Dartblog

I desired to order a volume from BarnesandNoble.com recently. BarnesandNoble.com, interestingly enough, is offering a promotion wherein any purchase totaling $25 or more receives free 3-business-day shipping. This promotion is quite poorly structured, you will notice. My intended volume was priced at just under $25. My purchase not qualifying for the promotion, I would have paid some $26.50 total. I set out, instead, to find a second product to add to my order that would decrease its total price. I found it in this ridiculously cheap, ridiculously satisfying edition of American humorist Ambrose Bierce’s classic Devil’s Dictionary.

I thought I would offer a few of Mr. Bierce’s definitions—published in installments from 1881 to 1906—that are (still) germane to current events.

Congress, n. A body of men who meet to repeal laws.

Representative, n. In national politics, a member of the Lower House in this world, and without discernible hope of promotion in the next.

Senate, n. A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.

President, n. The leading figure in a small group of men whom—and of whom only—it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.

Presidency, n. The greased pig in the field game of American politics.

Administration, n. An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. A man of straw, proof against bad-egging and dead-catting.

Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

Liberty, n. One of Imagination’s most precious possessions.