One nice thing about the Third World, you don't have to fasten your seat belt. (Or stop smoking. Or cut down on saturated fats.) It takes a lot off your mind when average life expectancy is forty-five minutes.

Politicians are always interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs.

Even a band of angels can turn ugly and start looting if enough angels are unemployed and hanging around the Pearly Gates convinced that all the succubi own all the liquor stores in Heaven.

Los Angeles is many places in one place.

There are artists with palettes and easels selling the kind of modern art that Soviet art critics used to critique with bulldozers. Judging by the paintings I saw, the Soviets were right the first time.

A politician who commends himself as 'caring' and 'sensitive' because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to do good with other peoples' money.

There's a very good reason that governments aren't supposed to compete with private-enterprise companies. Governments have monopolies on certain things, like eminent domain and deadly force.