SMALL FAVORS
Ivins, Molly
SMALL FAVORS Molly Ivins State of the States Good news from the Southwest! The New Mexico legislature is about to make the biscochito the State Cookie—as soon as they figure out how to spell it....
...Honest...
...Speaking of Baton Rouge, when David Duke, the newest member of the Louisiana legislature, was the chief cheese and sheet-washer for the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, he took the Dale Carnegie course in how to win friends and influence people...
...But there's a difference between a man who propositions a colleague, an equal, even someone he meets in a singles bar who's in a position to say, "Back off, Jack," and a man who hits on women who are economically or psychologically vulnerable, who for one reason or another are not able to say no easily...
...I'll say this for John Tower—he worked for his reputation, he earned it, and he deserves it...
...The press did have a hard time nailing down the boozing story, but that's because it's a hard story to nail...
...Personally, I tend to like men who like whiskey and women and I'm not entirely sure I trust those who don't...
...As a general rule, it isn't...
...A conference committee will be named...
...Meanwhile, the Texas Lege is responding stoutly to news of the massacre of children in Stockton, California, by a crazed man using an assault rifle...
...Take the one we've got now, the Lonesome Guv...
...In lesser provinces, solons are outlawing the purchase of automatic and semi-automatic weapons...
...Governor Bill Clements came out against the pay raise Molly Ivins, a columnist for the Dallas Times Herald, appears in this space every month...
...If Louisiana eventually elects Duke governor, don't expect any sympathy from Texas...
...Even the doctors and the experts can't tell when alcoholism starts, and there are lots of alcoholics who remain functional for years...
...At the time, the case of the Klansman who took the Carnegie course (where they teach you to say heartily, "Gosh, isn't this a good party...
...A boss who hits on his employees, an executive who hits on his secretary, a professor who hits on his students, a doctor or psychiatrist who hits on his patients— that's not lusty pursuit in a game of love played by both sexes: That's abuse of authority, that's preying on the weak, and it is morally repellent...
...It is embarrassing to have a governor who wears a plaid jacket all the time...
...in Texas, we are going to make it a capital crime to murder children on school grounds...
...Our state legislators were timorously hoping for a raise this year: It's been fourteen years since their last one and they make $7,200 a year, which comes to $341 a month take-home...
...Earl finally got so bad his own family shipped him off to a nuthouse in Galveston...
...Now, with any luck, the Klansman who took the Carnegie course is off on a blazing political career...
...All of which tends to prove a long-held theory of mine: The really interesting stuff in our public life is not in Washington—it's in Austin and Albany, Boise and Baton Rouge...
...Said Oakley, "He's sitting there saying, 4I think legislators are overpaid,' and he's drawing $92,000 a year and wearing a plaid jacket and going to Taos, New Mexico, all the time and slapping us in the face like that...
...In addition to the usual run of politically motivated witnesses, there's a tricky problem in judging the reliability of sources by how much they drink themselves: People who don't drink at all tend to overestimate the effect of alcohol on others...
...people who drink a great deal tend to underestimate it...
...I could tell on opening day it was going to be a great legislative session here in the Lone Star State when Speaker Gib Lewis thanked his colleagues for re-electing him by saying, "I am filled with humidity...
...and "My, aren't we having a lot of fun...
...They sent us one of their barmy governors once before—Earl Long, who was Huey's crazy brother...
...and genially observed, "Some people think they're overpaid now...
...The Senate version of the State Cookie law has it as "bizcochito...
...We kept him for six weeks and then let him go...
...he looked like a perfectly normal governor to us...
...Most journalists didn't go after stories about Tower's wenching on grounds that it's not really relevant...
...Governor Clements makes $91,600 a year, and when it was pointed out to him that this leaves a significant gap between his salary and the legislators', he quipped, "And I hope that gap gets wider...
...In an effort to narrow the gap one way if not another, Representative Keith Oakley promptly introduced a bill to cut the governor's salary by $84,000 a year...
...Meanwhile, one of our more noted homeboys, Little John Tower, has come to grief in Washington City and has now taken up permanent residence in the Hall of Martyrs to the Media...
...seemed to be just another reason not to write fiction...
Vol. 53 • April 1989 • No. 4
