Current Wisdom
Jackasses, Assorted
San Francisco Chronicle A brisk news account of the Rev. Jesse Jackson's appearance at an anti-Gov. Pete Wilson rally, and of the rhetorical sallies of the suave lawyer whom the Rev. brought along...
...August 28, 1995] The American Spectator October 1995 85...
...Then I ask myself: What is the relationship between me and those ants and other wildlife...
...July 31, 1995] San Francisco Examiner From Hillary Rodham Clinton's inaugural column, more of that amazing mixture of boasts and whines, pieties and shrieks that make her the perfect mate for Bill—if he only knew...
...We continue to believe in the positive message of these ads...
...A few months back, for instance, I was browsing through a museum in Washington...
...There I was, one of the most recognizable women in America, thinking I could somehow blend anonymously in the artwork...
...For several hours, I enjoyed a marvelous sensation of personal freedom...
...So I'm told," I answered...
...And when one of us exploits a woman, even by undressing her with our eyes in public, we show that we have lost touch with the woman inside us the mother who gave us life...
...Athletes are disproportionately represented in reported campus sex crimes, and the pros' reputation for violence, against women or otherwise, is legendary...
...Without sports, we never would have heard of Ty Cobb, 0. J. Simpson, Mike Tyson, Billy Martin, Darryl Strawberry...
...May 28, 1995] The Nation Woman of the Fevered Brow Katha Pollitt displays yet again the feminist propensity for inserting proboscises where they are neither wanted nor noticed nor nice: Although women are becoming more involved in sports, it's still a male world, which actively encourages and protects the worst forms of male privilege and jerkiness...
...Suddenly, a woman came up to me...
...So, on a quiet Friday afternoon, I jumped behind the wheel of a car and, much to the discomfort of my Secret Service detail, drove around town...
...The important thing for me, however, is not whether the data add up to a million or a few hundred thousand or whether Native Americans died because of bounties or other violence...
...And the ants in my path to the goal of getting the Tribune are a big part of the debate for me...
...In fact, ogling is an instinct we men need to unlearn as we teach its opposite—deep respect for women—to our male children...
...That's one of the rules of Black English Vernacular that Eyvonne Crawford-Gray shared Friday with fourth- and fifth-grade students at Lincoln Elementary School...
...We were staying at my mother's house in Little Rock and I needed to run some errands...
...August 7, 1995] New Yorker A dolorous moment in Mr...
...Doe," responded the children from Jeffrey Maas' open classroom...
...Whether Smith intended to kill herself or just wanted to win back her lover by getting rid of the kids, we will never know for sure...
...What does 'door' become...
...Without trying to invest the questions with more philosophical weight than they deserve, the issues of humans misusing lower forms of natural life are very active ones today, with "animal rights" battles going on everywhere...
...To the ranger's comment that males become combative when trying to attract females, Clinton observed: "Sigmund Freud—smart fellow...
...Crawford-Gray asked...
...August 26, 1995] Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin) Exciting new teaching and learning methods unveiled by the Bilingual Education Association: You turn a "th" sound on the beginning of a word into a "d" sound...
...it is in awareness of some of the patterns of our history...
...Do I make life "hellish" for those ants I step on every day...
...Another rule: "r" on the end of a word becomes silent...
...July 20, 1995] Chicago Tribune The anxieties and profundities of William Simpson, surely a prime candidate for Time's "Man of the Year": Reading a letter on [July 16], I was moved to empathize with the writer's feeling for "horrible suffering" inflicted on fish by bowfishermen...
...I called the Burke Museum at the University of Washington for more detailed information, but they were too busy to help callers...
...A ranger said that when the bison are mating, as they are now, the males become very aggressive—scraping their hooves in the dirt and charging intruders...
...May 27, 1995] Time Mother's "functioning heart" made comprehensible by Miss Barbara Ehrenreich, lucubrating a few steps above cannibalism for the venerable "Essay" page of a distinguished magazine: But there is a theme implicit in the [Susan] Smith story that ought to be familiar to every woman with a functioning heart, and the theme is love...
...For me, this brief taste of everyday life has come to represent the odd duality of my role as first lady...
...Furthermore—and this is the essential fact—I have found it to be the course of wisdom not to ogle women because it sets me on the wrong path and hinders my relationship with every woman, including my mother...
...July 23, 1995] New York Times Smutty ads for nitwits get a Pecksniffian rationale from the clever fellows what write for America's top designers of pantaloons for puberty: Statement from Calvin Klein, Inc...
...July 23, 1995] Washington Post More encouragement for calm, reasoned discourse from that paragon of impartiality, Mary McGrory: Human sacrifice is much in vogue right now...
...Please give me specifics about documentation of this atrocity.—Lael Dear Lael and others: The source of my California information was a PBS documentary titled "Ishi," produced by WGBH in Boston...
...That's how we talk at home," said one...
...It's Washington West...
