A Lioness On Your Side
"Iron My Shirt…"
Although he never expected me to, I did iron Hunter’s clothes, cook for him, take care of him in the most nurturing way I knew how. After he died, I ironed the American flag that was given to me for his military service and hung it with care and pride. But those duties were my choice. When the time came for me to be editor or run our little family business, he was all for that too. Hunter loved and respected women because he was smarter than most of his generation. But my question is not why so many men hate Hillary; I really wonder why there are so many women turning their backs on the best woman to run the White House. Why?
Today in New Hampshire, one of Hillary’s campaign stops was interrupted by male hecklers screaming for her to "IRON MY SHIRT"…jamming posters into the air demanding she go back a century or two.
A few days ago, my friend David and I were taking a lunch break at a busy cafe in Aspen. As we all watched the CNN primary coverage, a good-looking, clearly successful local woman turned to us and said: "Every woman who doesn’t vote for Hillary needs to take a good look in the mirror and figure out why."
I took a deep gulp of my iced tea and nodded. Well put, I thought.
Anyway, I’m buried in 4 feet of snow today at Owl Farm. Since I have no car, it looks like I’ll be cleaning and polishing the manuscript by the fire with my animals. I’m quite content being land-locked today. I hope the satellite comes back soon, so I can see what those nasty pundits have to say about Hillary now.
Today’s HST wisdom comes from a college campus tour that Brandon Wennerd (who is assisting me with the manuscript) reminded me of:
As Abbey said, "Hunter was a seer."
Audience: With party platforms between the Democrats and Republicans being pretty much the same thing – nebulous – politics in America seems to be sliding toward individuals, and not parties, such as taking a party for convenience and not for the party’s policy, just for elections. What do you think will be the outcome of this trend?
Well, I think it’s both inevitable and almost meaningless. Well, you see what the fate of someone like Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, who rode that horse as fast as he could and has got suddenly knocked off for reasons as puzzling as the ones that put him where he was in the first place. That could happen to Jerry Brown. When there are no major ideological wars going, it’s much safer to run the politics on personality. And right now, it’s very dangerous when personality becomes the governing factor of the failure or success of a politician’s career.
– Hunter S. Thompson, speaking to students
Your friend, sitting by the fire,
Anita Thompson
P.S. The interesting thing about having a woman in the White House is that women, as you probably have noted, tend to be very nurturing, until it’s time to defend. Then, there’s NOTHING like having a good lioness on your side.
P.P.S. From years of jumping off cliffs & mountaintops with either skies or a paraglider, and chasing blues bands around the country while supporting his son, David doesn’t seem to have any insecurities about his masculinity. And he is the one to email me the Gloria Steinem op-ed about gender. It’s a great read. I couldn’t have put it better myself.
