Dave Barry Is Not Taking This Sitting Down (11 page)

I enjoyed the art museums, but for me the most moving cultural experience I had in Paris was—and you may call me a big fat stupid low-rent American pig if you wish—visiting a gourmet food store called Fauchon (pronounced “Woon”), which contains two-thirds of the world’s calorie supply. In the great art museums, I eventually reached a saturation point and found myself walking right past brilliant
masterpiece paintings by van Gogh, Renoir, Matisse, LeRoy Neiman, etc., without even glancing at them; whereas after a lengthy period of browsing in Fauchon, I was still enthusiastically remarking, with genuine artistic appreciation: “Whoa! Check out THESE éclairs!”

In conclusion, I would say that Paris is the most beautiful city in the world, and its inhabitants have an amazing sense of
“savoir-faire,”
which means, literally, “knowing how to extinguish a fire.” I say this because one Sunday afternoon I was in a crowded café when smoke started billowing from a cabinet into which waiters had been stuffing trash. It was a semi-scary situation; I stood up and gestured toward the smoke in an alarmed American manner, but the French diners paid no attention. In a moment, a waiter appeared carrying some food; he noted the smoke, served the food, went away, then returned to douse the fire with, I swear, a bottle of mineral water. And you just know it was the correct
kind
of mineral water for that kind of fire. So the meal ended up being very pleasant. It was also—I state this for the benefit of the Internal Revenue Service—quite expensive.

T
he time has come for us, as a nation, to resolve this wrenching issue, so that we can move on. This issue has been with us for far too long, weighing on our minds, sitting heavy on our hearts, bloating the intestines of our national consciousness with the twin gases of partisanship and hate.

I am referring, as you have no doubt gathered, to the bitter controversy concerning the location of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This controversy got started last summer when I wrote a column in which I stated that the Leaning Tower of Pisa is located in Paris, France. I received several dozen letters from readers, many of them quite angry, stating that the Leaning Tower of Pisa is in fact located in an Italian city called “Pisa.”

Now, I happen to be known in journalism circles as a big stickler for accuracy. I have a stickle the size of a fire hydrant. So when I got these critical letters, I felt that I had no choice but to swallow my pride and send these readers individual notes informing them that they were mistaken, because the Leaning Tower of Pisa had been moved to Paris in 1994. At that point, I assumed that the matter was settled. But then I got
another
letter from one of my original critics, Mrs. Herbert H. Harder of Benton, Kansas. Mrs. Harder’s letter, which I am not making up, stated:

“I still don’t believe the real original Leaning Tower of Pisa was or
ever will be moved to Paris. First of all, I think Pisa, Italy, would never, never allow such a thing to happen … To move the Pisa, Italy, real Tower of Pisa would require a cost that would be prohibitive.”

To clinch her argument, Mrs. Harder cited the ultimate authority:

“I stopped at a Travel Agency and asked if they had heard anything about the Leaning Tower of Pisa having been moved. Of course, they hadn’t.”

When you have been in journalism as long as I have (6,000 years), you get used to members of the public making all kinds of wacky claims, such as that the CIA has placed radio receivers in their teeth, or aliens have invaded Earth, or the Leaning Tower of Pisa is located in Italy. So I was frankly inclined to simply ignore Mrs. Harder’s letter. But then I got to thinking about a recent public survey about journalism credibility, conducted by the American Society of Newspaper Editors (motto: “Proudly Maintaining the [Motto Continued on Page A-34)”]. The ASNE did the survey to find out why the public does not trust us in the news media. The survey showed that you, the public, think that we:

• 1. Is guilty of many grammar and spelling errores.
  
• 2. Rely on what one highly placed ASNE executive described as “too many unnamed sources.”
  
• 3. Use any excuse to print sensationalistic trash, such as the rumor that reportedly might be printed in an upcoming issue of
  Hustler
  magazine concerning an allegation that Kenneth Starr got at least 60 percent of the current Spice Girls pregnant.
  
• 4. Allow our news judgment to be affected by big advertisers such as General Motors, whose cars are not only fun and reliable, but also prevent cancer.
  
• 7. Are just generally careless and sloppy.
  

The survey also showed that the public thinks these problems have worsened in recent years. I can explain this. In the old days, newspaper
stories were checked by editors before being printed; today, editors are busy doing surveys on declining journalism credibility, so they have no time to look at the actual newspaper. (For example, if the phrase “stickle the size of a fire hydrant” appeared in this column, no editor has read it.)

The point is that we have big problems in the news business. But we also have a proud tradition of righting wrongs, expressed in the old saying: “When you make a mistake, have the courage to print a correction that is too small to locate without an electron microscope.”

