movie directors became filmmakers,

company presidents became chief executive officers,

family doctors became primary-care providers,

manicurists became nail technicians,

magazine photographers became photojournalists,

weightlifters became bodybuilders

and bounty hunters now prefer to be called recovery agents

And speaking of lifting, those retail-store security people who keep an eye on shoplifters are known as loss-prevention managers. Still more to come. Later.

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IN THE FUTURE:

The human life span will be extended to 200 years, but the last 150 will be spent in unremitting pain and sadness.

No one will take drugs, but people will still buy them and conceal them from the police.

Children will be required to attend school only when something comes up in conversation they do not understand.

All people will speak the same language, but no one will speak it well.

Science will develop exotic flowers capable of producing music. Most of these plants will be exploited by record companies.

All farming will cease and the land will be used for loitering.

Although people will not keep pets of any kind, someone will still occa sionally step in dogshit.

A race of people living in the center of the Earth will be discovered when one of them comes out to buy a sunlamp.

Miners will exploit the ocean floor, and, when trapped in a mine, the wives who gather to wait at the entrance will be forced to tread water.

A team of astronauts will attempt to harness a comet and never be seen again.

The human body will develop fins and gills, and beach property will increase tenfold in value.

Man will learn to control the weather with a large hammer.

A time machine will be built, but no one will have time to use it.

At birth, religions will charge people an initial fee of $50,000 and then pretty much leave them alone.

All the knowledge in the world will be contained on a single, tiny silicon chip which someone will misplace.

People will be born with just enough money to last until they get seriously ill.

The speed of the Earth’s rotation will increase and everyone less than five feet tall will be flung off into space, including Paul Anka.

The sun’s light will diminish until it is the equivalent of a forty-watt bulb, and people with highly developed squinting skills will have a survival advantage.

Every part of the human body will become replaceable, but all parts will be back-ordered six months.

A Utopian society ruled by women will emerge, and there will be peace and plenty for all. However, many men will still act like macho assholes.

People will change clothes every six minutes but still never be quite happy with their appearance.

Cities will be built under huge glass domes which, in time, will be completely covered by graffiti.

Chickens will operate on gasoline and, surprisingly, many of them will get good mileage.

Genetic scientists will develop vegetables too big to be transported and they will have to be eaten right at the farm.

The insane will no longer be housed in asylums; instead, they will be displayed in department store windows.

The oceans will dry up, and people will find things they dropped in the toilet many years ago.

There will be no doctors or medicines of any kind and everyone will be really sick.

Eventually, it will no longer be necessary to forecast the future, because time will disappear and everything will happen at once.

DIG THIS!

Whenever we go into some country we’ve bombed, burned and occupied, we always find mass graves full of dead people who were killed by the deposed dictator before we got there. And everybody in the United States acts like they’re real surprised and disgusted. But when you think about it, what’s a guy supposed to do with all those bodies after he’s killed a couple of thousand people? Dig a separate hole for each one? Put up little markers with their names on them? Get real, for chrissakes. The whole idea of killing a couple of thousand people all at once, in one place, is to save time. Besides, all the United States ever does is complain a little, take a picture and then leave. So what’s the fuckin’ difference?

FALL DOWN, GO BOOM!

You know what I find interesting? Land mines. Here are a few great statistics. Listen to this:

There are 340 different types of land mines made by a hundred different companies. Every daythat’s every dayroughly six thousand fresh mines are placed in the ground. Right now, there are 110 million land mines in seventy-two countries; and every twenty-two minutes, one of them explodes. Seventy-five mines explode every day, and each month seven hundred people are maimed or killed. That’s twenty-six thousand people a year. Don’t you find that interesting?

Mines cost only three dollars to make and to put in the ground. But they cost a hundred dollars to disarm and remove. If you tried to remove them all, it would cost $33 billion and it would take eleven hundred years. They cost

three dollars apiece, and they last indefinitely. Wouldn’t it be nice if other products could make that claim?

Here’s another funny statistic: In Cambodia, one out of every 236 civilians is missing a limb or an eye from an exploded land mine. Cambodia now has thirty thousand people with at least one missing limb. And they still have 4 million mines in the ground.

It makes you wonder whether or not some unlucky, one-legged Cambodian guy has ever stepped on a land mine with his good leg. I’ll bet it’s happened. I’ll bet anything there’s some guy in Cambodia who has hit the lottery twice.

I tried to think of what would be the most entertaining way of setting off a land mine, and I decided it would be to land on one while doing a cartwheel. Wouldn’t that be weird to see? Makes you wonder if the high-school cheer-leading squads in Cambodia keep mine detectors handy.

These are the kinds of thoughts I have when I’m sitting home alone and things are slow.

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WHO KNOWS?

A: “I don’t know. Or at least I don’t know if I know. And I don’t even know if I care to know if I know.”

B: “I don’t know what you mean.”

A: “You know, I mean I don’t know what I mean. You know what I mean?”

B: “What do you mean you don’t know what you mean? I don’t know what you mean.”

A: “I mean, you know, I don’t know.” B: “You don’t know? You mean that?” A: “I don’t know.”

A CONTINUING NEWS STORY ALL IN ONE PLACE