Cry From the Far Middle

P. J. O'Rourke wrote more than twenty books on subjects as diverse as politics and cars and etiquette and economics. Parliament of Whores and Give War a Chance both reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. He was a contributing editor at the Weekly Standard, H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute, a regular panellist on NPR's Wait Wait . . . Don't Tell Me, and editor-in-chief of the web magazine American Consequences. Long a resident of rural New England, as far away from the things he wrote about as he could get, he died in 2022 at the age of 74.

O'Rourke has a nice, world-weary way with the US's present political follies... He hasn't lost his gift for the brutally effective one-liner.

• 1: Introduction 2: Pre-Preface: As We Go to Press . . . 3: Preface: Manifesto for Extreme Moderation 4: Introduction: O Beautiful for . . . Pilgrim Feet? 5: One Nation-Divided as Hell 6: Coastals vs. Heartlanders 7: Goodbye to Classical Liberalism: "It's the End of the World!" 8: Big Fat Politics 9: But Thank You Anyway, Partisan Politicians 10: Robin Hood Arithmetic 11: On the Other Hand . . . Just Give Them the Money 12: It's Time to Make Rich People Uncomfortable Again 13: Negative Rights vs. Positive Rights: It's Positively Confusing 14: Sympathy vs. Empathy: Is It Better to Hold People's Hands or Bust into Their Heads? 15: Patriotism vs. Nationalism 16: Big Brother (and Everybody Else) Is Watching You: Thoughts on Rereading 1984 17: Whose Bright Idea Was It to Make Sure That Every Idiot in the World Was in Touch with Every Other Idiot? 18: A Brief Historical Digression on How Communication Has Devolved 19: And While I'm Ranting Against the Digital Age Let Me Not Forget to Excoriate an Aspect of Social Media that Lacks Even Sociability . . .On the Fresh Hell of The Internet of Things 20: Lessons in Fake News from Two Old Masters of the Form 21: Woke to the Sound of Laughter 22: Why Kids R Commies: And Never Mind How the Free Market Bankrupted that Backwards R Big Box Store that Once Held a Greedy Monopoly on Selling Toys 23: Knowing Write from Left 24: Educating My Kids 25: My Own Lousy Education And How It May Be of Aid to the Nation 26: What We Can Learn from the Sixties Drug Culture 27: Can the Government Be Run Like a Business? 28: Two, Four, Six, Eight, Who Do We Appreciate . . .The Electoral College! 29: Is a Reasonable, Sensible, Moderate Foreign Policy Even Possible? 30: The Inaugural Address I'd Like To Hear the President-Whoever It May Be-Deliver 31: My Own Personal Fantasy League Presidential Election 32: A License to Drive (Me Crazy) 33: The Founding Fathers Have Some Words With Us 34: What I Like About U.(S.A.) 35: Acknowledgments