Random Shots: Pixilated Political Paradoxes

R.F. Kampfer

THE DECADENT ROMAN Empire was ravaged by barbarian nomads who would pillage one province after another, moving on whenever the loot grew scarce or they encountered resistance Today, we have multinational corporations treating the whole world like that

Like NAFFA, the Israel-PLO accord has provoked a spectrum of opposition who have nothing else in the world that they agree about.

Some of Andrea Dworkin’s books have been barred by Canadian Customs officials as “offensive to women,” under the provisions of a law that she herself helped to pass.

The only reason Rush Limbaugh got married is that sheep can’t cook.

Most sensible leftists wouldn’t have any problem with demanding that the capitalist state suppress skinhead fascism in Portland or Liverpool. So why not Serbian fascism in Bosnia?

Couch Potato’s Corner

IT WOULD HAVE made a great final episode for “Cheers” if Cliff finally cracked up after years of abuse.

It would have been a tougher choke in “Indecent Proposal” if the Robert Redford part had been played by Tom Arnold.

The HBO production of “Stalin” is just fair in terms of drama and politics, but the costumes are outstanding.

We enjoyed “Bambi Meets Godzilla.” How about “Barney Meets T-Rex”?

If exercise machines came with tamper-proof odometers, we’d find out how many function as high-priced clothes racks.

Miscellanies

ON SECOND THOUGHT, Lani Guinier is way too good for the Clinton administration.

Clinton has wimped out so often that his only hope of regaining the respect of Congress would be to eviscerate Bob Dole on the Senate floor.

The main problem with distributing condoms to school children is that about 87% of them will be used to make magnum water-balloons.

Anticipating a receptive market in the Midwest, Volkswagen plans to bring back its amphibious schwimmwagen.

Starting with the next issue, Random Shots will be distributed at random throughout the magazine, as an encouragement to ATC subscribers to read all the articles. {Not-ed.]

Kampfer’s Kultural Krtticlsm

IN ELVIS PEOPLE-Cult of the King, British author Ted Harrison predicts that Presley may inspire a new established religion. Since Elvis died in the john, what would his worshippers hang around their necks?

How many of us avoided “Catcher in the Rye” because we thought it was about baseball? As many as took Little Leaguers to see “Bull Durham”?

Sandra Scoppetonne and Sarah Schulman have both written lesbian murder-mysteries set in Greenwich Village, but their class outlooks are so different–terminal petit-bourgeois vs. borderline lumpen–that they might be from different planets.

November-December 1993, ATC 47