Gems in the Clippings

After asking myself for the zillionth time what the late, great Molly Ivins would say after the latest mind-numbing actions by the Trump Administration, I dusted off and started rereading her first collection of essays (1991) "Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?" I think Ivins, who died in 2007, would've found a lot of similarities between Trump and others she wrote about back in the day.

"One thing the Reagan years have accomplished is to take away the sting and shock of seeing homeless people in a land of plenty. The juxtaposition of extreme poverty and extreme wealth no long seems obscene because it's so familiar." (1989)

Or:

"When you see government encouraging the concentration of wealth, check your wallet." (1991)

(What Trump would say about a 6-foot, brash-mouthed female journalist is easily guessed.)

(Margo D. Beller)

She was similarly sharply funny about presidents "Texan" George HW Bush and his son (she called him Shrub) as well as the Texas legislators whose foibles she wrote about with relish - and a dash of Texas hot sauce.

I had a decent journalism career but nothing that would have editors seek me out to write for the New York Times, the Texas Observer and The Nation as they did Ivins. But as I've continued to dig through my many, many newspaper and magazine clips - most of which are going into recycling - I've found some gems I had forgotten, including published letters to the editors of newspapers and my late mother's alumni magazine, as well as articles of mine reprinted nationally (with my name but not always the publication).

I've also been pleasantly reminded that I could turn a phrase. If I was lucky enough to have an editor with a sense of humor (that would be my favorite boss and the only woman boss I've ever had), that phrase wouldn't be edited out for publication.

As Ivins showed with the Texas politicians, you can find humor in anything, even insurance.

For instance: "Haste may make waste, but waiting too long can cost an insurance company money. Superior Court of New Jersey Judge C. Judson Hamlin has ruled that Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. waited too long to deny benefits to an insured engineering company."

Or:

"The New York Insurance Department, given a rare opportunity to engage in philosophical argument, did so with the three insurance representatives who testified on December 17 as to whether the state's flex-rating system should continue."

But I also found some of my newspaper columns. This one is from 1993, the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, which caused billions of dollars in damage in south Florida and was the costliest storm ever before being pushed to ninth by Katrina, Harvey and others of recent vintage. 

"When a bank limits its lending across the board in poor inner-city neighborhoods, it is called redlining, an illegal activity. 

"When an insurance company decides it no longer wants to offer coverage in an entire state, it's called a 'market adjustment,' 

What's the difference?"

Or this stab at political commentary after Bill Clinton was elected president:

"St. Paul (the man, not the insurance company) says in I Corinthians 9:22, 'I am made of all things to all men.'

"The same could be said about Bill Clinton. Will his administration bring the return of the fire-breathing liberal ready to soak the rich and foreign on behalf of the average American working person?

"Or will he be more pragmatic, taxing a broader range of people and providing financial incentives for businesses where necessary, both to stimulate the economy?

"The worst part for the insurance industry is that it can't actuarially predict how the Arkansan will act once he walks into the Oval Office."

Ah, those days of innocence before "welfare reform," Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky. Nowadays there are loads of "prediction markets" where anyone, including those in government, can bet on anything, including future presidential actions. No actuaries required.

These columns are the exceptions. Mainly I wrote basic ledes for basic news articles. Once in a while, however, an editor would let some humor slip in:

"Insurers and disaster seem to go together. One of the largest of this century, the sinking of the Titanic, is the subject of a major exhibit in New York City sponsored by one of the largest marine insurers in the U.S., Atlantic Mutual, and broker Johnson & Higgins, both of which were involved in insuring the luxury liner."

Finally, there is the time I wrote about a "Doonesbury" cartoon making fun of arson and insurers. In the column I quote a man I used to love talking to about insurance and just about anything else. He was an official with an insurance association but, unlike most people trying to influence a reporter, he was a good guy with a sense of humor as well as good for a quote.

I asked him, do people in the insurance industry react to stuff like Doonesbury? "A healthy discussion of any American business is good," he said. "You have to take it in the right spirit, and that's healthy.

"It's the cheap-shot people I hate."

I wonder what he thinks of Trump.