Dave Barry

Mindless in Mickeytown
Dave Barry

Every year, we return to Orlando, Fla. Instinct makes us do this. We're like the salmon who must swim upstream to spawn and die. They are lucky. We must go to theme parks. A theme park is an amusement park where you pay one blanket admission fee, which is quite steep, but once you're inside, everything is totally free, except all the other stuff you end up buying

Flight 573 Now Boding
Dave Barry

We set out with a sense of foreboding. If you ever feel a boding, and later on something bad happens, that was a foreboding. We were traveling from Miami to Minnesota, a state located near, or possibly inside, Canada. The reason we felt a boding was that we were carrying a live baby, and we had stupidly elected to travel by airplane. I think that, instead of making such a big deal about weapons, the airlines ought to start cracking down on babies

Dakota: Just a Snow Job
Dave Barry

North Dakota is talking about changing its name. I frankly didn't know you could do that. I thought states' names were decreed by the Bible or something. In fact, as a child, I believed that when Columbus arrived in North America, the states' names were actually, physically, written on the continent, in gigantic letters, the way they are on maps.

Cyberspace Cadet
Dave Barry

It's time once again for Keyboard Korner, the computer-advice column that uses simple, 'jargon-free' terminology that even an idiot like you can grasp; the column that shows you how to 'take command' of your personal computer, if necessary by reducing it to tiny smoking shards with a hatchet.

Who Can Do the Math
by Dave Barry

We have come to the time of year when we remove the video-game controls -- by surgery, if necessary -- from the hands of our children, and send them back to school. Knowledge is our nation's most precious resource, after agriculture and Ray Charles.

The Mother of All Parties
by Dave Barry

Things are tense in our house. Like many moms, my wife believes that a child's birthday party requires as much planning as a lunar landing--more, actually, because you have to hire a clown.

Not Breathing? Try This
by Dave Barry

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.'

Discover...Your House
by Dave Barry

Summer vacation season is here, and if you have kids, you know what that means! No, sorry. But where should you go for your vacation this year? Avoid risky areas such as Asia, Europe, South America, Africa, Canada and Mexico. Do not touch anything.

Bride As Frankenstein
by Dave Barry

Your modern American wedding is more complex, in terms of logistics, than a lunar landing. For one thing, NASA scientists don't have to decide on guest favors; the bride does, and it's not simple.

The Party is Over, Toto
by Dave Barry

I used to be a party animal. If there was a party, I was there, and I did not leave until it was over. Even then, I did not always leave. Sometimes the people who threw the party, if they wanted to get rid of me, had to move.

Talk About an Air Strip
by Dave Barry

For some reason, my traveling party had been singled out by the security people for a near-proctological level of scrutiny. This surprised me, because my party consisted of me, my wife and our 20-month-old daughter. I cannot imagine terrorists getting anything done if they were traveling with a baby

The Class-Conscious Diet
by Dave Barry

My favorite part of The New York Times is a weekly section that reports on things that trendy New Yorkers are doing. This section is called Sunday Styles, because it would be rude to come right out and call it Rich Twits on Parade.

Andy Rooney

One Man's Trash / Treasure ...
Andy Rooney

We waste more in the United States than the people of most other countries even have. Driving through the streets of any major city on the day the trash collectors come -- or are supposed to come -- is an experience the citizens of a hundred less prosperous nations would find difficult to believe.

Wouldn't You Like to Be a Politician?
Andy Rooney

It's a good thing for all of us that there are people who want to be politicians because you couldn't pay most of us to take the job of mayor, governor or president of anything. Why are there people who want to do such difficult work? We're all glad they do, but why?

How Does Your State Rank
Andy Rooney

This column is sort of a cheat because I have a book called 'State Rankings 2009' that you probably don't have. I get to do an easy column once in a while, and this book has some fascinating numbers

The Newspaper Business Then and Now
Andy RooneyThe newspapers keep coming in my office. There's always today's paper before I've finished yesterday's and I get a lot of them. As you know, I'm an avid newspaper reader and I like all the little stories, so the paper takes me a long time to read.

How Does Your Brain Work
Andy Rooney

It may not matter to you, but I wish there was a better way for us to keep track of some of the numbers and information we gather throughout our lives. And then of course I'd like to be able to permanently forget some information. Sometimes I feel that we should be in more control of our brains.

What's In The Mail Today
by Andy Rooney

One of the good things in life is getting a letter. In view of the fact that I think this is true, it's strange -- I guess I mean "dumb" -- that I don't write more letters myself.

