P. J. ORourke - Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankinds Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer

Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankinds Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankinds Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

1234567...55

Acclaim for
P. J. ORourkes
Give War a Chance:

In the world of contemporary American humorists, ORourke is the experimental scientist....Give War a Chance ... [is] the kind of book that takes a long time to finish because youre constantly reading parts of it to whomever happens to be around.

Newsday

ORourke is smart. Hes funny. He can write like hell. Hes opinionated and not afraid to say so.... Go ahead and laugh at Give War a Chance; just watch out for the cruel undertow.

Seattle Times

ORourke is an effective propagandist with an astute insight into the dark side of the id of the sixties generation.

The Nation

The literary Prince of Venom ... the man of a million mean words.

The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

ORourke has a sharp eye for incongruity ... a tough and interesting mind.... Whats in his closet isnt liberalism but common sense, and when he lets it out hes first rate.

The Washington Post Book World

GIVE WAR A CHANCE

ALSO BY P. J. OROURKE

Modern Manners

The Bachelor Home Companion

Republican Party Reptile

Holidays in Hell

Parliament of Whores

All the Trouble in the World

Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence and a Bad Haircut

The American Spectators Enemies List

Eat the Rich

The CEO of the Sofa

GIVE WAR A CHANCE

Eyewitness Accounts of Mankinds Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice and Alcohol-Free Beer

P. J. ORourke

Copyright 1992 by P. J. ORourke

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

Printed in the United States of America
Published simultaneously in Canada

FIRST GROVE PRESS EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ORourke, P. J.

Give war a chance: eyewitness accounts of mankinds struggle against tyranny, injustice and alcohol-free beer / P. J. ORourke.

IABN 0-8021-4031-9 (pbk.)

1. World politics1985-1995Humor. 2. United StatesSocial conditions1980 Humor. 3. Persian Gulf War, 1991Humor. I. Title. D849.076 1992 956.7043dc20 91-39945

Design by Laura Hammond Hough

Grove Press
841 Broadway
New York, NY 10003

03 04 05 06 07 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Like many men of my generation, I had an opportunity to give war a chance, and I promptly chickened out. I went to my draft physical in 1970 with a doctors letter about my history of drug abuse.The letter was four and a half pages long with three and a half pages devoted to listing the drugs Id abused. I was shunted into the office of an Army psychiatrist who, at the end of a forty-five-minute interview with me, was pounding his desk and shouting, Youre fucked up! You dont belong in the Army! He was certainly right on the first count and possibly right on the second. Anyway, I didnt have to go. But that, of course, meant someone else had to go in my place. I would like to dedicate this book to him.

I hope you got back in one piece, fellow. I hope you were more use to your platoon mates than I would have been. I hope youre rich and happy now. And in 1971, when somebody punched me in the face for being a long-haired peace creep, I hope that was you.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Death of Communism, Springtime for Gorbachev, Return of the Death of Communism, Part III, The Piece of Ireland That Passeth All Understanding and most of the Gulf War section of this book originally appeared in Rolling Stone, where I am the Foreign Affairs Desk Chief, a title given to me because Middle-Aged Drunk didnt look good on business cards. I would like to thank Jann Wenner and the staff of Rolling Stone, especially Bob Wallace, Eric Etheridge and Robert Vare for good editing, better ideas and best paychecks.

Although the Gulf War dispatches appeared in Rolling Stone, it was ABC Radio that actually sent me to Saudi Arabia. The General Manager of News Operations, my friend John Lyons, called me from Dhahran and said, I noticed your bylines on the Kuwait invasion story were Jordan and the U.A.E., and this tells me you havent been able to get a Saudi visa. John got me one and got me a job, too (my first real one since 1980), doing commentary for his radio network. The Gulf Diary entries and much of the material in the Rolling Stone dispatches are drawn from my radio pieces. I know nothing about radio, and John was a patient bossthough his patience was sorely tried when I wound up, briefly, as the only ABC Radio reporter in liberated Kuwait City and was sending back live reports such as: Uh, uh, uh, uh ... oh my gosh, blown-up tanks. Many thanks go to John and to the equally patient real ABC Radio reporters in the Gulf, Linda Albin, Chuck Taylor and Bob Schmidt.

Return of the Death of Communism, Fiddling While Africa Starves, The Deep Thoughts of Lee lacocca, The Very Deep Thoughts of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter and Mordred Had a PointCamelot Revisited all appeared in the American Spectator, as did Notes Toward a Blacklist for the 1990s. This last was expanded, with the aid of the Spectators readers, into a book-length proscription called The New Enemies List. Copies are available from The American Spectator, P.O. Box 549, Arlington, VA 22216. My thanks to R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., Wladyslaw Pleszczynski, Andrew Ferguson and the rest of the staff of that fine publication.

Second Thoughts About the 1960s was originally a speech, given in October 1987 at the Second Thoughts conference in Washington, DC. Second Thoughts was a gathering of former New Leftists and other people who had successfully recovered from the sixties. The conference was put together by Peter Collier and David Horowitz, and we all had a great time chastising our former selves. Part of my speech was published in the New Republic, then under the brilliant (even if he does call himself a liberal) editorship of Michael Kinsley. The entire text was printed in the book Second Thoughts, edited by Collier and Horowitz and published by Madison Books (Lanham, Md.) in 1989.

The Second Thoughts conference was organized with the help of Jim Denton, Director of the National Forum Foundation, one of Washingtons more thoughtful think tanks. The National Forum Foundation has worked hard and even successfully to aid pro-liberty forces in Central America and Eastern Europe. It was Jim Denton who convinced me to go to Nicaragua for the 1990 elections. Jim even went so far as to claim Violeta Chamorro might win.

A Serious Problem was commissioned by the intelligent and beautiful Shelley Wanger, then Articles Editor of House and Garden. But Ms. Wanger left,House and Garden became HG and my piece was judged to contain too few photographs of celebrity bed linen.

Next page

1234567...55

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankinds Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer»

Look at similar books to Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankinds Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

Jassy Davis

Alcohol Not Included: Alcohol-free Cocktails for the Mindful Drinker

Veronica Chambers

Resist: 40 Profiles of Ordinary People Who Rose Up Against Tyranny and Injustice

Edith Lynn Hornik-Beer

For Teenagers Living with a Parent Who Abuses Alcohol/Drugs

Jack Allen

Making beer at home: The Home Beer brewing handbook

DK Eyewitness

DK Eyewitness Germany

ORourke

Peace Kills

Waller

Drinkology beer: a book about the brew

Fairbairns Ruari

The 28 day alcohol free challenge: beat the booze and change your life

ORourke

Republican Party reptile: essays and outrages

DK Eyewitness

DK Eyewitness USA

Brad Beer [Beer

You Can Run Pain Free!: A Physio’s 5 Step Guide to Enjoying Injury-free and Faster Running

P. J. ORourke

Peace Kills

Discussion, reviews of the book Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankinds Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.