You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You: Politics in the Clinton Years - Brossura

Ivins, Molly

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0679754873 ISBN 13: 9780679754879

Casa editrice: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1999

Riassunto

In her long-awaited new collection, the Colt Peacekeeper of American political
humor draws a bead on targets that range from the Libido-in-Chief to Newt
Gingrich, campaign funny-money to the legislative lunacy of her native Texas--and
hits a bull's-eye every time.

Whether she's writing about Bill Clinton ("The Rodney Dangerfield of
presidents"), Bob Dole ("Dole contributed perhaps the funniest line of the year
with his immortal observation that tobacco is not addictive but that too much
milk might be bad for us.  The check from the dairy lobby must have been late
that week"), or cultural trends ("I saw a restaurant in Seattle that specialized
in latte and barbecue.  Barbecue and latte.  I came home immediately"), Molly
takes on the issues of the day with her trademark good sense and inimitable wit.

Su questo libro

Informazioni sull?autore

Molly Ivins lives in Austin, Texas.

Estratto. © Ristampato con autorizzazione. Tutti i diritti riservati.

You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You

By Molly Ivins

Vintage Books USA

Copyright © 1999 Molly Ivins
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780679754879

CHAPTER ONE

What We Have Here Is a Failure to Be Kind

*

One Hundred Days.

Item: Senator Alfonse D'Amato goes on radio to crudely mock LanceIto, the judge in the O. J. Simpson trial, by using an "Ah-so" kind ofOriental accent to imitate Ito, a third-generation American who has noaccent.

Item: Senator Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign RelationsCommittee, introduces Benazir Bhutto, the female prime minister ofPakistan, as the prime minister of India. Not once, but twice. Pakistanand India are deadly enemies.

Item: Howard Stern, a shock-radio host, uses the occasion of themurder of an exceptionally beautiful and talented twenty-three-year-oldwoman, Selena Quintanilla Perez, not only to speak of her with ridiculeand contempt but to sneer at the grief of Hispanics about her death andat them in general. "Alvin and the Chipmunks have more soul thanSelena"; "Spanish people have the worst taste in music. They have nodepth." Stern plays some of Selena's music with the sound of bullets inthe background.

Item: Representative Dick Armey of Texas refers to RepresentativeBarney Frank of Massachusetts as "Barney Fag."

Item: The mother of House Speaker Newt Gingrich tells ConnieChung that her son considers Hillary Clinton "a bitch."

Item: Representative Robert Dornan accuses President Clinton oftreason for having opposed the war in Vietnam.

Item: Representative Gerald Solomon, new chairman of the HouseRules Committee, puts up a portrait of a notorious racist andsegregationist in the committee room until black lawmakers complain.

Item: Gingrich, defending himself against the same kind of ethicalquestions he once raised against former Speaker Jim Wright, says hiscase is different because Wright is "a crook." Jim Wright was neverindicted--much less convicted--for anything.

Item: Gingrich says women "have biological problems staying in aditch for thirty days because they get infections." This was followed byhis equally surprising announcement that "men are biologicallyprogrammed to hunt giraffes."

Item: In New York, the Senate majority leader says Democratsopposing welfare reform are beholden to blacks and Hispanics, "thepeople that got their hands out."

Item: In Texas, state senator John Leedom, speaking to a group ofRepublican homosexuals, several times refers to them as "queers."

We have a problem here, folks.

I was raised in East Texas, I live in south Austin, and I'm not about topretend that racism, sexism, and homophobia aren't common as dirt inthis country. Any time I want to hear someone use ugly words, I don'teven have to leave my neighborhood. But it has not been common tohear this kind of language in public debate in this country for years.

This has nothing to do with political correctness. This is as simple asmanners. And as every good soul who ever tried to teach you goodmanners said, manners are just about kindness. About being a littlethoughtful of others. It's just as simple as the Golden Rule: "Do untoothers as you would have them do unto you."

I once would have said, before multiculturalism and Pat Robertsonchanged my outlook on life, that kindness is the simple expression ofChristianity. Robertson reminds us that the old Christian sin of anti-Semitism still lives.

Now comes the question: Does this tenor in the change of our publicdebate reflect us? Yes, there is racism, sexism, and homophobia in theland, so are our leaders and talk-show hosts just finally starting to mirrorwhat's out here? Or is this just a new wrinkle in an old cultural debatethat you can see clearly as far back as the works of Mark Twain?

In Twain's books one finds the thesis that women and preachers arein an unholy alliance to prevent normal, fun-loving boys from gettingdirty, spitting, fishing, drinking, using dirty words, and otherwise having afine time. The aim of this unholy alliance was to force boys to wear stiffcollars and sit in church getting their behinds bored off.

Because I always wanted to be one of the people floating down theriver on a raft--spitting, fishing, drinking, cussing, and otherwise having afine time--I have done my fair share of rebelling against gentility andboring preachers. But I never confused gentility with kindness. Neitherdid Twain's greatest character, the man called by the now politicallyincorrect name Nigger Jim. If our shock jocks and right-wing pols wantto learn the difference between stifling gentility and real courage, realkindness, and real nobility, I suggest that they go back and study Jim.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram April 13, 1995

Continues...

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Dettagli dell?edizione

• Editore: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Data di pubblicazione: 1999
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0679754873
• ISBN 13: 9780679754879
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 283
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: Simone Casetta; 0039 275422215; casetta@mondadori.it; ; Via Mondadori 1,; Segrate Milano; 20090; Italia