Measles and TB evolved from diseases of our cattle, influenza from a disease of pigs, and smallpox possibly from a disease of camels. The Americas had very few native domesticated animal species from which humans could acquire such diseases.
The end of coal in Appalachia doesn't mean that America is running out of coal (there's plenty left in Wyoming). But it should end the fantasy that coal can be an engine of job creation - the big open pit mines in Wyoming employ a tiny fraction of th...
Saudi Arabia is, of course, the keystone of OPEC. Saudi Arabia has had the distinction of remaining stable through all the escalating tumult of recent decades, reliably pumping out its roughly 10 million barrels a day like Bossy the cow in America's ...
America's Facebook generation shows a submission to standardization that I haven't seen before. The American adventure has always been about people forgetting their former selves - Samuel Clemens became Mark Twain, Jack Kerouac went on the road. If t...
Usually people have gone through years of in vitro, just trying. The dilemma that faces infertile couples right now in America, there's so many of them. That's why - you know that's why I started talking about it, so that they didn't hear just the te...
I don't think the Bonzo Dog could have evolved in America, nor could the old Nice: because of their musical discipline. This is one thing that British groups do have, a sort of discipline. Sometimes it can get a bit soulless, but on the whole I think...
The United Nations' founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America's consent, the veto by Security Council permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The profound wisdo...
In 1962, when I was 19, I visited India. With introductions from people involved in the U.S. civil rights movement, I was able to visit with several of the leading Gandhians there. The hundred-to-one difference in average per capita income between Am...
I've known I wanted to do this ever since I was a little kid and I used to get in trouble at church for goofing off all the time: mocking the preacher, imitating people and the things they did. I later learned my mother used to be just as goofy as I ...
Nick: Fuck you. Who the fuck are you? Are you fucking with me? You're fucking with me! Bill Foster: I am just disagreeing with you! In America, we have the freedom of speech, the right to disagree! Nick: Fuck you and your freedom.
Lazar Wolf: How is your brother-in-law? In America? Tevye: Oh, he's doing very well. Lazar Wolf: Oh, he wrote you? Tevye: No, not lately. Lazar Wolf: Then how do you know? Tevye: If he was doing badly, he would write.
Chava: I'll write to you in America if you like. Golde: [shouts] We'll be staying with Uncle Avram! Chava: Yes, Mama! Tevye: [annoyed] We'll be staying with Uncle Avram! We'll be staying with Uncle Avram! The whole world has to know our business!
John: You should have gone west to America. You would have been a senior citizen of Boston. But you took a wrong turn, and what happened? You're a lonely old man from Liverpool. Grandfather: But I'm clean. John: Are you?
Yuri Orlov: When I was a boy, my family came to America... but not all the way. Like most Ukrainians, we congregated in Brighton Beach. It reminded us of the Black Sea. I soon realized we just swapped one hell for another.
Max: You'll be carrying the stink of the streets with you for the rest of your life! Noodles: I like the stink of the streets. It makes me feel good. And I like the smell of it, it opens up my lungs. And it gives me a hard-on.
Noodles: I'm not interested in friends from those places, and I don't trust politicians! Noodles: You're still acting like a street schmuck! You know, if we'd listened to you, we'd still be rolling out drunks for a living!
[as Deborah dances to a record of "Amapola", she catches Noodles spying on her in the bathroom] Young Deborah: Get down off of there, roach! That record's just like Ex-Lax - every time I put it on, you have to go to the bathroom!
Noodles: To keep from going crazy, you have to cut yourself off from the outside world, just not think about it. Yet there were years that went by. It seemed like... no time at all, because you're not doing anything.
[Deborah orders her maid Margo to leave her alone with Noodles] Noodles: She called you Miss... you never got married? Deborah Gelly: No. Noodles: Do you live alone? Deborah Gelly: No.
Max Fischer: What was your major? Rosemary Cross: I didn't have a major, but my thesis was on Latin American economic policy. Max Fischer: Oh, that's interesting. Did you hear that they're not going to teach Latin anymore? Rosemary Cross: This was mo...
[Old Rose is telling Lovett and his crew about the Titanic] Old Rose: It was the ship of dreams to everyone else. To me it was a slave ship, taking me back to America in chains. Outwardly, I was everything a well brought up girl should be. Inside, I ...
