SMALL FAVORS
Ivins, Molly
SMALL FAVORS Molly Ivins Better Times Ahead Newt Gingrich was Man of the Year: what else do you need to know about 1995? Personally, I think the Question of the Year was posed by Jim Hamblin of...
...O.J...
...Homer...
...Great gravy, they'll be slopping onto the hall walls, down the stairs, into the rotunda, where no one will be able to distinguish them from the portraits of former governors...
...Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram...
...replied the doc...
...A lady dining at a beanery in Pharr had some kind of attack and started gasping...
...Homer...
...All survivors are due a pat on the back, and better times ahead...
...He waved at the doc, "Chewcan breath...
...Homer...
...A tall, elegant woman approached a terrified high-school kid, hired as a temp for the holidays, at the information counter of an Austin bookstore...
...Happy New Year, y'all...
...The lady recovered...
...This unelucidating exchange was repeated three times, still no clarity...
...Why are they so afraid of a few hundred thousand people with assault rifles...
...Figure an average turnover of forty members, five heads each, that's 200 every term, 1,000 heads in ten years...
...His then-four-year-old granddaughter came to visit him and, surveying a full war-bonnet he also had in his office, inquired touchingly, "Grandpa, when did you shoot that Indian...
...Where can I find The Odyssey...
...inquired the woman with a cultured Yankee accent...
...With a great carry-on, she was convoyed to the nearest emergency room where everyone tried to explain at once...
...Uh, how do yew spell Odyssey...
...asked the doc over the roar...
...Oklahoma City, Bob Packwood: it was ghastful...
...He pointed to his wife, "Butche can't breath...
...said the frantic husband...
...Chicken breath...
...Uh, Homer Who...
...For example, that notable nimrod Speaker Gib Lewis, who traveled all over the world to slay rare and endangered species, had an office wallpapered in heads...
...The downside of the taxidermy decision is that the pols can't take the heads with them when they leave...
...This may not, at first, strike you as the dire pickle that it is...
...Here in Texas, the year's end was marred by an unfortunate decision from the Texas Ethics Commission, to wit: our pols can henceforth charge to their campaign coffers the cost of having their hunting trophies mounted...
...You see, our pols are extremely fond of offing Bambi's mom on hunting trips paid for by lobbyists, so there's quite a large population of deadheads on the walls of the capitol already...
...Chicken breath...
...The kid dutifully types, "Homer, Homer" into her machine, but finds nothing...
...And so there shall be, brethren and sistren...
...Next scene is in the Rio Grande Valley, where the anglophones and the spanophones all speak Splanglish, but sometimes not fluently...
...replied the kid in unrefined Texan...
...The Odyssey...
...For one thing, our Man of the Year is under investigation on numerous counts of ethics violations, as well he should be...
...Personally, I think the Question of the Year was posed by Jim Hamblin of the Texas Constitutional Militia, who demanded indignantly...
...Chicken breath," reported her husband...
...The stink of self-righteousness coming off the Republican Congressional freshmen is starting to nauseate large numbers of our fellow citizens...
...What's wrong with her...
...Uh, The Odyssey...
...Finally the husband gestured to himself, "lean breath...
...The class that came to Washington to "change the way this town does business" has distinguished itself by giving away more corporate welfare, letting lobbyists write more legislation, and taking more PAC money than any other group of pols in history...
...Homer...
...Uh, who's that by...
...Two more Texas Christmas stories to cheer you up...
Vol. 60 • February 1996 • No. 2
