Hereditary monarchy offers numerous advantages for America. It is the only form of government able to unify a heterogeneous people. Thanks to centuries of dynastic marriage, the family tree of every royal house is an ethnic grab bag with something for everybody. We need this badly; America is the only country in the world where you can suffer culture shock without leaving home. We can't go on much longer depending upon disasters like Pearl Harbor and the Iranian hostage-taking to "bring us together.

because the theater lost a Barrymore every time a Southerner decided not to go on the stage, just about anything that comes out of a Southern mouth is bound to be a ringing line.

When women talk about "privacy" they mean abortion rights, and the millions of words feminists have written about "a room of one'sown" refer to psychological space, rarely to physical solitude. For most women being alone is tantamount to being deserted.

to a Southerner it is faux pas, not sins, that matter in this world.

In other countries, congenital introverts simply remain introverts all their lives, neither advancing nor retreating, but America's commitment to extroversion as a national art form can abrade some naturally aloof personalities until they flower into deadly nightshade.

Americans worship creativity the way they worship physical beauty - as a way of enjoying elitism without guilt: God did it.

By sending the contradictory message that the famous are just plain folks on Mount Olympus, America has forged a relentless tension between loftiness and accessibility. Stir in the fact that the inborn talent and intelligence needed to achieve fame are immune to distributive tinkering by government programs and you have a definition of fame certain to produce envious rage: somebody screwed democracy.