Fable: n.:
a fictional anecdote intended to sugar-coat an ideological message — rather like a report by a Presidential Commission.

Face: n.:
standard currency of Asian savings accounts; of greater value than gold or life.

Face your fears: motto:
look into a non-rose-colored mirror.

Fact: n.:

1. what I believe.
   
2. what I want you to believe.

Factoid: n.:
a trivium which, while showing the appearance of a fact, usually ensconces an urban legend or a minor element of propaganda.

Fad: n.:
what occupies the public attention in lieu of interest or enthusiasm; populist fashion.

Fair: adj.:

1. the way I want it to be; favorable to me.
   
2. 1. equitable
      
   2. less than good.

Fair-haired boy: n.:
larval form of Great White Hope.

Fair share: n.:

• of taxes:
  from me, none;
  from business, their share, plus enough to make up for my share.
  
• of benefits:
  for him, none;
  for me, all I can carry off.

Fair trial: n.:
one which has the outcome I desire: for the plaintiff, conviction, for the defendant, acquittal.

Fairy: n.:
one of the class that make most of the magic happen for Hollywood and Broadway.

Fairy tale: n.:
a story that begins "Once upon a time . . ." or that has a Washington DC dateline.

Faith: n.:
religion's substitute for reason.

Fallacy: n.:
what you believe, but I don't.

Familiarity: n.:
contemptuous breeder.

Family- : adj. prefix:
insipid.

Family-oriented: adj.:
sanitized to the point of having lost all savor.

Family leave: n.:
a tax-in-kind on not having children. Co-workers of people who want to stay away from work to take care of children have to absorb the workload of the stay-away.

Family values: n.:
a package of policies designed to guarantee a continuing source of income for those churches that perform marriages.

Fan: n.:
adulator;
idolator, if the team has a chance at the title.

Fanatical: adj.:
possessing a degree of commitment or devotion, to a cause I deplore, which is greater than any I can muster for those I endorse.

Fantastic: adj.:
signature euphemism of better charm schools everywhere.

Fantasy: n.:
spice for the intellect.

Fashion: n.:
a body of style chosen to create an effect:

• the rich affect expensive fashions to intimidate their inferiors and distinguish themselves from the masses;
  
• the middle classes imitate earlier fashions of the rich to try to look prosperous and important;
  
• the young affect fashions to offend and irritate the previous generations.

Fat: adj.:
weighing more than me.

Fat of the land: n.:
traditionally inexhaustible source of wealth.
Modern inexhaustible source of wealth for faddists in diet, exercise, pills and liposuction.

Fault: n.:

1. a character trait other people have.
   
2. something we admit to freely, when caught red-handed.

Faultless: adj.:
blessed with selective memory.

Fax: n.:
short form of facsimile: imitation. To send a fax is to make an imitation communication.

FDA: acronym:
Fuddy-Duddy Association. Another regulatory agency that makes "scientific" decisions based on the pressures exerted by lawyers.

Fear: n.:
the Great Motivator of emotions.

Feast: v.i.:
overeat.

Federal Reserve Chairman: n.:
high priest in the temple of Mammon.

Feeding frenzy: n.:
a phenomenon in the behavior of sharks and a few other cold blooded carnivores which bears a startling resemblance to the media's response to a spectacular story.

Feelings: n.:
how we guide our lives when it would be too much trouble to think.

Feeping creaturism: n.:
an element of Marketing, which is used to justify the adage: "There comes a time in the life of every project when it becomes necessary to shoot the engineer and go into production."

Female: adj.:
oppressed, victimized, incapable of violence, innocent.

Femi-Nazi: n.:
conservative personification of their jealousy at someone's having adopted their policy of intolerance.

Feminism: n.:
according to their bumper sticker, "the radical notion that women are people." This omits the fact that the movement also includes the equally radical notion that men aren't.

Feminist: n.:
one who, on hearing the Lerner and Loew song "Why can't a woman be more like a man?" immediately thinks of changing men to meet the requirement.

"Fiat lux:" phrase:
Latin for "Big Bang."

Fiat money: n.:
money backed by the full faith and credit of the issuing government; money without real value.

Fib: n.:
apprentice fabrication.

Fiber: n.:
nutritional lodestone of the Abstemious.

Fiber optics: n.:
in spite of the misleading name, this is not vision enhancement for that set who use Preparation H in place of Brylcreem.

Fiction: n.:
principal content of the news media; the core constituent of modern reportage.

Fifth Amendment: n.:
a constitutional protection made notorious by being heavily used by organized crime figures, Communists, subversives, members of the National Security Council, and aides to the President.

Figurehead: n.:
one who leads in the same way as the statue at the prow steers the ship.

