There must be a pony in here somewhere...
According to this New York Times article advance copies of a new book, There Must Be A Pony In Here Somewhere, by San Francisco writer Kara Swisher who was on hiatus from the Wall Street Journal reveals that:
America Online, in a self-effacing role reversal, is petitioning AOL Time Warner to remove the "AOL" from the parent company's name.
The request means that AOL has now come full circle. When AOL, as America Online is commonly known, acquired Time Warner to create the company two and a half years ago, its executives insisted on putting the "AOL" at the front of the name, one executive involved said last week.
The name of the new book comes from a famous joke told often by President Reagan:
Next the psychiatrist treated the optimist. Trying to dampen his out look, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with horse manure. But instead of wrinkling his nose in disgust, the optimist emitted just the yelp of delight the psychiatrist had been hoping to hear from his brother, the pessimist. Then he clambered to the top of the pile, dropped to his knees, and began gleefully digging out scoop after scoop with his bare hands. "What do you think you're doing?" the psychiatrist asked, just as baffled by the optimist as he had been by the pessimist. "With all this manure," the little boy replied, beaming, "there must be a pony in here somewhere!"
"Reagan told the joke so often," Meese said, chuckling, "that it got to be kind of a joke with the rest of us. Whenever something would go wrong, somebody on the staff would be sure to say, 'There must be a pony in here somewhere.'"