Page 2/The Battalion/Wednesday, May 27, 1987
Opinion
Donna and Jessica tango, too
A female
columnist recently
wrote that she and
other women were
most angry at
Gary Hart because
of the hurt his out-
of-wedlock flings
caused Hart’s
wife, Lee.
Lewis
Grizzard
I can go along
with that. All we —————————
had to do was look
at Lee Hart’s eyes as she stood
steadfastly by her husband to see her
agony. An observer noted in my
earshot, “Hart’s troubles ain’t over. If he
thinks the press hounded him, imagine
the hell he’s catching from his wife.”
What I wonder, however, is why
there hasn’t been more said about the
character and morality of Hart’s partner
* n
in the recent scandal, blonde and sexy
Donna Rice.
You can’t commit adultery by
yourself. At least, I don’t think you can.
(It would be a gt>od way to avoid AIDS if
you could.)
It isn’t that Donna Rice is some teeny-
bopper airhead whom Hart charmed
aboard the yacht Monkey Business.
The woman is 29 years old, she knew
full well Gary Hart was married, yet she
was dearly a willing participant in
whatever relationship they had, and she
shouldn’t get off so easily.
There used to be a word for women
like Donna Rice back when I grew up.
The word was “hussy,” as in brazen.
It was used to describe women who
were fast, loose and high-toned, and
who hung around in beer joints and
roadhouses, chewed excessive amounts
of gum and knew all the numbers for
the songs on the jukebox by heart.
I have an even better example of
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Political facelift doesn't
disguise Jackson's past
Richard
Cohen
The cosmetics
of politics have
produced a new
J esse Jackson.
Like the new Rich
ard Nixon who
seemed to come
from right out of
nowhere, or the
new Gary Hart
w h o s e lust this
time around was
s u p p o s e d 1 y
limited to restructuring the American
economy, Jackson has reappeared with
the political version of a face-lift.
Behold the new candidate.
And the political community has
responded with surgery of its own, a
lobotomy. The rhetoric of Jackson’s last
campaign has been forgotten. The
empathetic hug he gave PLO Chairman
Yassir Araf at has been purged from
memory; the dash to Cuba in the middle
of the 1984 campaign has been
forgotten; and so, too, it seems was
Jackson’s moral collapse in the face of
the anti-Semitism of political ally Louis
Farrakhan. No mention of this from
Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards, who
has hinted he may endorse Jackson.
Much of this history, some of it
repugnant, is supposedly obliterated by
Jackson’s standing in the polls. With the
collapse of Cary Hart leaving a vacuum
in the Democratic Party, Jackson has
moved into the number-one spot. In all
polls, including some in Iowa, Jackson
runs ahead of his rivals. We are told,
explicitly or by suggestion, that it would
be racist not to concede that Jackson is
the front-runner.
And so, for what it is worth, he is. But
it ain’t worth much, and racism has
nothing to do with it. The polls now
measure little more than name
recognition. (Some in the political
community attribute Sen. Paul Simon’s
relatively high standing to the
“Graceland Factor” — voters confusing
him with the singer of the same name.)
Of course, some of the reluctance to
acknowledge Jackson as the front
runner has to do with race—although
not necessarily with racism. It is simply
not likely that a black person will be
elected President in 1988.
Acknowledging the reality of racism is
not in itself racist.
But Jackson has handicaps that have
nothing to do with race. He has never
held public off ice of any kind.
Presidential nominees almost always
have been elected to lower office, and
even those who had not, such as Dwight
Eisenhower, had a record —in Ike’s
case, an unsurpassed one—in public
service.
Jackson provides us with no
standards by which he can be measured.
His administrative abilities are basically
unknown, and what we do know
apparently doesn’t say much for him:
His various organizations, Operation
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PUSFI in Chicago, for instance, were
hardly run with IBM-like efficiency,
although self-help, community-based
organizations almost never are.
Jackson’s 1984 campaign can be seen
any way you want. It was either the most
disorganized presidential campaign in
American history or a Herculean ef fort
by a candidate who had never
attempted anything like it before.
Such a record — or lack of one —
would handicap any candidacy. But in
Jackson’s case, it is a mere trifle. It is the
record he has that is most troubling.