"Figures don't lie": clause:
arrant -- and errant -- propaganda from the accountants, who believe it, and the statisticians, who put the lie to it every time they publish.
Poll takers rely on the public's having been brainwashed into accepting it.

On an unrelated, but more pertinent, note, anyone who believes that figures don't lie lacks understanding of the traditional phrase "Body by Firestone." And they've certainly never watched the remarkable Miss Carol Doda in action.

Filibuster: n.:
flatus of the body politic; representational Logorrhea.

Filicide: n.:
instinctive impulse of the middle-aged male when confronted with the adolescent male. The entire success of the species hinges on the cultural inhibition of this reaction.

"Finder's keepers": adage:

1. it's not something I lost, or
   
2. it's something I found.

Finesse: n.:
an element of which advertising and political speeches are notably deficient.

Finger: n.:
the fundamental agent of digital communications.

Fiscal: adj.:
off-schedule; as fiscal year, fiscal responsibility.

Fiscal year: n.:
a generous artifice of industry by which they free up accountants for consumers to use during the April 15 crush.

Fish: n.:
Nature's forethoughtful means for filtering mercury, DDT, and other pollutants from our natural waters.

Fisherman: n.:
a person who is not a person in the eyes of the "owls or people" people in the Spotted Owl controversy.

Fist: n.:
the "open hand" of Government.

Fit: adj.:
fortunate.

Fit: n.:
a politician's or preacher's standard reaction to any proposal that would increase personal autonomy.

Fit: v.t.:
force into an undersized container, as "I can still fit [myself] into the clothes I wore in high school."

Fix: v.t.:

1. (of an object) remove capability of movement or roving
   
2. (of an entity) remove the impetus toward roving
   
3. (of an event) remove the ability to avoid a predetermined outcome

Flag: n.:

1. standard printed on overly combustible material.
   In their attempt to assign iconic status to the flag, the Right attempted to pass a Constitutional amendment banning the burning of flags. One commentator noted that such a position would be supportable if an exception were made for flags wrapped around a politician, in which case the burning should be compulsory.
   
2. wrapper for embattled politicians, especially those who characterize themselves as patriots.
   
3. winding sheet for the career of many a demagogue self-styled as patriot.

Flag desecration amendment: n.:
a right-wing movement that seeks to overturn both the First Amendment and the second Commandment.

Flash in the pan: n.:
a showy start with no followthrough, much like a campaign promise.

Flasher: n.:
a dim bulb who puts himself out in a vain attempt to brighten up his deficient little life.

Flat tax: n.:
an assessment that leaves you flat broke.

Flattery: n.:
the food of fools; the insincerest form of imitation.

Flatus: n.:
an emission from the lower end of the alimentary canal, the physical properties of which are startlingly similar to the intellectual properties of most emissions from the other end of the alimentary canal.

Fleece: v.t.:
to relieve the sheep of their burden of hot, itchy wool.
The primary reason that a shepherd maintains a flock.

Flint: n.:
the material of which conservative hearts are said to be fashioned.
The advantage of this construction is the protection against bleeding at the slightest provocation.

Flirtation: n.:
fraternization with the enemy in the War Between the Sexes.
The establishment of sexual tension without the necessity of sexual intention.

Flock: n.:

1. aggregation of sheep.
   
2. congregation of churchgoers.
   

Floridation: n.:
a scheme to pollute our precious electoral processes.

Flower child: n.:
counter-culture dropout of the '60s. So named for their dedication to the aroma of fertilizer.

Fog: n.:
air having the clarity of a Congressional speech.
Caused by the cooling of hot air, fogs dissipate when exposed to the light of day.

Foley: n.:
a catheter: a device to tap the contents of the body, designed so that the owner of the body can't control the draining.

Folk: adj.:
polite form of "masses".

Folk wisdom: n.:
an element of popular mythology, alongside "common sense" which presumes that superstition is a basis for ordering ones life.
A social order which teaches, simultaneously, "absence makes the heart grow fonder" and "out of sight = out of mind."
Ideally, the Wisdom of the Ages; much more often, the "wisdom" of the aged.

Folly: n.:
a bit of bad judgement that I wouldn't have made.

Food: n.:
the proper function of Man, from the worm's point of view.

Fool: n.:

1. human.
   
2. the most important of a king's advisors, being the only one free to speak his mind without (much) fear of consequences.
   The relationship of freedom from consequence and foolishness has been inverted and endured into the modern Cabinet.

Foolhardy: n.:
courageous in support of a cause I don't believe in.

Foolish: adj.:
lacking the my fine, discriminating judgement; fatuous; credulous; enamored of the other side.

