THE BACK PAGE BY BR.UCE McCALL WHP-202 (10/00) File Number \4,T OF Ï"ijr ....9 ..... .... - /, ",'" .... ... v t..,; ..... .... J::J::." " . ... ,..), Q..: ::'rr1 : :0 ...... .: o. .."" ) .. . 'Y v """".,,"." ),.> .:/S ..c; PRESIDENTIAL PARDON APPLICATION (DO NOT SUBMIT THIS FORM UNTIL YOU HAVE PLACED ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS IN ESCROW.) PART I 1. The silly mIsunderstanding that leads me to request a Presidential pardon was the result of (CHECK ONE): -A conspiratorial frame-up by virility-challenged mugwumps desperate to block upcoming federal school-uniform legislation. ---.Bungled Swiss paperwork. --Legal hairsplitting on definitions of "racketeering," "mail fraud," or 2. My net worth as of this date is $ . 3. I frequently (CHECK ALL THAT APPLY): _Offer interest-free, unsecured personal loans of up to $ to friends. _Offer stock options/hot tips worth as much as $ to friends. --.Arrange salaried no-show jobs and! or lucrative Board of Directors seats worth $ --Lend ski lodges, beachside villas, private jets, or other (if other, please specifY) for friends. to friends. I SIGNED PART II Which of the statements below are true? _' ybodywho could dream up something like Whitewater and get off scot-free is somebody I could do business with." _"Tattletale chicks are my pet peeve." _"Ford's pardon of Nixon wasn't the same at all." (Explain) If any of the above statements are not true, add fifty thousand dollars to your escrow account DATE NOTARlZED SEAL NO. TO THE APPLICANT: DEPENDING ON YOUR CREDIT RATING AND BANK STATEMENTS, YOU MAY QUAllFY FOR THE SPECIAL SPEE-D-PARDON OPTION. TO ENROLL IN SPEE-D-PARDON, SIMPLY PLACE ANOTHER HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS IN ESCROW AND COMPLETE PART III. PART III 1. I would describe myself as (CHECK ALL THAT APPLY): _Somebody who can keep his/her big mouth shut. _Somebody who never forgets a favor. _Somebody who likes to party hear _Somebody who is well connected in Hollywood. 2. If I were ever to be accosted by the media regarding the groun s for my pardon, I would say: " I d ' b th . fi " - on t remem er e speCI cs. _"Well, 'quid pro quo' is a funny word." _"I guess he was thanking me for having fixed a parking ticket for him once." If your answer is other than one of the options above, explain: PART IV-TO BE COMPLETED ONLY BY PRESIDENTIAL RELATIVES If pardoned, I promise to change my name, move to another state, stay at least 1,000 miles away from the President and his immediate family, make no financial requests, return all photographs, letters, and other documents requested, and allow the President first editing rights on manuscripts, interviews, or any other pubhc utterance ( s) wherein his name is mentioned. THIS COMPLETES YOUR APPLICATION FOR A PRESIDENTIAL PARDON. WE REGRET THAT, OWING TO HEAVY VOLUME AND THE RESULTING HANDLING COSTS, A FEE SURCHARGE OF either ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS OR THE TITLE TO A NEW FERRARI MUST BE INCLUDED WITH YOUR APPLICATION. Imponant: You can help reduce government paperwork by burning all copies of this application.. 94 THE NEW YORKER., FEBRUARY 5, 2001
HERE RESTS my sister Josephine, born july in '29 and dead these 15 years, who carried a book on every stroll. when daddy was dying she left the streets and moved back home to tend him. her pimp came too, her Diamond Dick, and they would take turns readIng hundred people. At each town, the train paused for fifteen minutes while Gon- chigdorj took a ceremonial sip from a bowl of milk, sprinkled a few drops In the air in honor of the local spirits, and gave a brief speech. Along the way; his assistants distributed calendars fea- turing Genghis Khan in a pensive pose beneath the inscription "Democratic Mongolia." Gonchigdorj is a former math pro- fessor who first made his mark in politics as a leader of the 1990 pro-democracy movement. He is forty-seven years old, and has a round face, slick black hair, and a reputation for opportunism. I met him in his private carriage on the way north; he was resting between stops, sipping tea while the scenery slipped past. "The ruling party is against privatization," he told me. "The reason is that during the Communist regime we couldn't even talk about that issue, and the M.PR.P still believes that the state should own everything. It's softening, of course, but it's still there." It seemed that Gonchigdorj was cre- ating something of a nonissue-after all, the M.P.R.P. had presided over the initial stages of Mongolia's pri- vatization. But Gonchigdorj's former party, the Social Democrats, had been part of the coalition government in 1996, and they were still coping with the backlash that had cost them the 2000 parliamentary election. Gonchig- dorj was in trouble. He was running on the bible aloud through the house. when you poem this, and you will, she would say; remember the Book of Job. happy bIrthday and hope to you Josephine, one of the