“Don’t ever change!” we wrote in each other’s high school yearbooks. “Stay just the way you are!” What strange valedictions to give ourselves on the threshold of life. Imagine if we had obeyed them, and now everyone possessed the resolute solipsism of adolescence with its wild enthusiasms, dark lethargies, strong lusts, keen aversions, inner turmoils, and uncontained impulses. Life would be exactly like it is today. You’re welcome.
—P. J. O’Rourke, The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way And It Wasn’t My Fault And I’ll Never Do It Again
R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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“Giving money to Congress is like giving whisky and car keys to teenaged boys.” That’s one of my favorite quotes from P.J. O’Rourke. The other one “It’s not such a great thing that politicians love people. After all, flees love dogs.”
A few of us more or less grew up. In any case, I’d strongly recommend O’ROurke’s _Holidays in Hell_ and _Give War a Chance_–at least if you’re old enough to remember the contexts in which the constitutent pieces were written.
Thank you Peter. PJO is hilarious.