Word: barrelfuls
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Most of Patman's constituents seem less interested in his assaults on the Federal Reserve than in his success at bolstering the shaky economy of his piney-woods district by obtaining pork-barrel projects. A tireless worker, he goes to his office seven days a week, puts in ten hours each weekday. Despite his reputation for vituperative oratory, Patman in person seems more like a grandfatherly American archetype: Baptist, Mason, Elk, Shriner, Eagle and American Legionnaire (all of which he is). Briefly a widower, Patman two years ago married a Texarkana widow in her 70s, whom he had dated...
Some Middle Americans doubtless do believe that repression is the only answer. They were disposed to take Spiro Agnew seriously when he tossed off his line: "We can afford to separate them from our society with no more regret than we should feel over discarding rotten apples from a barrel." Yet most Middle Americans would find repression incomprehensible and intolerable, a violation precisely of the American values they cherish. Certainly, a species of Know-Nothingism is evident in the U.S. But, as Harvard's Seymour Martin Lipset points out, the reaction does not begin to approach the tenor...
...rulers, and the main reason is Libyan oil. Since the '67 closure of Suez, Libyan exports have doubled because high-grade Libyan oil lies closer to Europe without the canal than most Arabian oil. Thirty-eight companies, mostly American and British, presently pump about 3.7 million barrels a day. Libya now ranks as the third largest oil exporter (after Venezuela and Iran). Since the government receives $1 on each barrel, oil accounts for 80% of Libya's national income...
...extreme form partly for shock value. "That is an effective device to get people's attention," Friedman admits. It also adds zest to economic dialogue. Samuelson says: "To keep the fish that they carried on long journeys lively and fresh, sea captains used to introduce an eel into the barrel. In the economic profession, Milton Friedman is that...
...takes an effort of mind to recall the time, not so very long ago, when America was still something like a collection of small towns, and a provincial newspaperman named Henry Louis Mencken was its national cracker-barrel atheist. It is, moreover, a matter for wonder that Mencken, who dressed like the gallused boors he despised, chewed cigars like a Tammany clubhouse character and had tastes that ran to beer and bawdy jokes, was ever regarded as the epitome of metropolitan sophistication. The term smart set, which was the title of his first magazine, seems sadly unsmart today. The word...