...Even when trying not to, I step on countless ants, snuffing out their lives...
...You speak two languages...
...The difference, however, between me and the snickering rabble who claim the right to use their eyes as they damn well please, is simple: I recognize the act of "throwing amorous, languishing or insinuating glances" in public as among the more base and degrading instincts I have...
...Either way, she was an extremist in the cause of love...
...And for those insects and rodents I try to eradicate from my home...
...Do bowfishermen make life hellish for the fish...
...On the other hand, experiences that millions of Americans take for granted have become extraordinary for me...
...At one point, rangers piqued obvious presidential interest with a ribald lecture on the mating habits of bison...
...The important information, in this case, is not in the details...
...That is something to be proud of," Crawford-Gray said...
...August 4, 1995] 84 The American Spectator October 1995 Washington Post Another dizzying moment with the man who thinks he swept Paula Corbin Jones off her feet: Clinton's remarks came on National Parks Day, as he and his family toured Yellowstone National Park by foot and by helicopter...
...On the one hand, I feel privileged to meet people and go places totally out of reach of most men and women...
...Not the good kind of love, obviously, the kind that results in homemade cookies and all-night vigils with feverish children, but the ungovernable, romantic kind of love that the songs tell us about, as in "addicted to love" and "I would do anything to hold onto you...
...You may find good records that confirm the documentary statistics or reveal other atrocities...
...But since the ads' message about the spirit, independence and inner worth of today's young people has been misunderstood by some, and because we take our responsibility to those young people so seriously, we will cease running the remainder of this campaign as soon as possible...
...The kids seemed to enjoy the presentation...
...We have been taken aback by that perception, in part because it differs sharply from our intended message...
...Some of the children responded as she explained the rules...
...The" becomes "duh...
...It is not something of which I am proud...
...Paul Berman's review of The Motorcycle Diaries by the late Che Guevara, Fidel's factotum in bringing Good Government to Cuba and—now it can be told—a Revolutionary Asthmatic: But there is a pathos in these pages—the pathos of Che himself, ever thoughtful, ever willing to sacrifice all, burning with guilt over his own privileges and suffering continually from severe asthma but never letting his sufferings impede him...
...It's just like real life...
...The students .first met Crawford-Gray when she was running for a seat on the Madison School Board...
...However, some people are taking away a different perception of the ads...
...Crawford-Gray told the students that Black English Vernacular is a separate language because it has its own rules and patterns...
...And so it is possible to read these diaries and to weep for Che Guevara, and it is possible to weep for the many people who were brave enough to be his followers and who may have harbored a thousand delusions about Communism but who can never be accused of having chosen a less than noble soul as their revolutionary hero...
...I suggest you become researchers and, using your local library, contact the leading Native American museum in California and find out what it has on the California bounty system of the late 1800s and early 1900s...
...Because of the role the fashion industry plays in shaping the culture in which they grow and form impressions, we have a special responsibility to young people—in fact, we share the concerns some have raised about the challenges children face growing up today...
...July 17/24, 1995] Minneapolis Star Tribune En route to Pulitzers and eventual apotheosis in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, columnist Syl Jones reveals his basic humanity, his luminous cerebrum, and that he is a New Age momma's boy: I want to make it clear that I am not claiming never to have ogled a woman...
...We also are conveying the idea that glamour is an inner quality that can be found in regular people in the most ordinary setting...
...Every day is hellish for the wildlife kingdom...
...Where I walk to pick up my Tribune every morning, many of the cracks in the sidewalk are the homes for ant colonies...
...brought along for intellectual fortification: The children, excited by the prospect of seeing Jackson, were also addressed by San Francisco civil rights lawyer Eva Patterson: "Some very bad people don't want you to go to college...
...Let's go see it," Clinton said gleefully, perhaps discerning parallels between the bulls of Yellowstone and the political bulls he encounters...
...They want you to be homeless and go to jail and go on welfare, so they can cut welfare so you can't even live...
...July 26, 1995] Spokesman-Review (Seahurst, Washington) The chaotic thought process of Jennifer James, columnist for this illustrious organ of New Age ratiocination plus "an urban cultural anthropologist and author of six books": Hello Jennifer: You stated some million Native Americans were killed by bounty hunters in California...
...They have very strongly defined lines of what they will and will not do—and have a great ability to know who they are and who they want to be...
...The message of the CK Calvin Klein Jeans current advertising campaign is that young people today, the most media savvy generation yet, have a real strength of character and independence...
...it is not something exclusive to models and movie stars...
...Then my continuing unresolved philosophical problems about my encounters with ants arose anew...
...The Republican right thinks that people who get on its nerves, especially women, should be sent to the stake, even in this heat—which may explain some, although not all, of the madness transpiring in the Capitol these days...
...You sure look like Hillary Clinton," she said...
...On a recent trip to Arkansas, I had a sudden impulse to drive...
Vol. 28 • October 1995 • No. 10
