Posts from July 2012

A boy is hitchhiking on a country road. A car stops for him, and the driver asks, “Are you a Republican or a Democrat?”

“Democrat,” says the boy, and the car speeds off.

Another car stops, and the driver asks, “Are you a Republican or a Democrat?”

“Democrat,” says the boy, and the car speeds off.

This happens two or three times, and the boy decides he’s giving the wrong answer. The next car that stops is a convertible driven by a beautiful blonde. “Are you a Republican or a Democrat?” she asks.

“Republican,” says the boy, and she lets him in.

But as they’re driving along, the wind from the open top begins to push the blonde’s skirt higher and higher up her legs. And the boy finds himself becoming aroused. Finally he can’t control himself any longer. “Stop!” he hollers. “Let me out! I’ve only been a Republican for ten minutes and already I feel like screwing somebody!”

from Republican Party Reptile, by P.J. O’Rourke, 1987

Today would have been the 113th birthday of Ernest Hemingway, born in Oak Park, Illinois. He started his writing life as a journalist, but when he was in Paris after World War I, working as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star, he was encouraged to take a more literary turn by other American writers like Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein. His first collection of short stories, In Our Time, was published in 1925.

Both U.S. presidential candidates of 2008 cited Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) as one of their favorite books. It’s about an American teacher, Robert Jordan, who volunteers to go fight in the Spanish Civil War and, after being wounded in battle, contemplates shooting himself to end the pain. But when the enemy comes into sight, Jordan delays their approach so that his own comrades can escape to safety. And then he dies.
The Writer’s Almanac