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Lately life in the mountains has lost its continuity. Days and nights are interrupted by jumper cables, tire chains, the untangling of frozen extension cords, wood-splitting and similar chores. This may explain why I can't develop anything into a coherent, flowing essay.
· Richard C.D. Fleming of the Greater Denver Chamber of Commerce has blamed the Colorado General Assembly for the loss of the United Airlines maintenance facility. In his view, there was a done deal with United last June. The legislature obstinantly refused to rubber-stamp that deal, and substituted a different offer -- one that, unlike Fleming's deal, might be barely constitutional.
In blowing the United deal, our legislature finally did something right. And even then it receives severe criticism. Life is unfair.
· In response to my suggestion that pro sports be
abolished, I received a letter from a gentleman who
informed me that I am an imbesile.
He noted that
sports teach the virtues of sacrifice, dedication, etc.,
and concluded by offering to visit with four big jocks who
might pound some sense into me.
Glad to see that his athletic experience has given him such a finely developed sense of sportsmanship and fair play.
· The public consciousness concerning sexual harassment has been greatly elevated. But no one mentions the most common form of sexual harassment in the workplace, and it does not come from co-workers or employers, although many employers tolerate it and often encourage it.
Ask any waitress just what she has to put up with in the
course of a single lunch shift -- pawing, poking, obscene
and suggestive comments. If she offends a customer in the
process of protecting her dignity (Martha's preferred
response, when she was a waitress, was to
accidentally
spill a pitcher of ice water onto the
lap of the lecherous patron), the customer will complain to
the management, and the waitress is usually fired on the
spot.
I would be happy to wager that, for every instance of
sexual harassment inside a factory or professional office,
there are thousands of insulted waitresses. They have no
effective recourse, because the customer is always
right,
even when the customer is a two-legged billy
goat who doesn't know the difference between a diner and a
bordello. The boss will tell them that it's their job to be
charming to such creatures.
There hasn't been a single mention of sexual harassment by customers who don't know the difference between a restaurant and a bordello. Nothing in the new civil rights bill directly addresses this. NOW and its sister organizations have said not a word. Is it only the educated, professional class that has rights in America?
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