Let's Pave the Stupid Rainforests & Give School Teachers Stun Guns, by Ed Anger Review date: January 27, 1997 Reviewed by: Kevin Drum Overall grade: B

This book caught my eye in the bookstore the other day, but I couldn't tell from its title whether it was a joke or not. So I flipped it open and happened to land on page 50:

I'm madder than a high school graduate trying to read a newspaper over something I just got in the mail from a teacher in Los Angeles. "Dear Mr. Anger," she writes, "I'm a 12th grade math teacher…and when I received this 'math competency' test last I week, I finally broke down. When I refused to give this exam to my classes, I was fired for insubordination."

Question 1 on the test is this: Johnny has an AK-47 with an 80-round clip. If he misses six out of ten times at each drive-by shooting, how many drive by shootings can be attempted before he has to reload?

Well, that answered that. Ed Anger, according to the back cover, is a regular columnist for the Weekly World News, a supermarket tabloid published in Florida, and apparently one with a better sense of humor than most. This book is a collection of his columns, and his schtick is that they always start out with "I'm madder than a [fill in the blank] over [fill in another blank]" and end with a poll about whether you agree with him or not. Some of the columns are pretty funny, but unfortunately many of them aren't, and overall the book is only worth a chuckle or three, with just a little too much chaff to wade through to really be worthwhile. Kind of like Saturday Night Live.

However, it sure made me curious about the Weekly World News, so I rushed out to the supermarket to buy a copy. It turns out that, unlike the other tabloids, it doesn't really make a pretense of being true, and most of the stories are simply made up. They're also hilarious. I laughed for a solid hour reading it, and next week I'll buy another copy (only $1.09) to see if it holds up. (I also checked out Ed Anger's column, and was disappointed to see that it was a reprint.)

One disturbing note: it's not clear how many of Ed Anger's readers know he's joking. In one column he suggested abolishing Social Security, and the poll question was: "Yes, I agree with Ed Anger that Social Security should be abolished on New Year's Day, and that older Americans ought to get off their butts and get back to work." 62,032 readers responded, and 99.7% of them disagreed. You gotta wonder if they thought he was serious.

Or is he?

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