THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.Excerpt from "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut (1961).
11 comments:
F I R S T!!
The younger crowd might know him from his appearances on The Daily Show. He was always good.
Gotta reset my calendar to April 11, 2007.
My favourite Vonnegut was always "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater." Been a long time since I read that. Oh, and the short stories, too, in "Welcome to the Monkey House."
NR
My favorite was The Sirens of Titan.
I thought Mr. Vonnegut was talking about William F. Buckley, Jr. and not Harrison Bergeron.
Good one. I picture Hillary as Diana Moon Glampers.
RIP, WFB.
Lex,
You read my mind. Ann Coulter as the ballerina? [ducks]
A world without Luba? Entire industries would be destroyed.
(NR ducks as literary allusions fly over his head).
But I recall one special evening in my undergrad days as my roomate and I watched the movie Slaughterhouse Five while stoned. Halfway through my girlfriend arrived and I proceeded to try to explain the plot to her. Yeah, that went really well...
NR
I do recall something about extraordinarily long duck dongs last year.
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