25 Jan 98

By Paul Ford

Two Quick Pieces, One Month After Christmas

Two Quick Pieces, One Month After Christmas

Mistakes Were Made
Like reading tea leaves, our country searches for meaning in executive cum stains. With certain exceptions, especially during the Kennedy era, the vast majority of the humans who died before last week lived in ignorance of the presidential ejaculate.

Suddenly, at this juncture of media, politics, and orgasm, the masses have been enlightened. A leading expert demonstrates cunnilingus to the assembled house, and C-SPAN runs the footage. Debate in Congress addresses the question of who must sleep on the wet spot.

The Secret Service agent, ever vigilant, whispers into his electric collar, "Liberty has shot his wad."

Drift
As an experiment, I bought two copies of the New York Times. I left one on my desk, and locked another inside my box of financial papers. A month later, I compared them, and the stories in one were entirely different from the stories in another.

It was the paper left on the desk that somehow transformed its text. In it, accredited, widely-quoted historians were debunked. Police had arrested the hopeful mother's retarded child, and the president's speech on saving the turtles--well, they actually cooked those turtles right after the news crews packed up. In the original, locked-box paper, the historians were respected, the mother looking up, and the president leading bravely.

I did the most logical thing; I recycled them both.