So much for the crusade against drugs . . . all America is actually doing is consolidating its position as the biggest dealer in addictive and lethal substances on the planet, waging war on all rivals, whether they take the form of the Thai domestic tobacco industry or the Colombian cocaine cartels.

There's a whole journalistic-industrial complex dedicated to keeping newsprint, TV screens and radio waves clean of destabilizing scoops damaging to corporations or the state.

Pose a political threat to Business As Usual, and sooner or later, mostly sooner, someone will try to kill you.

Nothing can inspire religious duty or animation but religion.

Nothing but mountains filled with barbarous ethnics with views as medieval as their muskets, and unspeakably cruel too.

Are you more likely to tolerate drivel than you were four years ago? I think the answer is yes. Four years of Reagan has deadenedthe senses against a barrage of uninterrupted nonsense.

Despair is the central part of the psychopathology. For the handmaiden of gossip is treachery.