Baker’s Laws of Progress
1. Progress is what people who are planning to do something really terrible almost always justify themselves on the grounds of.
2. Usually terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all but just terrible things.
Russell Baker himself termed these ‘Inside Facts About Progress’ in Poor Russell’s Almanac (1972) but they obviously have the force of law. His Almanac also includes other precepts of value as one travels down the highway of life. Among them:
Baker’s Rules of the Road
1. The people who are always hankering for some golden yesteryear the loudest usually drive the newest cars.
2. There are no liberals behind steering wheels.
Baker’s Secrets of Happiness
1. Happiness is when a wire has become disconnected under the dashboard and the motor is hissing and you go to a garage and the repairman says you have a “vacuum leak” and you ask how much it will cost to fix and he says “$1.75″.
2. One snow in a winter is happiness. Two snows are too many. Three snows are a penance visited upon cities that are unjust. Wise is the man who goes to Yucatan after the first snow for he shall escape the ravages of dipsomania self-pity and misanthropy and his shoes shall not be ruined.
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