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Joel Stein |
Recent Columns:
My parents have been calling me while I've been at the conventions for the last two weeks, asking if I have any "news." These people clearly don't read my columns like they say they do.
Other than Wal-Mart, politics is the only arena where old people get all the jobs. But the Democratic National Committee set a goal this year to have 10% of its elected delegates be young, which the party defines as 35 or under. I'm guessing they define old as Robert Byrd's parents.
Our next president is certain to be very smart, but probably not scientist smart. Deep down, both Barack Obama and John McCain know this. That's because sometime in high school, each surely got frustrated by physics or calculus and said to himself, "You know, I really enjoy history."
There are many things George W. Bush should do after his presidency, most of which involve apologizing. But that's not the man's strength. So if he really wants to, as he said, "give some speeches to replenish the old coffers," I suggest he stick to what he does best: motivational speaking.
There are many things I want independence from -- incoming e-mail, the section of my wedding vows about monogamy, this bogus corporation I created to lower my taxes but now takes up all of my time, Sam Zell -- but foreign oil is not one of them. Foreign oil is my favorite kind of oil. It means other nations clog their beaches with ugly rigs, do dangerous work and suffer environmental disasters and I still get to cruise Sunset Boulevard in my yellow Mini Cooper convertible. Oil exploration is an industry America should look to expand right after alchemy research and pyramid building.
The few seconds of mild shaking during Tuesday's earthquake didn't do much damage, but CNN's coverage did. My daily productivity was cut in half when I had to spend all afternoon answering calls and e-mails from my parents, grandmother, cousins and everyone else I know on the East Coast to tell them I was a proud survivor. The only thing that broke was the cellphone system, because Sprint had an 800% spike in calls -- half of which were from my family.
You may not have noticed that this is the lamest Tour de France ever, probably because you already find guys racing bicycles to be the lamest thing ever. But because of my desire to be even snottier and more boring than I am, I've been following cycling since 1994 and have learned to appreciate the subtleties of team strategy, drafting, counterattacks and a 20-cyclist crash down a mountainside.
I believe comedic change is possible. Since the New Yorker dropped a bum joke on its cover this week, comedians have appeared on every news outlet to whine about how hard it is to make fun of Barack Obama. Really? They have an arsenal of jokes to use against a 71-year-old ex-POW cancer survivor and Obama is too touchy a subject?
I love $4 gas. It makes me appreciate freedom. I watch as the dollars spin and think, "You, Triceratops, did not get squished by an asteroid in vain. You got squished for a $60 drive to Vegas."
I'm not a good driver. This is partly because I lived without a car in Manhattan for 11 years, but mainly because I consider driving a background activity. Sure, occasionally I have to steer or accelerate, but mostly I'm just conveniently moving forward while I text, eat, check out women, write down ideas, listen to NPR and return calls, sometimes all at the same time. Every so often, when I'm particularly fidgety, I'm sad there's no such thing as man makeup.