Free Republic

..snip.. In closing, here's an: IMPORTANT REMINDER -- Mark your calendar with a big ''X'' on Sept. 19, which is the second annual National Talk Like A Pirate Day. This is the day when everybody is supposed to talk like a pirate for very solid reasons (see www.talklikeapirate.com). Last year, the first National Talk Like a Pirate Day was a huge success, as measured by the number of messages on my answering machine consisting entirely of people going ''Arrrrr.'' So if you're feeling depressed -- if you think the world is in terrible shape, and one person like yourself can't...

HURRICANE PREPAREDNESS As Hurricane Isabel approaches the East Coast, I thought it might be helpful if I reprinted a Hurricane Preparedness Guide I wrote some years ago for the Miami Herald. It has some specific references to South Florida, but it should be just as useless to residents of other areas. For information that is actually useful, an excellent place to look is the Herald's storm site. HURRICANE PREPAREDNESS GUIDE Dave Barry We're entering the heart of hurricane season. Any day now, you're going to turn on the TV and see a weatherperson pointing to some radar blob out in...

People often ask me: ''Dave, as a leading candidate for president yourself, can you be unbiased when you write about the other candidates?'' Yes. When I believe that my opponents are wrong, I will point that out. But, by the same token, when I believe that my opponents are having carnal relations with livestock, I will point that out, too. ''Fair and balanced,'' that is my legally trademarked motto.

People often ask me: "Dave, as a leading candidate for president yourself, can you be unbiased when you write about the other candidates?" Yes, When I believe that my opponents are wrong, I will point that out. But, by the same token, when I believe that my opponents are having carnal relations with livestock, I will point that out, too. "Fair and balanced," that is my legally trademarked motto. So today I'm going to analyze the presidential campaign, which, in accordance with our constitution,is taking place exclusively at picnics in Iowa and New Hampshire. Voters are lured to these picnics...

Syndicated columnist Dave Barry's Aug. 31 article on telemarketers may have been in jest, but it's been no laughing matter to the American Teleservices Association, which blames the article for jamming up its toll-free number. Barry's article, titled "Ask not what telemarketers can do to you" in the Miami Herald where it was originally published, included the ATA's toll-free telephone number and invited readers to call and "tell them what you think." Hundreds of newspapers also published the article, which was distributed by Tribune Media Services. The article generated thousands of phone calls to the ATA number, said Tim Searcy,...

Shadows are falling and I'm running out of breath Keep me in your heart for awhile Those are the opening words of the last song on Warren Zevon's haunting final album, The Wind. When he sang those words, he was, literally, running out of breath: He died of lung cancer Sunday night at his home in West Hollywood. He was 56, a new granddad.

CALIFORNIA - I came out here because I've been reading disturbing reports that my state, Florida, is about to lose the coveted title of ''The Doofus State,'' which we Floridians worked so hard to win following the 2000 presidential election by not being able to figure out whom we voted for. We have been The Doofus State for just two lousy years, and now these greedy Californians, who had the title for decades, are trying to get it back. I regret to say that they have an excellent shot. The political situation out here is very bad. Q. How bad...

This is a special time of year, as expressed so poetically in the lyrics to the haunting song Summertime from Porgy and Bess: Summertime, and the livin' is easy Fish are jumpin' And gettin' lodged in the throats of fisherpersons Those lyrics are as true today as when they were first performed way back in a specific year that I plan to look up later. Just this June, according to an Associated Press article sent in by many alert readers, an angler who was angling near Macomb, Ill., had to be rushed to the hospital when a four-inch bluegill became...

Buttocks. Most of us have them. But what can we do to make them more attractive? For centuries, the unfortunate answer has been: ''Not very much.'' We have had to accept the buttocks we were given by Mother Nature, who is a big prankster when it comes to body parts. For most men, this is no big deal. Men can go for decades without thinking about their buttocks. A man's buttocks could have moss growing on them (I have seen this) and he would not necessarily be aware of it. But the same cannot be said of the opposite sex...

People always ask me: ''Is it hard to be a professional writer like you and Joyce Carol Oates?'' Yes. Very hard. Here is a true example of the kind of difficulties we face: The other day I was in sitting at my desk in my home office, doing what I do all day, which is frown at my computer screen and wrestle with professional writing issues, such as: ''Do I have anything to say about this topic?'' And: ''What, exactly, is this topic?''

