THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, October 30, 1981
Buchwald Book Pinpoints Many World Enigmas
COHEN
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Art Buchwald often
makes the day's burdens
easier to bear. Especially
when he deals with the
problems in the nation's
Single Vision
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shrug deserved.
"Laid Back in Washing-
ton" (Putnam.), his latest
book, containing scores of
his delightful "essays" —
close to 150 of them — will
be read, re-read, referred to,
utilized as entertainment
that often also instructs.
They are not all about
Washington, although
much of what he has written
dissects the national scenes
and the actors in the Ameri-
can arena.
There is one piece, for
example, that lampoons
Arafat. The title itself is
intriguing. In "No Close
Shave for Arafat" the
PLO chieftain is intro-
duced in this fashion:
"A reader has asked me to
help him with a problem he
has. The question he posed
is, 'I notice that PLO leader
Yasir Arafat and the now
Iranian Prime Minister
Rajai manage to appear
with a four- to six-day
growth of beard, which
never grows any longer.
How do they manage to do
it?'
"In order to get the an-
swer I called a friend of
mine at the CIA who was
very upset that I was on to
something. He agreed to
meet me in a safe house in
6
w
11 F-1
-
ART BUCHWALD
McLean, Virginia. He told
me to take a taxi to National
Airport, buy a ticket to
Bangor, Maine, and then at
the last moment rent a car
and drive to the address.
"When I met him at the
house there were three CIA
agents in the living room
who refused to give their
names, including my
friend...
"Suppose we told you (the
problem) wasn't a razor
blade, but a Soviet electric
razor.'
"I hit my head with the
palm of my hand. 'An
electric razor. I never
thought of that. But
wouldn't an electric
razor give them all a
clean shave?'
"'You would think so,' my
friend said. 'But we have
evidence that the Soviets
have been unloading bum
electric razors on their
clients in the Middle East...'
"'Why do you people
want to keep this a secret?' I
asked. 'I should think it
would be to our advantage
to publicize the fact that the
Soviets were unloading re-
jected electric razors on
their friends.'
"'Because every morning
Arafat and his cronies
shave, it causes them ex-
cruciating pain, and for the
moment we want to keep it
that way.' "
The "Laid Back in
Washington" title is
about the President who
takes a nap at 5 p.m. It is
about many Con-
gressmen, and also about
the constituents and their
problems.
It is about the college
graduates, the PhDs and
their economic troubles.
Buchwald knows the
troubles of the college
graduates and he gives an
account of them in "The
Class of 1980":
"'What is your son going
to do?' one of the mothers
asked.
" 'He's getting a degree in
economics, so he'll be driv-
ing a taxicab. We think he's
very fortunate to get a posi-
tion as a taxi driver right
out of school.'
"'You must have pull.'
"'Well, his father did
know a man who owned
three taxis. At first my
son said he wanted to get
a taxi job on his own, but
after pounding the
pavements for a few
months he realized it isn't
what you know, but who
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in library science and has
already been offered a posi-
tion as a waitress at Howard
Johnson's. But she's holding
out for a salesgirl's position
at J.C. Penney. We warned
her not to get her hopes up
as we heard J.C. Penney
was only hiring new sales
personnel with PhDs. —
How about Darwinism,
the Creation and the debate
over Evolution? Buchwald
has a definition for it all in
"Creation Versus
Applebaum":
"Well, Adam and Eve
were living happily in the
you know in the taxi
business that counts.'
"'What is your daughter
Gertrude going to do?"
"'She is getting a masters
Garden when some
geologists came along and
suspected there was oil
under it. They recom-
mended that some test wells
be drilled. Adam protested
that the Garden of Eden was
a perfect paradise, and oil
companies would destroy it
if they started putting up
rigs on the property. Adam
pointed out that God had set
aside Eden as a place where
man and woman could
commune with nature. He
said he would take them to
court if they tried to drill on
it.
"The oil companies
took their case to the sec-
retary of the interior,
who was charged with
protecting public lands.
"He accused Adam of
being an environmentalist
and trying to stop the
human race from develop-
ing its natural resources."
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