George W. Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography.

Being American is to eat a lot of beef steak, and boy, we've got a lot more beef steak than any other country, and that's why you ought to be glad you're an American. And people have started looking at these big hunks of bloody meat on their plates, you know, and wondering what on earth they think they're doing.

We're doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That's what it is to be alive. It's pretty dense kids who haven't figured that out by the time they're ten.... Most kids can't afford to go to Harvard and be misinformed.

What do men want? They want a lot of pals, and they wish that people wouldn't get so mad at them.

If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?

That's what is was to be young - to be enthusiastic rather than envious about the good work other people could do.

Anyway -- because we are readers, we don't have to wait for some communications executive to decide what we should think about next -- and how we should think about it. We can fill our heads with anything from aardvarks to zucchinis -- at any time of night or day.