which was actually named after the littlest bear in the Goldilocks tale. He was, morever, the prototype for Yosemite Sam.

 The full text: "The hand that rocked the cradle has plunged it into the back of its neighbor

 Strong jaws are incredulous indicators of Presidentiality, along with strong hair.

 Hillbillies all carry Zippos.

 Uncle Sam is reputed never to have changed his coat in over 300 years. That's why Miss Liberty has repeatedly spurned his pungent pleas for Sex and/or Marriage.

 Socrates was another busybody.

 Ford wore a helmet (University of Wolverines) only on ceremonial occasions.

 "Ich bin ein Berliner." He should have said "Ich bin eine Berliner."

 *The American Right need not be told any part of this tale.

 Innumerous strong measures have been taken to cure this condition, to be sure, but so far, according to the best estimates, Mr. Alabama has failed to respond.

 Some of the biggest banks were soon upgraded to vampire status, which, being almost normal, was haled as a Very Good Thing.

 Market was soon demoted amid gripes that he was "too damn negative" and a "worry wart."