Time and again he has marred what
would otherwise be a refreshing and
challenging political ideology with
statements and actions that are
repugnant. He is right, for instance, in
maintaining that in the Middle East the
Arabs, particularly Palestinians, have a
case. But he goes too far. Surely the
PLO has to be dealt with, but not
hugged. It remains the killer of Leon
Klinghoffer, among others.
Jackson vexes. Almost alone among
the Democratic candidates, he combines
passion and charisma. He is saying
necessary things about both rural and
urban poverty, and in foreign affairs his
emphasis on human rights and justice is
refreshing and quintessentially
American. He is attempting to broaden
his appeal and that, too, is good and
healthy. But he is not someone new on
the scene. We are under no obligation,
either because polls proclaim him
number one or because he has issued
position papers galore, to f orget what
he has said and clone.
For all presidential candidates,
character is the paramount issue.
Jackson is no exception. His toleration
of anti-Semitism may have been a one
time mistake, and there are suggestions
Jackson is trying to make amends. But a
long campaign awaits all the candidates.
Time, not polls or short memories, will
determine if Jesse Jackson is a new and
wiser man, or just cutting his clothes to
suit this year’s political fashions.
Copyright 1987, Washington Post Writers
Group
what a hussy was, and, I suppose, still is.
My late Uncle Frank was an attorney.
Once he was representing a man in a
divorce case. In his summation to the
jury he said:
“Ladies and gentleman of the jury, let
it be known that while my client, a
brave, patriotic American, was fighting
for his country on the bald hills of
Korea, this woman here — his wife —
was seen dancing on table tops at
Shorty’s Truck Stop in Chattanooga,
Tenn., eatin’ boiled eggs and drinking
beer from a can.”
The jury ruled for Uncle Frank’s
client. What else could they have done?
Jessica Hahn got off without a lot of
damage, too, after it was revealed the
PTL Club was paying her to keep quiet
about fooling around with evangelist
Jim Bakker.
Bakker lost his job and his reputation
as a result, but Jessica Hahngottlt
money and notoriety she wouldk
never gotten otherwise. She’llproi
write a book and wind upon]
A reaction, or lack of reaction,ii
the other halves of the Hartand!
tangos might be because we renal
basically sexist society. fog,
,
We howl and scream at Hart art: |
Bakker because they are — orwett |
powerf ul men. But we ignorethei: | |
partners as merely a coupleofbro; \ '
who were nothing more thansex: j
for our villains.
And where does Jim Bakkersv:
Tammy Faye, fit into all this? NoJ
be told. The FBI recently ordereef
take off all her makeup, andgueii
they found underneath allthatpt
J immy I loffa.
Copyright 1987, Cowles Syndicate
Confessed mail-order
junkie collects catalogs
Annette
Austin
Guest Columnist
I guess it all
started when I
sent in my cereal
box tops and 2 5
cents for a combi-1
nation whistle-Green Hornet adjustable
decoding ring with a hidden
compartment for messages. At least, I
think that’s what it was.
I must have been about 8 at the time,
and that would have been my first mail
order purchase.
I don’t think “mailing lists” had been
invented yet, but I’ll bet someone,
somewhere, kept all those names and
addresses, and when the computer age
gave birth to mailing lists, the names
and addresses of thousands of one-time
8-year-olds floated to the top of the list.
Today, 40 years later, I am still ruing
that long-ago day. As is my postman,
I’m sure.
Or my current postman. My mail
probably has worn out about a dozen by
now, and there doesn’t seem to be any
end in sight to the loaded mailbags. On
a lark or a dare, I don’t quite remember,
beginning on Jan. 1, 1986, I saved all of
the mail-order catalogs I received for
one year.
That first day, there were 11 in the
mail addressed to me at the office and
another four in my mailbox at home.
The year was off to an auspicious start.
On some days, believe it or not, I
received only one. And there were even
a few when I got none.
When the year ended, the boxes and
cartons and sacks of catalogs were
gathered together and counted — 709.
Not the 14,729 1 expected, but 709
catalogs makes for a respectable (and
hefty) stack of magazines, large and
small, square and oblong, full color and
black-and-white. They run the gamut,
from clothing to calendars, Christmas
ornaments to cheesemaking.
