Random Shots: A Celebration of the Market

R.F. Kampfer

ONE CAN NOW get a new Chinese Tolkarev pistol for $120, or spend $500 for a prototype Navy SEAL switchblade. And we used to carry knives because we couldn’t afford handguns.

The insurance companies are worried about the increasing use of air-bags in cars. Seems a lot of crash victims who would have been killed without them are surviving, to run up big medical bills.

The big division in industry is between those who assume that everything will work right, and worry about how to maximize production, and those who know that something always goes wrong, and worry about how to minimize the damage.

Pagers are declining in popularity among teenagers as they realize they can be reached by their parents, too.

Quotable Quips

SIGN WE’D LIKE to see: “I’m Pro-Choice and I’m Armed.”

Graffitus of the month: “FREE CHAIRMAN GONZALO—with any purchase.”

“That big scene (in “The Crying Game”) proved one thing. White men can jump.”—Billy Crystal

Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Absurdity

BLAME FOR THE World Trade Center bombing will ultimately be assigned to whichever country is least able to respond to the retaliation.

All too often we tend to give imperialism more credit for strategic behavior than it really deserves. Consider the possibility that Bush’s intervention in Somalia was primarily intended to end his administration on a high note, with the added bonus of leaving Clinton a mess to clean up.

Kampfer’s Kulture Korner

BRAM STOKER WROTE that the vampire’s greatest strength is that people don’t believe in him. The dollar’s greatest strength is that people do believe in it.

Most criticism of “Falling Down” has focused on the portrayal of minorities in Los Angeles, but its treatment of women is even more questionable. Both D-Fense and Prendergast are shown as being emotionally crippled by unsupportive wives. Still, most husbands will feel a sympathetic twinge when Prendergast tells his wife to “leave the skin on the chicken.”

Good Taste, Bad Taste

WARNING: UNLESS COMRADES send in their overdue recipes for the Solidarity cookbook, we will be forced to treat the problem in the traditional manner by purging a member of the leadership for sabotage.

King Solomon had the right idea for dealing with the Baby Jessica custody case. You know that whoever gets her is going to regret it in about fifteen years anyway.

Really, Really, Really Bad Taste

A BLASTING JOHN DENVER song at the Waco compound constitutes a violation of the Geneva Convention, especially “Sunshine on My Shoulders.”

David Koresh seems to have been the kind of god who promises to return in three days, but usually runs late.

Kampfer is one of the few people in the world who likes Bobby Goldsboro’s “Honey.”

Party Time, Payback Time

YOU HAVE TO pay for everything you get. After the party comes the hangover. After the feast comes the fat. After the soccer game—I’ve been told—comes the charley-horse. Maturity is when we anticipate the consequences before we act. That doesn’t stop us, of course; just takes some of the fun out of it.

July-August 1993, ATC 45