Current Wisdom
Jackasses, Assorted
CURRENT WISDOM United States Senate What follow are the contents of a letter that Senator Alan Cranston of the great state of California has been sending with impunity to Kremlinologists through...
...We must come to expect a leader, not a caterer...
...May/June 1987] Congress of the United States A concerned subscriber to this journal sends the Hon...
...Leon Czolgosz: Two changes need to be made...
...According to an article entitled "Let There Be Books" in the August 5, 1985 issue of Time magazine, the Evangelical Christian Publisher's Association claims that well over thirty million people bought at least one "Christian book" in 1984...
...March/April 1987] 62 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1987...
...Nora's pregnant...
...We are more anxious to do this job well...
...August 1987] Washington Post Conceding that her ancestors did indeed make a botch of things, Dr...
...Because the human animal eats other animals does it mean that we should abuse them...
...Most alarming is the fact that teenagers account for a large percentage of these figures, second only to married women between the ages of twenty-five and fifty-four...
...But this is different...
...What she absolutely did not want me to do was to wear make-up, wear a bra, wear anything that looked feminine, or anything that might be considered sexy...
...Barney Frank The American Spectator's recent scholarly observations about his reckless ballyhooing of a private preference and our subscriber receives this unedifying semblance of jocularity on official stationery—we only tried to be helpful, Congressman Frank: Dear [Name Withheld]: I appreciate your sending me that note from The American Spectator, which I hadn't previously seen...
...Fifty years later, we appear to be adopting precisely the methods that it Duce del Fascismo and his Nazi master in Berlin used to spread their doctrines throughout Europe before resorting to war...
...The real culprit is the time dearth...
...June 1987] News & Courier (Charleston, South Carolina) Shocking journalistic ethics during America's last days of Empire: On June 20, there was a disgraceful picture in the newspaper of a chicken that had escaped from an overpacked and stifling hot cage...
...The caption was, to say the least, ludicrous and in extremely poor taste...
...August 7, 1987] New Woman Another important revelation from Sally, Ben's wife and a kind of Quixote for Yuppies: My friend Nora Ephron married and broke our sacred pact to have no children...
...The people have a long history and a culture very different from our own...
...CURRENT WISDOM United States Senate What follow are the contents of a letter that Senator Alan Cranston of the great state of California has been sending with impunity to Kremlinologists through the United States mails: Dear [Name Withheld]: I enclose a copy of the most fascinating, encouraging—indeed exciting—analysis I've yet encountered of Gorbachev's "new thinking" and new policies...
...It is comforting to get this further evidence of the maturity level of the people most opposed to me...
...I was devastated not because of Nora's news but because it sparked an inner confrontation...
...Must we become totalitarian in order to sanitize ourselves against Communism...
...relations will study this report with the care it deserves...
...We are not sure if we can fairly distribute ourselves—not just our income, but ourselves, our attention and energy—over three, four or more children...
...a real person, not a superman...
...Most people who wouldn't be surprised if Jewish or Amish parents wanted Jewish or Amish children are nonetheless horrified at the possibility that a gay parent might prefer a gay child...
...The report cites Soviet actions consistent with these departures in three realms: arms control, the Asian-Pacific Basin, and the Third World...
...Next to it was a dead chicken...
...President [or Ms...
...Ellen Goodman—columnist and anthropologist of the absurd—makes a compelling case for her nonexistence: Finally, this demographer missed some powerful emotional reasons why Americans are having fewer children...
...Among other innovations cited, Gorbachev has abandoned the distinction between "just" wars to advance communism and "unjust" wars to advance capitalism, declaring, "The modern world has become too small and fragile for wars...
...May 4, 1987]Vegetarian Times Lungs filling with the fresh air of an America now liberated by the forces of Reaganism, actress Ally Sheedy recollects the oppressive conditions in feminism's Brave New World of the 1970s: My mother (Manhattan literary agent Charlotte Sheedy) was such a strong adherent of the women's liberation movement...
...you are what you print...
...President], what do you plan to do in El Salvador...
...Not me...
...BARNEY FRANK [July 22, 1987] New York Times Carefully reasoned elucidations suggesting that the wise investor will look for a company specializing in making black shirts for the American market: On Oct...
...Gross sales for the Christian Booksellers Association were reported as $1.2 billion...
...August 1987] New Age Journal From the incomparable world of American belles-lettres, Mr...
...our Chief Executive will be able to respond: "Frankly, I don't yet know much about El Salvador...