Keep in mind, there are only specialty
catalogs, not those put out by the large
national department stores that we
associate in our minds with catalog
shopping. No Sears, no Wards, no
Spiegel catalogs. Just the “specialty”
ones.
It is obvious how it works. Mailing
lists, I mean. For example, I ordered
from one company a jigsaw puzzle
showing King Ludwig’s Castle in
Bavaria in the wintertime. Beautif ul
aerial photo of the snow-encircled
castle.
Somewhere, in the innards of
someone’s computer went the notation:
“Annette Austin, Killeen, Texas, jigsaw
puzzle” and my name and address went
on a list of other puzzle fiends who had
ordered by mail. That list then was sold
to a jigsaw puzzle company which
markets by catalog, and here came one
more catalog whizzing my way.
That was a corker, by the way. It was
full of intriguing puzzles, boasting
fascinating and beautif ul pictures and
paintings and many with a very high
degree of dif ficulty. For example, one
puzzle had 15,000 pieces and came
packaged in five parts that could be
worked separately and then put
together, or could all be dumped
together for a stupendous challenge.
The biggest challenge would be f inding
a place to work it — completed, it was 8
feet long!
But how in the world did I get on the
mailing list of Northern Hydraulics
Inc.?
I was flipping though this company’s
catalog when it arrived in the mail,
curious to say the least. I noticedil t
single flange hubs are only $11 e;
Seems like a good price, exceptl
wouldn’t know a flange hubifitki
on the nose. 1 low did Northern
Hydraulics find me?
Another fascinating catalogos
way from Exeters. It is fullofinttii
items, such as a pogo stick foradL;
which sells for only $99. SincetlT
time I was on a flat and level bdij
alley lane I fell and broke mylepL
places, I can just imagine whatl’di™
a pogo stick that would go north:
went south.
1 here is a company called
1 lammacher Schlemmer. I love tit
name of this company, just thesut
it, and if 1 played golf, I wouldordt
item from their catalog, just top
respects.
It is an intriguing itemcalledll
Schmeckenbecker Putter.
“This standard size golf putters
equiped for every occasion. AW
compass helps you f ind your wan
the rough, a candle illuminatesiIk
hole afer dark; a rabbit’s foot give
luck; a level helps you read greet:'
inch tape measure eliminatesargn
over ‘gimme’ putts and an airhom
commands silence or speeds up sic
golfers. I las nonslip rubberhatidf
and 4-inch head. $39.95 postpaid
unconditionally guaranteed.”
Another catalog I enjoy is thatp
out by Sormani Calendars Inc.Tli
came floating through the maik
and really caught myeyewithits f
unusual calendar topics: America:
opera companies, classic quiltdes!
clouds, carousels, Albert Einstein
Guatemalan weavings, whalesaiitl
artists ranging from Matisse to'!
from Gauguin to Renoir.
Unfortunately, I can useonlyso
calendars — and I had already
the new Star Trek calendarfortk
coming year, so I put theSormain
catalog away with a sigh.
Star Trek comes first.
Speaking of Star I rek, there’sa
whole industry out there forTreH |
and closet Trekkers. Books and
collector’s plates, patches and!-
models and magazines designed
written and built and madefortl
Trek fan. Other sci-fi and/orfaitf
television programs and moviesp- 1
and present also are producing^
own paraphernalia, but ST see®
holding onto its lead in the trade/
example, Interglactic TradingCo
of f ers blueprints of a KlingonSc« :
Vessel, U.S.S. Enterprise andU#
Federation of Planets caps, Starft
uniform patterns, patches and
along with “The Avengers”!#
“Dr. Who” playing cards and "k
of the Lost Art” posters.
But just about the the single,®
intriguing, most original, one-of/
never-before-seen-in-stores sped*
item I’ve ever seen was in acataly
buried somewhere in thatstackol
magazines, and I can’t remember
name of the company.
T he item was a leather poucbl'
with perfectly balanced, compi#
designed, unif ormly colored and
weighted skipping stones to tab
on your next picnic to the lake"
perfect gift for a member of tod>’
throw-away disposable society:
An item whose only purpose'
thrown away.
Annette Austin works forth'
Daily Herald.