Free Republic

Mothers of invention BY DAVE BARRY Miami Herald (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on Sept. 1, 1996.) People often ask me how America became the world's greatest economic power, as measured in Remote Control Units Per Household (RCUPH). My answer is: ``Inventions.'' Americans have always been great inventors. To cite one historic example: Back in 1879, a young man named Thomas Alva Edison was trying to develop a new light source. One day, he was messing around in his laboratory with some filaments, when suddenly a thought struck him: The letters in ''Thomas Alva Edison'' could be...

Kill `em with kindness BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on June 9, 1996.) I got to thinking about courtesy the other day when a woman hit me with her car. I want to stress that this was totally my fault. I was crossing a street in Miami, in a pedestrian crosswalk, and I saw the woman's car approaching, and like a total idiot I assumed she would stop. The reason I assumed this -- you are going to laugh and laugh -- is that there was a stop sign facing her, saying (this is...

You don't realize it, but you are constantly enjoying the benefits of science. For example, when you turn on the radio, you take it for granted that music will come out. But do you ever stop to think that this miracle would not be possible without the work of scientists? That's right: There are tiny scientists inside that radio, playing instruments! A similar principle is used in automatic bank-teller machines, which is why they frequently say, ''Sorry, out of service.'' They're too embarrassed to say, ``Sorry, tiny scientist going to the bathroom.'' Yes, science plays a vital role in your...

The folly of family vacations BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on May 28, 1995.) Parents, school is almost out, which means it's time to make those summer vacation plans, load up the family car and take off, quickly, before the kids get home. I am, of course, joshing. You should take the kids; there's nothing quite like putting the whole family into the car and hitting the open road, leaving your worries behind, driving mile after carefree mile, sometimes getting as many as three carefree miles before everybody in the car hates everybody else...

A tip for the hurricane season: Try to have some kind of a clue Dave Barry The 2006 hurricane season is here, and if you're a resident of Florida, you know what that means: It means you have the IQ of bean dip. If you had any working brain cells, by now you'd have moved to some less risky place, such as Iraq. This is especially true after last hurricane season, which was so bad that we went all the way through the alphabet of official names and had to refer to the last batch of hurricanes by making primitive...

Learning to love science BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on July 7, 1996.) You don't realize it, but you are constantly enjoying the benefits of science. For example, when you turn on the radio, you take it for granted that music will come out. But do you ever stop to think that this miracle would not be possible without the work of scientists? That's right: There are tiny scientists inside that radio, playing instruments! A similar principle is used in automatic bank-teller machines, which is why they frequently say, ''Sorry, out of service.'' They're...

When baseball was the game BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on March 31, 1996.) As we enter yet another baseball season, what's left of my mind drifts back to the fall of 1960, when I was a student at Harold C. Crittenden Junior High (''Where the Leaders of Tomorrow Are Developing the Acne of Today''). The big baseball story that year was the World Series between the New York Yankees and the Pittsburgh Pirates. Today, for sound TV viewership reasons, all World Series games are played after most people, including many of the players,...

Mind your manners BY DAVE BARRY (This classic DAVE BARRY column was originally published Nov. 24, 1996.) Today's etiquette topic is: Proper Table (burp) Manners. I have here a letter from Jean Gerdes, who teaches Family and Consumer Science to 6th-graders at the Donegal Middle School in Marietta, Pa. She states: ''I would like to ask your help in teaching my students the importance of good manners. I have found that if they can see how good manners might help them in their future, they are more motivated to learn and practice them. It would be a great help if...

What it takes to be a jerk BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on Sept. 29, 1996.) Recently, when I was having a hamburger at an outdoor restaurant, two guys started up their Harley-Davidson motorcycles, parked maybe 25 feet from me. Naturally, being Harley guys, these were rebels -- lone wolves, guys who do it Their Way, guys who do not follow the crowd. You could tell because they were wearing the same jeans, jackets, boots, bandannas, sunglasses, belt buckles, tattoos and (presumably) underwear worn by roughly 28 million other lone-wolf Harley guys. And, of...

Winning the war on drugs BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on Nov 26, 1995.) Recently, I had a simple, foolproof idea for eliminating the drug problem in this country. It came to me while I was making spaghetti sauce. I use an ancient Italian spaghetti sauce recipe that has been handed down through many generations of ancient Italians, as follows: 1. Buy some spaghetti sauce. 2. Heat it up. Sometimes I add some seasoning to the sauce, to give it a dash of what the Italians call joie de vivre (literally, ingredients). I had...

