Politicians Don't give a Damn about Real People

Actually, there is someone Fiorella hates, and he's dead--Ronald Reagan.

Fio started out liking Ronnie because he seemed to be, well, a likable kind of guy, so when Son, a devotee of TV news, asked her to mail a letter to him (Son was against something or other), she thought it would be a good civics lesson. To play it safe, she added the information to the bottom of the crayoned letter that Son was seven years old.

Fio, being naive, assumed all letters to the President were answered in some way or another, if just by a mimeographed "thank you for writing" so she watched out the window with interest as day after day, Son ran out to the mailbox for Reagan's reply.

But it never came.

And Fiorella's heart broke for Son's loss of innocence and her own..

Statesman Needed

Fiorella expected better from the ninth Republican debate, but maybe the wannabes were all tuckered out. Instead of answering the questions posed by the moderator, they spent their allotted times sniping at each other and repeating gasbag campaign rhetoric we've already heard.  The GOP can do better.  Somewhere out there is another Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, or Theodore Roosevelt.  Please--FIND HIM!

Cannibal Soup

So, New Jersey first-term governor Chris Christie is considering throwing his hat in the Republican presidential nomination ring. It must be tempting, especially when people like Nancy Reagan and Henry Kissinger are egging him on.

At the same time, of course, that myriad of other contestants has him under an electron microscope, searching for the slightest flaw or crack in his conservative armor. Look how quickly they took down Rick Perry.

Interesting when the name of the game is to turn on your own.

Cold Heart

Years ago, Younger Son, whom Sesame Street had educated, wrote a note to President Reagan in Crayola after seeing an anti-nuke television feature. I added a note explaining that Son was four years old.

Every day for a month, Son went out and checked the mailbox for a reply, but none ever came.

Fio had always liked Reagan as an actor and had no particular opposition to him as President. He seemed to be warm, a person who would be kind to little children, but it was all an act. He froze out Fio's child and, she later read, froze out his own children too.