east's most wanted. may heaven be filled with literate men, may they bed you with respect. -Lucille Clifton the theme of balancing the M.PR.P's majority in parliament with a Demo- cratic president, but his message wasn't coming across as strongly as Bagabandi's plea for one-party domination, as ex- pressed in the slogan "If the govern- men t is stable, the people will be peace- ful." Before the start of the campaign, Sumati's poll had indicated that only thirty-seven per cent of the voters sup- ported Gonchigdorj. The train trip did not go well. The crowds were small and unfriendly, and the northward swing ended at Altan- bulag, a town on the Russian border whose residents seemed more involved with the movement of strange goods across the border than with the drama of the election. I saw a cluster of eth- nic Buryat women packing spools of thread into empty laptop-computer cases, which they then transported into Russia. Nobody could explain this activity to me. At the border station, a sad-faced young man was trying to use a bicycle pump to inflate the left front tire of a red Lada. He paused when Gonchigdorj came through, and when the politician left he started . . pumpIng agaIn. I began to wonder what the aver- age Mongolian actually felt about democracy. Sumati's polls had shown that, nationwide, eighty-seven per cent thought the 1990 shift to democracy was the right step for the country; and fifty-two per cent had expressed sat- isfaction with the present political sys- tem. But among older Mongolians there was still a strong sentimentality for the Soviet past, when incomes were secure and the old M.PR.P made all the decisions. At rallies, I met many people who seemed disillusioned with their country's changes. "Since democ- racy came, people have just become poorer," one woman told me at an M.PR.P rally in Zuunmod, south of Ulaanbaatar. "I think if there's just one party ruling it will be better." She was fifty-two years old, trying to sur- vive with a herd of eight cows, and she struck me as a paradoxical creation of the post-Communist world-someone who longed for the clarity of old au- thoritarianism while relishing her new freedom of speech. She said that last spring she had become so fed up with the coalition government that she had organized a protest of a hundred and eight herdsmen. They had tried to ride fifty miles to the national parliament building but had been stopped by the police before they reached the center of Ulaanbaatar. Still, she was enormously pleased that the newspapers had re- ported the protest. During my last meeting with Sumati before the election, he remarked that there were indeed authoritarian ele- ments in Mongolian politics, especially in Bagabandi's camp. "He'll be quite quiet until after May 20th," Sumati said. ' d then he will create some problems. He'll try to show some principles, but I'm afraid that those principles are not democratic principles. They are author- itarian principles." Sumati grinned. He seemed to de- light in pointing out the frailties of the Mongolian system; earlier he had told me about a mudslinging campaign that was going on between the M.PR.P. and the Democratic Party. The Demo- crats had accused Bagabandi of accept- ing a million dollars in bribes from the Chinese; meanwhile, there were in- sinuations that Gonchigdorj and other former coalition leaders had hindered the investigation into Zorig's murder, and there was talk of a scandal from Gonchigdorj's days as a math professor, during which he had allegedly helped a Mongolian youth team cheat at an in- ternational math competition. This in- THE NEW YORKER, JULY 16, 2001 63
The Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. papers document the life and work of Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1917-2007), noted for his political activities in the Democratic Party and for his acclaimed accounts of... more
The Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. papers document the life and work of Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1917-2007), noted for his political activities in the Democratic Party and for his acclaimed accounts of nineteenth and twentieth century history. The collection consists of extensive correspondence, journals, writings, research material, office files, and personal records. The papers provide insight into Schlesinger's philosophical, political, and historical thinking, while offering a glimpse of his daily activities. They represent Schlesinger's vocation as a popular and academic historian, as well as his life as a political activist and advisor. less
CT-based Muslim activist Farah Salam discusses last Tuesday's Supreme Court ruling upholding Trump's Muslim Ban, how Muslim families and communities are impacted locally here in Connecticut, work being done across the state to push back against Trump's Islamophobic policies, and ways non-Muslims can stand in solidarity in the fight moving forward.