Football: n.:
in America, a violent sport offering vicarious release;
in the rest of the world, a vicarious sport offering violent release.

Forbes: proper name:
an alphabetic location between forbear and forbid seems to have foreshadowed the electorate's reaction to a would-be candidate.

Forbid: v.t.:
make attractive to youths and fools.

Foreign Affairs: n.:
why congressmen take overseas junkets.

Forgive: v.t.:
give up on.
But never forget.

Formal: adj.:
artificially structured; ritualized; divorced from practical, everyday life.
As formal education.

Formality: n.:
pointless gesture; frequently performed for the benefit of the press.

Fornication: n.:
unlicensed license.

Forswear: v.i.:
converse on the links.

Fortunes of war: n.:
military contractors' profits;
profiteers' bank accounts.

Founding fathers: n.:
a group of seditious and traitorous men involved in a sworn undertaking to overthrow their established government.

Fountain of Youth: n.:
an American Holy Grail, sought after in health clubs, plastic surgery practices, herbalists' shops, Swiss goat-gland clinics. The quest goes on, because anyone who doesn't believe in the fountain of youth hasn't changed many diapers.

Fox: n.:
the feminine of wolf.

Fraternize: v.i.:
sell out cheaply.

Fratricide: n.:
the final expression of brotherly love, as it is usually exhibited;
the longest-standing documented practice of Christianity.

Free and democratic election: n phrase:
free, because there is no cover charge at the polls;
Democratic, because, in the Tammany and Chicago traditions, everyone gets to vote for the candidate his alderman supports.

Free enterprise system: n:
absence of restraint on the rapacity of businessmen.

Free Market: n.:
one without an admission charge, other than the requisite bribes to appropriate government officials.

Free speech: n.:
speech paid for, or in a forum paid for, by someone else.
Free speech is the coin of the marketplace of ideas; like other coinages, it is routinely debased by the intervention of Government.

Free trade: n.:
commerce unencumbered by the attentions of officials not friendly to my activities.

Free Willy: n phrase:
bane of the gigolo.

Freedom: n.:
another word for nothing left to lose.

Freedom Fighter: n.:
a terrorist working against my enemy.

Freedom of expression: n phrase:
a supposed entitlement to interfere with the lives of others and to destroy their property in protest of a system which has made me wealthy beyond the dreams of previous generations (but not of mine.)

Freedom of Speech: n phrase:
a right which may be exercised openly, except when it may offend the neuroses of anyone represented by a politically connected pressure group.

Freeman: n.:
slave of a different master than mine.

Freshen: v.t.:
dairyman's euphemism for impregnate. If your host offers to freshen your drink, keep an eye on him.

Freud: proper name:
a student of the mind whose personality theories authentically depicted the obsession with sex that permeated his society;
progenitor of the profession of psychiatry, hence the frequent misspelling of his name as "Fraud."

Friendship: n.:
the adamantine basis of all social commerce.
In men it will stand any strain except a small loan, in women, except criticism of her children, although differences in taste in decorating will put a strain on it.

Frigid: adj.:
of a woman, not inclined to respond to my style of lovemaking.

Fringe: adj.:
away from the center; at or near the limits.
We tend to forget that the description applies equally to the leading edge and the trailing.

Frontier: n.:
an old institution, renewed in 1960, wherein there is more room for one's elbows.
The final version has little except room.

Frontrunner: n.:
the candidate with the most knives in his back.
The frontrunner must always keep in mind Satchel Paige's dictum: "don't look back -- somebody might be gaining on you."

Frustration: n.:
the emotional state resulting from a comparison of the candidates, stemming from the realization that yet again we are faced with the evil of the two lessers.

Fugitive from justice: n.:
sitting legislator.

Fun: n.:
a pasttime to which fundamentalists seem fundamentally opposed.

Fundamental: adj.:
a term derived from fund -- pertaining to money -- and mental -- pertaining to the mind or thought -- refering to someone who thinks with his pocketbook, or with that portion of the anatomy adjacent to where the pocketbook is conventionally worn.

Fundamentalism: n.:
orthodoxy in a religion I don't agree with.

Fundamentalist: n.:
one who espouses the literal accuracy of his personal mythology.
From "fundament", that portion of the anatomy used to polish chairs, wherein resides the intellect.

Funny: adj.:
whatever makes you laugh.
Funny is in the eye of the beholder, but a pratfall is always funny, in any time or clime, if only to the beholder.

Fuzzy: adj.:
inaccurately perceived; out of focus; especially in "warm fuzzies."

Fuzzy logic: n.:
logic which processes imprecisely formulated inputs to produce inadequately defined conclusions.
Warm-fuzzy logic is another form of rationalization.