Is this boring...or fascinating? DAVE BARRY This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on Nov. 20, 1994 I was at an airport, reading a newspaper, when the World's Three Most Boring People sat down next to me and started talking as loud as they could without amplifiers. They were so boring I took notes on their conversation. Here's an actual excerpt: FIRST PERSON (pointing to a big bag): That's a big bag. SECOND PERSON: That is a big bag. FIRST PERSON: You can hold a lot in a bag like that. THIRD PERSON: Francine has a big bag like...

Shop till you drop (in size) BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on May 25, 1997.) I believe that, in general, women are saner than men. For example: If you see people who have paid good money to stand in an outdoor stadium on a freezing December day wearing nothing on the upper halves of their bodies except paint, those people will be male. Without males, there would be no such sport as professional lawn-mower racing. Also, there would be a 100 percent decline in the annual number of deaths related to efforts to shoot...

Hard sell for soft heads BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on Sept. 15, 1996.) So I turned on my car radio, and the first thing I heard was the Shouting Car-Dealership Jerk. You know the one I mean. He sounds like this: ``BELOW DEALER COST! MAX SNOTWICK FORD DODGE ISUZU CHEVROLET NISSAN STUDEBAKER TOYOTA IS SELLING CARS AT BELOW DEALER COST! WE'RE LOSING MONEY ON THESE CARS! WE HAVE TO MAKE ROOM FOR MORE CARS! SO WE CAN LOSE MORE MONEY! WE HAVE PROCESSED CHEESE FOR BRAINS! THAT'S WHY WE'RE SELLING CARS FOR BELOW...

On history's cutting edge BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on March 7, 1999.) I was surprised to learn that there are people in Miami who practice sword-fighting. I never thought of Miami as a sword kind of town. Down here, we like to brandish our weapons at other motorists from inside our cars, which would be risky with a sword: FIRST MOTORIST (honking): Watch where you're going! SECOND MOTORIST: Oh YEAH? (He brandishes his sword.) FIRST MOTORIST (fleeing): Yikes! SECOND MOTORIST: I showed him! (To his children in the back seat:) Kids, could you...

Surviving the Everglades BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on Nov. 10, 1996.) If you're looking to get away from civilization and experience the serenity that comes from being out in nature's wilderness beauty and having the vast majority of the blood sucked out of your body, then you should rent a houseboat in the Everglades. I did this recently with my son, Rob. We rented our houseboat at a place called Flamingo, in Everglades National Park, waaaaay down on the bottom of Florida. At that point, Florida has totally stopped pretending to be a...

<p>I imagine you will want to call me a courageous adventurer when I tell you how I recently encountered an actual live whale in person. In fact, I encountered a group of whales, which is called a ''pod,'' or sometimes ``a group of whales.''</p>

Barry's best humor comes from fact FOR DAVE BARRY, proof of a higher being came in the form of an exploding whale captured on tape.It's a story that just never gets old. Sitting in the lobby of Walnut Creek's Renaissance Club Sport on Tuesday, Barry starts laughing. His feet come up off the ground, and his body clenches like he's doing crunches. Well, it is an athletic club. Someone just told him the whale story circulated through their wedding reception eight years ago, making guests laugh so hard at least one threatened to get sick. That's funny enough, without remembering...

One wag's view of canine control By DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on Sept. 18, 1994.) Today's topic is: Practical dog ownership. Millions of Americans own dogs because they are good-natured, simple and easily amused. I am referring here to the Americans. The dogs are not exactly Mensa members, either, but they definitely make better pets than tropical fish. Suppose, for example, that you're home alone, and you start choking on a piece of takeout Chinese food, and you collapse to the floor, dying. A tropical fish is not going to alertly rush over to...

The quick and the dread BY DAVE BARRY Miami Herald (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on Feb. 12, 1995.) When you're 47 years old, you sometimes hear a small voice inside you that says: ``Just because you've reached middle age, that doesn't mean you shouldn't take on new challenges and seek new adventures. You get only one ride on this crazy carousel we call life, and by golly you should make the most of it!'' This is the voice of Satan. I know this because recently, on a mountain in Idaho, I listened to this voice, and...

A change is in the air BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on May 7, 2000.) When people ask me, ''Dave, what's it like to have a newborn baby in the household?'' I immediately answer: ''...'' This is because I am sleeping. I spend a lot of my day in an unconscious state, because my 2-month-old daughter, Sophie, does not believe in sleeping at night. She feels that the nighttime hours are best used for making loud, inexplicable, Exorcist-style noises. At 3:30 a.m., her bassinet will suddenly start shaking like an unbalanced clothes dryer and...