...I've been studying it for several months, but it's a complicated situation down there...
...And I grew up in that generation of women who never learned to put on make-up...
...We still want a fantasy Big Daddy in Washington...
...Foster says, "I've been making records for 10 years and never, ever called stations before...
...I felt so betrayed that I got drunk and passed out in the plane's bathroom...
...So when I was growing up, I never really learned how to do those things...
...The caption of this picture was "Poultry in Motion...
...To the best of my knowledge their situation doesn't seem to be critical, so until we have a more complete understanding of things we don't plan to do anything in El Salvador...
...Man . . . must realize the need to demilitarize the world...
...I hate to believe that Mussolini, the renegade Socialist, was also a prophet...
...Una Ashcraft [June 24, 1987] Ms...
...I look forward to the day when, asked at a press conference something such as "Mr...
...Ben and I were in Miami, en route to St...
...It isn't just money...
...Prepared carefully by scholars working under the aegis of the American Committee on United States-Soviet Relations, it presents significant evidence that Gorbachev has departed in word and deed from certain specific traditional Marxist-Leninist doctrines and from the policies of those who preceded him as Soviet leader...
...a spiritual director, not a Big Daddy...
...He recognizes, he says, that "people are pretty tired of songs about causes, but when you think about the Russian Army singing about world peace—well, maybe it will make a difference...
...I really don't know how to cook—at all...
...We believe it possible to build such a world and we shall do everything to ensure success of what is perhaps the most ambitious social goal ever...
...The world is ready, but the American press and the American consciousness are not yet ready...
...I did want a child...
...We see parenting as a much more complex, psychologically significant and demanding role than our grandparents did...
...The truck on which it was traveling was stalled...
...Can you tell me the merits of this picture and analogy...
...We must prepare ourselves to accept—to celebrate—not an imperial presidency but a "poor-in-spirit" presidency...
...We are not, however, ready for that day...
...I hope that you and others concerned about U.S.-U.S.S.R...
...You are what you eat...
...Regards to you, Alan Cranston [June 29, 1987] Los Angeles Daily News From the inerrable Miss Marilyn Beck, more news that Hollywood is still asking us to think real hard: The inside track: Music producer David Foster (no relation to film-TV producer David Foster) is "calling all sorts of radio stations," asking them to play the new "Love Lights the World" single that he recorded with the Russian Red Army Choir...
...The major one is in the people's expectations of our president...
...Martin, and he told me, "Great news...
...And he has departed from precedent by refraining from arguing that the solution to every world problem is to strengthen socialism, saying instead, "We must waste no more time trying to outplay each other and to gain unilateral advantages...
...Something he said seems pertinent in the context of the incredible episode that has cast Colonel North as a paladin of democracy's struggle to contain the spread of Communism...
...The stake in such a game is too high—the survival of humanity...
...The first thing children do without your permission is to pick their sex, and probably the second thing is to pick their sexual preference," says Doug...
...27, 1937—Fascism's 15th anniversary—I had the dubious honor of interviewing Benito Mussolini in his grandiose office in the Pallazzo Venezia...
...And I hope we can lead our country to proceed with policies designed to test Gorbachev's willingness and capacity to carry out to the fullest extent possible the approaches this study indicates he favors...
...You probably ought to be reading The National Enquirer as well, because that will give you even more opportunity to indulge your fascination with other people's sex lives...
...And now, there are things I have to teach myself to do...
...In fact, all four say they don't care if Sarah is heterosexual—not because they think it's better, but because all of them suffered as adolescents who weren't living up to their parents' ideas of proper sexual orientation...
...M. Scott Peck makes the most constructive recommendation for presidential reform since Dr...
...Is there a birth dearth...
...The squash life—Lindsey Van Gelder writes of how two enlightened pederasts and two beauteous lesbians are raising little Sarah to become a genius and a love goddess somewhere in New Mexico before the authorities close in: One of the questions that outsiders ask the adults most often is whether they want Sarah to grow up gay...
...Frank Gervasi New York, July 17, 1987 [July 31, 1987] Humanist An ominous report tendered by Gary K. Griswold in his exigent essay, "Religion: An Obstacle to a Better World": Christianity today is indeed a powerful force, both socially and politically in the United States and the World, and its views are being quite effectively disseminated...
...I went to a therapist and two years later finally admitted to myself that I wanted marriage and children...
...Are we so desensitized that we can print such pictures with such captions and not be outraged...
Vol. 20 • October 1987 • No. 10
