Random Shots: Notes From Starr’s Chamber

Against the Current, No. 78, January/February 1999

R.F. Kampfer

KEN STARR’S FUTURE looks bleak. He can forget about the Supreme Court or any other government job; and who’s going to hire a lawyer who spends so much time and money for such paltry results?

Congress has proclaimed that their decisions about what to do with president Clinton will not be influenced by public opinion polls or election results. Now you tell one.

Some of the older congressmen were under the impression that “oral sex” meant talking about it.

One of Clinton’s penalties is that he’ll never be able to smoke a cigar in front of anyone else, without knowing what they are thinking about.

Those Thomas Jefferson DNA test results came just in time to make Clinton look good by comparison.

On television, Clinton projects all the practiced sincerity of a garage mechanic telling you that you need a new transmission.

Historical Perspective

THE VATICAN IS thinking about making Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement, an official saint&#8212now that she’s safely dead.

Why all the fuss about a former professional wrestler being elected governor of Minnesota? Didn’t Caligula have his favorite horse elected to the Senate?

Traditionally, the first thing students of Latin were taught is that Caesar is really pronounced “Kaisar.” No wonder Wilhelm II had delusions of grandeur.

Life and Times

KAMPFER’S CARE PROVIDERS have gotten bored with chemotherapy, and decided to try radiation for a while. They say a change is as good as a break.

When a character in one of Robert Heinlein’s science fiction classics got an overdose of radiation, he just faded away peacefully. There wasn’t any throwing up.

Kinky is when you use a feather. Perverse is when you use the whole chicken.

You might find the perfect spouse, somehow, but why would s/he be interested in you?

Stories for post-modern children: “You don’t have a middle name because we were too poor to afford one when you were a baby.We used to take you down to the supermarket to weigh you on the produce scale. We had to be careful, because we were using one of their shopping carts as a baby carriage.”

Kampfer predicts that on the final episode of “The X- Files” we will learn that Scully was the alien all along.

Health Warning

READER ERIC HAMELL submits the following cautionary note: “Notwithstanding the jocular spirit in which R.F. Kampfer’s column is generally intended, there was one point in issue 77 that was potentially too serious not to correct:

“Kampfer complains that `the same people (who) tell us that alcohol makes you feel colder in the winter’ also `say that drinking alcohol in summertime just makes you feel hotter.’ Actually, what alcohol tends to do if you’re out in cold weather is make you become colder while feeling warmer, and consequently overexpose yourself&#8212while the problem in summer is not so much that it makes you feel hotter as that it dehydrates you.”

ATC 78, January-February 1999