May 21, 1992
Dear Everyone:
I've been having the most incredible week!
For the first time in I don't
know how many months, I had a week (so far, knock on wood) completely
devoid of meetings. Absolutely
none, not counting the impromptu discussions that always seem to crop up
in the hallways; but none of the "scheduled" variety.
Imagine! No
scurrying to get ready for a meeting, then scrambling to recover from
the meeting before dashing off to the next meeting.
I've actually been getting some
work done.
You remember work.
That's what you try to do,
sandwiched in between meetings. Except
for dealing with the occasional frantic phone calls from “Tiddles”,
“Winks” and miscellaneous records owners, I've been able to spend a
whole hours concentrating on
one thing at a time.
Of course, by next week, everything will go back to
"normal". One thing about having
such a "quiet" week is that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find
anything light-headed and silly to talk about this time.
But, then,
Vice President Dan
Quayle came to town and obligingly stuck his foot in his mouth.
Up to the knee.
Danny boy gave a speech here in San Francisco
earlier this week in which he proclaimed that the reason we have so much
civil unrest is because of poverty. Riots
are caused by poverty and poverty is caused by…too many poor people.
Of course! Why
didn't we think of that? (Welcome
to Reaganomics 101.) And why do
we have so many poor people, Dan?
Obviously, because too many poor women are giving
birth to too many poor babies.
Right again, Dan! And
is this because of a government hell-bent on re-criminalizing abortion
and denying these women access to adequate family-planning measures?
Of course not! It's
because of the decline in "traditional family values".
(That's "tradition", spelled
W-A-S-P.) Naturally, this makes
perfect and absolute sense, provided your A) male; B) white; and C) born
into a wealthy family.
Then, to prove that he knew what he was talking
about, Quayle cited, as an example of the decline of "traditional moral
values", a fictional character from a television situation comedy, to
wit: Murphy
Brown. Murphy, for those of
you just returning from intergalactic travel, is a highly successful,
single woman who (with a modicum of help from her ex-husband) became
pregnant, decided to "keep" the baby and raise it on her own (sans
father), and gave birth to it last Monday night.
It was a boy.
Some people might think that the Vice President of
the United states of America was just taking a pot shot at something
that would get his name into the papers, but no.
This was a carefully thought out
and integral part of his "back to basic family values" speech.
As he explained in the
San
Francisco Chronicle (this is an exact quote):
"I think especially in her position, a highly
successful professional woman, this would be a real exception to have an
unwed child, a big exception."
Now, personally, I don't see it that way.
It's not that much of an
exception to have "an unwed child", is it?
Aren't
most children unwed at birth?
I'm pretty sure I was.
Some people have suggested that Dan Quayle watches
too much television. But I say, I
feel certain that we all sleep better knowing that this man is only a
heartbeat away from the White House.
Meanwhile, at
CBS, the powers-that-be
are rubbing their hands in glee, thinking of all this free publicity and
hoping that Dan will next visit Arkansas and say something stupid about
Evening Shade.
Love, as always,
Pete
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