So the other day I was waiting at a stoplight in my car, which is nice, but, like most cars today, boring. For example, when you turn the key, it starts. Every time! It has one of those modern, quiet, dependable engines. At least I assume it has an engine: I've never had a reason to look under the hood. For all I know, there's a small alien spacecraft in there, or Vice President Cheney. Cars were different back when I got my first driver's license, just after the invention of roads. In those days, cars were powered by an...

We are worried, here in the newspaper business (motto: ``What, YOU never make misstakes?''). We're hearing that you readers have lost your faith in us. Polls show that, in terms of public trust, the news media now rank lower than used-car salespeople, kidnappers, tapeworms, Hitler and airline flight announcements. (We are still slightly ahead of lawyers.) Of course, these poll results were reported by the news media, so they could be wrong. In fact, there might not actually have been any polls; it's possible that some reporter made the whole ''media credibility'' story up. But I don't think so. I...

It's time for an update on the British art world, which, as far as I can tell, exists mainly to provide me with material. As regular readers of this column are aware, British art institutions have taken to paying large sums of money for works of art that can only be described as extremely innovative (I am using ''innovative'' in the sense of ''stupid''). Here are two examples that I've written about: • An artist named Martin Creed won the prestigious Turner Prize, plus 20,000 pounds (about $30,000), for a work called The Lights Going On and Off, which consisted...

It is time to sing about some unsung heroes of the recent war in Iraq. These heroes were not, personally, in Iraq, but they were serving in a place that is just as foreign and threatening to the average American: The United States Senate. Our story begins back in March. The war had started, and the Bush administration asked Congress for an emergency appropriation of $75 billion to pay for it. The House of Representatives, showing a disappointing lack of vision, basically just approved the money. But not the Senate. No sir. Because the United States Senate is not a...

<p>Before I get to today's topic ("Worms Making News"), I want to apologize to those readers, both human and elf, who were unhappy with my column on "The Lord of the Rings."</p> <p>These are all strong points, and so I want to say to you rampant Tolkien fans, by way of sincere apology: Are you, by any chance, Hoosiers?</p>

OK, if nobody else will do it, I'm going to patch up this spat between the United States and France. As you know, our two nations are not getting along, as evidenced by the high-level meeting in Paris last week, during which French President Jacques Chirac and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, in what aides described as ''a frank exchange of views,'' bit each other. Yes, relations are at an all-time low. The French view us as a bunch of fat, simplistic, SUV-driving, gum-chewing, gun-shooting, mall-dwelling, John Wayne cowboys who put ketchup on everything we eat, including breath mints....

Why can't they just lose the ring in the sink? DAVE BARRY I finally saw the new Lord of the Rings movie, which is entitled Lord of the Rings II: A LOT More Stuff Happens. It's a tad on the long side (three days) but I am not complaining. My eyeballs were literally riveted to the screen, by literal rivets, from the moment I sat down until the moment I lost all sensation in my lower body. Yes, this is a classic movie, the kind that makes you laugh; makes you cry; makes you wonder, over and over, if this...

Iraq flared up and the economy teetered, but DAVE BARRY just wants to focus on his saladIf you had to pick one word to describe our national mood in 2002, that word would be ''wary.'' We went to sleep wary, and we woke up wary. We wallowed in wariness. We were wabbits.This was partly because bad things kept happening. But it was also because government officials kept issuing alarming, yet vague, warnings. ''We have received reliable information,'' an official would say, 'that something bad might happen. We don't know what, or when, or where. But it is very, very bad....

On a humid July day in Pennsylvania, hundreds of tourists, as millions have before them, are drifting among the simple gravestones and timeworn monuments of the national cemetery at Gettysburg. Several thousand soldiers are buried here. A few graves are decorated with flowers, suggesting some of the dead have relatives who still come here. There's a sign at the entrance, reminding people that this is a cemetery. It says: "SILENCE AND RESPECT." Most of the tourists are being reasonably respectful, for tourists, although many, apparently without noticing, walk on the graves, stand on the bones of the soldiers. Hardly anybody...

In these troubled times, it's nice to know that there is one thing that can always bring a smile to our faces, and maybe even cause us to laugh so hard that we cry.I am referring, of course, to the War On Tobacco. Rarely in the annals of government -- and I do not mean to suggest anything juvenile by the phrase ''annals of government'' -- will you find a program so consistently hilarious as the campaign against the Evil Weed.Before we get to the latest wacky hijinks, let's review how the War On Tobacco works. The underlying principle, of...