The Leading Cause Of Death Is Birth.

To The United States The Third World Often Takes The Form Of A Black Woman Who Has Been Made Pregnant In A Moment Of Passion And Who Shows Up One Day In The Reception Room On The Forty-ninth Floor Threatening To Make A Scene. The Lawyers Pay The Woman Off; Sometimes Uniformed Guards Accompany Her To The Elevators.

If We Could Let Go Of Our Faith In Money, Who Knows What We Might Put In Its Place?

The Playing Field Is More Sacred Than The Stock Exchange, More Blessed Than Capital Hill Or The Vaults Of Fort Knox. The Diamond And The Gridiron -- And, To A Lesser Degree, The Court, The Rink, The Track, And The Ring -- Embody The American Dream Of Eden.

Since The Eighteenth Century The Immense Expansion Of The Worlds Wealth Has Come About As A Result Of A Correspondingly Immense Expansion Of Credit, Which In Turn Has Demanded Increasingly Stupendous Suspensions Of Disbelief.

About The Presence Of Death And Dying I Don't Remember The Society In The 1950s Being So Skittish As It Has Since Become. People Still Died At Home, Among Relatives And Friends, Often In The Care Of A Family Physician. Death Was Still To Be Seen Sitting In The Parlor, Hanging In A Butcher Shop, Sometimes Lying In The Street.