The Leading Cause Of Death Is Birth.

A Certain Kind Of Rich Man Afflicted With The Symptoms Of Moral Dandyism Sooner Or Later Comes To The Conclusion That It Isn't Enough Merely To Make Money. He Feels Obliged To Hold Views, To Espouse Causes And Elect Presidents, To Explain To A Trembling World How And Why The World Went Wrong.

As A Child Growing Up In The Precincts Of Wealth, And Later As A College Student, Newspaper Reporter And Resident Of New York's Upper East Side, I Got Used To Listening To The Talk Of Financial Killings And Sexual Misalliance That Animates The Conversation Of The Rich And The Familiars Of The Rich.

Whether Lawyer, Politician Or Executive, The American Who Knows What's Good For His Career Seeks An Institutional Rather Than An Individual Identity. He Becomes The Man From Nbc Or Ibm. The Institutional Imprint Furnishes Him With Pension, Meaning, Proofs Of Existence. A Man Without A Company Name Is A Man Without A Country.

Nobody Suffers The Pain Of Birth Or The Anguish Of Loving A Child In Order For Presidents To Make Wars, For Governments To Feed On The Substance Of Their People, For Insurance Companies To Cheat The Young And Rob The Old.

Tardiness Is Next To Wickedness In A Society Relentless In Its Consumption Of Time As Both A Good And A Service--as Tweet And Instagram, Film Clip And Sound Bite, As Sporting Event, Investment Opportunity, Tinder Hookup, And Interest Rate--its Value Measured Not By Its Texture Or Its Substance But By The Speed Of Its Delivery, A Distinction Apparent To Andy Warhol When He Supposedly Said That Any Painting That Takes Longer Than Five Minutes To Make Is A Bad Painting.