by Keith SmithFrankly, in the wake of Mr Roy Austin's media analysis, I don't know what my journalistic colleagues have been going on about. I mean to say Americans, among whom I number some of my best friends, have been saying the darnest things for years. To wit:
Question: If you could live forever, would you and why?
Answer: "I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever."
-Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest"Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff."
-Mariah Carey, singer "Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life."
-Brooke Shields, during an interview to become Spokesperson for the Federal Anti-smoking Campaign "I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body."
-Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky Basketball Forward "Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country."
-Marion Barry, Mayor of Washington, DC "I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the President."
-Hillary Clinton commenting on the release of subpoenaed documents "That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I'm just the one to do it."
-A US congressional candidate in Texas "Half this game is 90 per cent mental."
-Danny Ozark, manager of Philadelphia Phillies "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
-Former US Vice President Al Gore "It's no exaggeration to say that the undecideds could go one way or another."
-George W Bush, US President "I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix."
-Former US Vice President Dan Quayle "We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?"
-Former president of American Motors, Lee Iacocca "I was provided with additional input that was radically different from the truth. I assisted in furthering that version."
-Colonel Oliver North, from his Iran-Contra testimony "The word 'genius' isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."
-Joe Theisman, NFL football quarterback and sports analyst "We don't necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people."
-Colonel Gerald Wellman, ROTC Instructor "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
-Former US President Bill Clinton "We are ready for an unforeseen event that may or may not occur."
-Former US Vice President Al Gore "Traditionally, most of Australia's imports come from overseas."
-Keppel Enderbery "Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992, because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances."
-State Department of Social Services, Greenville, South Carolina "If somebody has a bad heart, they can plug this jack in at night as they go to bed and it will monitor their heart throughout the night. And the next morning, when they wake up dead, there'll be a record."
-Mark S Fowler, former Federal Communications Commission Chairman I hope Mr Austin has as good a laugh over these quips in the full understanding that people all over the world are given to saying the most foolish things. Of course, this doesn't mean that they are fools, only that almost all of us have our foolish moments. In which case the thing to do is to grin, bear it and resolve to try and think before we talk even as we move on to the next meeting, conference or whatever. By the way, lest the ambassador is moved to label me anti-American let me assure him that I'd prefer to live under the Stars and Stripes than the Sickle and the Hammer any blessed day!
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_opinion?id=22961403
Author