And that is why, when I received the letter from Mrs. Herbert H. Harder of Benton, Kansas, claiming that the Leaning Tower of Pisa is located in Italy, rather than simply tearing it into tiny pieces and feeding them to a hamster, I said to myself, “What if maybe—just maybe—Mrs. Herbert H. Harder of Benton, Kansas, is correct?” And so, after some “nosing around,” I uncovered the following information:

• The Leaning Tower of Pisa is, in fact, located in Italy. However, under the Treaty of Ghent, which was signed by Charles “D” Gaulle and Henry VI, Italy is, legally, part of Paris, France.
  
• The “Leaning” Tower of Pisa is in fact perfectly vertical. All the OTHER buildings in Pisa are leaning, and the residents walk around on special shoes with one heel way higher than the other.
  
• According to a very highly placed source, both Charles “D” Gaulle and Henry VI got Spice Girls pregnant.
  

I hope this clears everything up. If you have any questions about this, or any other article in today’s newspaper, please do not hesitate to check with your travel agent. Or, if you prefer, you can contact us here at the newspaper directly, via the receivers in our teeth.

I
t’s time for my annual tax-advice column, which always draws an enthusiastic response from grateful readers.

“Dear Dave,” goes a typical letter. “Last year, following your advice, I was able to receive a large tax refund simply by claiming a $43,000 business deduction for ‘paste.’ I am currently chained to a wall in federal prison, but they tell me that, with good behavior, in 25 years they’ll remove the skull screws. Thanks a lot!”

Yes, helping people is what this column is all about. That’s why today I’m going to start by answering a question that taxpayers are constantly asking, namely: “When writing a letter to the IRS, should I use hyphens?”

Not if you can help it. I base this advice on a
Washington Post
news item, sent in by alert reader Bob Pack, concerning an internal memo distributed by the IRS counsel’s finance and management division. This memo, according to the
Post
, stated that the deputy chief counsel, Marlene Gross, “does not want to receive any memorandums, letters, etc. with hyphenated words.” This was followed by a
second
memo, which stated that Gross “does not want hyphenated words in letters, memos, unless it is at the end of the sentence.”

The
Post
item does not say why the deputy chief counsel feels so strongly about hyphens. But it’s quite common for people to develop hostility toward certain punctuation marks. I myself fly into a homicidal rage when I see business names featuring apostrophes on either side of the letter “n,” such as “The Chew ‘n’ Swallow Café.” Many historians believe the 1970 U.S. invasion of Cambodia was a direct result of the fact that Richard Nixon received a memo containing a semicolon. The important thing for you, the taxpayer, to remember is that if you write a letter to the IRS finance and management division, and you MUST use a hyphen, you should place it at the end of the sentence, as shown in these two example sentences provided by the American Association of Tax Accountants Wearing Suits:

Speaking of finance and management, I have here an Associated Press story, sent in by many alert readers, concerning a congressional audit of the IRS. The key finding, according to the story, was that the IRS “cannot properly keep track of the $1.4 trillion it collects each year.” Isn’t that ironic, taxpayers? The IRS—the very same agency that
expects you to maintain detailed records of everything but your toenail clippings—can’t keep track of $1.4 trillion! Although I’m sure there’s a good reason for this. They probably have their hands full at the IRS, what with this hyphen crisis.

But enough about punctuation. Let’s answer some other common taxpayer questions, using the popular Q-and-A format.

I
t is time once again for our annual feature “Tax Advice for Humans,” the column that explains our complex federal tax laws to you in simple, everyday terms that have virtually nothing to do with reality. This is the only tax-advice column that has the courage to give you the following written guarantee in writing:

“If, as a result of following the advice in this column, you are for any reason whatsoever confined to a federal prison, we will personally come and live in your house, until your refrigerator is out of beer.”

So let’s get started! Most likely the foremost question in your mind, as you prepare to fill out your federal tax forms, is: “Can I cheat?” A lot of taxpayers are thinking that this is a good year to take advantage of the Internal Revenue Service, because of the way it got hammered in those congressional hearings last September. Remember? One by one, taxpayers went before the Senate Finance Committee and told alarming stories like this:

“I got a letter from the IRS computer stating that I owed taxes back to the year 427
B.C.
, which seemed like a mistake, plus the letter addressed me as ‘The Dionne Quintuplets,’ so I went down to the IRS office to straighten things out, and the next thing I knew I was being dangled from a helicopter by one leg.”

When the nation heard these stories, everybody was outraged. The
IRS formally apologized to the taxpayers and ordered the dismantling of the agency’s primary guillotine.