Don Hewitt, A Friend to the End
by Andy Rooney

As a tribute to the legendary Don Hewitt, the originator of "60 Minutes" and long-time CBS News producer/director, I decided to re-release a column I wrote 11 years ago. My former boss and a friend for more than 60 years, Hewitt, fighting to the end, passed away Wednesday, Aug. 19.

Our Homes Away From Home
by Andy Rooney

Some towns in the U.S. have good names and some do not. I have a home in a great town, and I'm not going to name the town for fear that everyone will want to come there.

A Writer on Writing and Words
by Andy Rooney

It's best for writers not to think too much about writing when they write. I know this may seem wrong to the reader, but I can't help myself. I've been thinking about writing for the last month because I'm on vacation and writing is what I love, not vacationing.

A Smile by Any Other Name is Still A Smile
by Andy Rooney

Words are what we use most often to communicate information or a thought, but we transfer a lot of ideas from one person to another using means other than the written or spoken word. For example, we smile. A smile is a complex way of indicating what we think to someone else because there are so many ways to smile. We smile to ...

Play First, Read Instructions Later
by Andy Rooney

The directions that come with any new appliance or tool must all be written in one place in some remote foreign country because they all sound the same. They also sound as if they've been written by someone who knows almost no English.

Where Does the Time Go?
by Andy Rooney

It doesn't pay to get thinking much about time because it's depressing. You can't put your finger on it. Time has no beginning we can imagine and no end we can conceive of. Time is endless in both directions -- behind us and in front of us.

Born to Lose
by Andy Rooney

I'm a world-class loser. There are very few people better at losing things than I am. I was getting into bed and I thought to myself, "Maybe losing stuff would make a column." So I scribbled some notes about it on a piece of paper, turned out the lights and went to sleep ...

Summer Vacation: It's That Time of Year, Again
by Andy Rooney

Looking forward to a good time is one of the pleasures of life, and it's that time of the year for me. It's just before my summer vacation. Looking forward to a vacation can often be better than the vacation itself.

What's in the Headlines
by Andy Rooney

Look at these headlines. Does everyone know what the editors are talking about ...

Summer is On Its Way
by Andy Rooney

You can feel summer coming and I don't like it. It begins on June 21. Heat is harder to deal with than cold. When it's cold, you can put on another coat or turn up the heat, but there's just so much you can take off to stay cool when it's hot outdoors.

Mitch Albom

Famous ... for 15 Seconds
Mitch Albom

You used to have to do something to become famous. Now being famous is doing something. This is all part of the narcissism culture that moved from T-shirts with your kids' faces to chest thumping to celebratory rap lyrics through Me Cameras, reality TV, YouTube postings and now, the last pinnacle, a Times Square billboard.

Hand Sanitizer: The New Bottled Water
Mitch Albom

The news anchor shakes my hand. Then he turns, still talking, and presses the nozzle on the hand sanitizer. This is the new American greeting. Howdy, neighbor -- let me wipe you off. The current hysteria over the H1N1 flu virus has people so spooked, they don't even wait until you leave the room. They touch you, then untouch you. Connect-disconnect

Wall Street: Get Off Your High Horse
Mitch Albom

If a bank gives you money to buy a house, it gets to determine the mortgage, right? If a credit card company issues you a Visa, it tells you the terms, not the other way around, correct? Then why do financial institutions bailed out by the government cry foul when that same government -- i.e., their bank -- wants to set the rules? Isn't that how the banks do business

TV News Sensationalism: Everything Is Suspect
Mitch Albom

Back in 1949, a little girl in California fell down a well. As diggers tried to save her, a huge crowd gathered. The rescue attempt, which took several days, was broadcast nationwide on radio -- and followed anxiously on a new medium called television. Since that moment, kids and danger have been an irresistible lure for broadcasters

Invasion of Privacy, Yes, but $100 Million Worth
By Mitch Albom

Mandi is a junior, and she and her parents, in filing a $100 million lawsuit against the school, claim that the coach not only violated her constitutional rights, but also trashed her high school experience, causing her to be an outcast, depressed and suffering a drop in grades.

Obama Unfair to the Rich
by Mitch Albom

In explaining why it was OK to sock a new 5.4 percent tax on the highest earners in this country -- to pay for health care reform -- President Obama's press secretary. Robert Gibbs, said this: 'The President believes that the richest 1 percent of this country has had a pretty good run of it for many, many, many years.' Ah. So that's it ...

It's Not Polite, But It's Democracy
by Mitch Albom

I have no illusions about those protesters at recent town hall meetings on health care. Some are fueled by angry conservative groups. Some are hopped up on radio hosts' rants and ravings. Some are Barack Obama haters. Some use one piece of wrong information to smear an entire event. And some -- maybe even most -- just think the whole idea of government health care stinks. But ...