[212] in libertarians
Laissez Faire Book News: P.J. O'Rourke's ALL THE TROUBLE IN THE WORLD
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Chris Whitten)
Thu Sep 15 15:24:11 1994
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 15:19:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: Chris Whitten <lfb@panix.com>
Apparently-To: <libertarians@mit.edu>
After a long wait, P.J. O'Rourke's new book will soon be available.
It may be his best yet--especially for those who enjoy political humor.
If you order it now you can reserve an autographed copy--O'Rourke
signed 500 for Laissez Faire, and you're seeing this announcement
before our regular mail customers.
Humorist P.J. O'Rourke speaks with great passion and wicked wit
about politicians who make things worse
ALL THE TROUBLE IN THE WORLD
The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster,
Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty
by P.J. O'Rourke
(reviewed by Jim Powell)
Politicians are always claiming they can save us from
crisis, if only they amass more power. In fact, as humorist P.J.
O'Rourke shows, politicians are invariably the culprits responsible
for a crisis--or for making it worse. O'Rourke speaks with less X-
rated language than usual, displaying great passion as well as
wicked wit about his visits to many of the world's hot spots,
including Bangladesh, Brazil, Somalia, Vietnam and Eastern Europe.
For example, O'Rourke affirms that people starved in Somalia
not because of bad luck but because of political power struggles:
"Somalia had been held together by the loathsome but stable twenty-
two-year reign of dictator Said Barre. But Barre gained
loathsomeness and lost stability, and when he took a walkout powder
in January 1991, all and sundry began fighting each other with
rifles, machine guns, mortars, cannons, and--to judge by the look of
the town--wads of filth."
O'Rourke celebrates liberty with eloquence. For example:
"Money is preferable to politics. It is the difference between
being free to be anybody you want and being free to vote for
anybody you want. And money is more effective than politics both in
solving problems and in providing individual independence. To rid
ourselves of all the trouble in the world, we need to make money.
And to make money we need to be free."
O'Rourke displays his wit as he denounces politicians and
others who exploit people's fears to promote government power. For
example:
"Ralph Nader is as much a politician as Senator Robert
Packwood, even if Ralph isn't as smooth with the ladies."
* * *
"FDA employees are serious about fear. We pay these people to
panic about an iota of rodent hair in our chili, even when the
recipe calls for it."
* * *
In research that set off the Alar scare: "mice drank the
equivalent of nineteen thousand quarts of apple juice a day. This
may explain why laboratory mice so frequently have to ask to be
excused to go to the little mouse's room."
* * *
"Greenpeace fund-raisers on the subject of global warming are
not much different than tribal wizards on the subject of lunar
elipses. 'Oh, no, the Night Wolf is eating the Moon Virgin. Give me
silver and I will make him spit her out.'"
* * *
"If the rain forest disappears, we'll have to get our air in
little bottles from the Evian company, and biodiversity will
vanish, and pretty soon we'll have only about one kind of animal...
The indigenous peoples will all become exdigenous and move to L.A.;
and this will be tough on them because it's hard to use a car phone
when you've got a big wooden disk in your lower lip. Furthermore,
we'll never discover all the marvelous properties of the various
herbal treasures that are found in the rain forest, such as Ben &
Jerry's Rainforest Crunch."
* * *
"Homeless Week squatters don't qualify as members of a
disadvantaged or despised group... But, by spending the day out in
the rain, they can achieve the status of 'associate victims.'"
* * *
"The nasty, powerful and belligerent empire that was the
Soviet Union has fallen apart. It's nothing now but a space on the
map full of quarrelling nationalities with too many k's and z's in
their names--armed Scrabble contestants."
* * *
"Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for
people than people do is a swine."
* * *
"Avoid the worriers. They are haters of liberty and loathers
of individuals. They wish to politicize everything. Imagine Bill
Clinton conducting your love life for you. And watch out, he may be
trying to."
Contents:
1. FASHIONABLE WORRIES
If Meat is Murder, Are Eggs Rape?
2. OVERPOPULATION
Just Enough of Me, Way Too Much of You
3. FAMINE
All Guns, No Butter
4. ENVIRONMENT
The Outdoors and How It Got There
5. ECOLOGY
We're All Going to Die
6. SAVING THE EARTH
We're All Going to Die Anyway
7. MULTICULTURALISM
Going From Bad to Diverse
8. PLAGUE
Sick of It All
9. ECONOMIC JUSTICE
The Hell with Everything, Let's Get Rich
Book No. HU6140 (hardcover) 344p. publisher's price $22.00
Laissez Faire price only $17.95
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If you have any questions or comments, feel free to let me know.
Thank you,
Chris
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Chris Whitten lfb@panix.com
Laissez Faire Books 1-800-326-0996
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