On Wed, 24 Nov 2010 09:38:55 -0800 (PST), Lenona wrote:

> On Nov 23, 12:18*pm, blake murphy > wrote:
>
>> gotta love miss manners. *funny lady.
>>
>> i saw her at a memorial concert for one of her washington *post*
>> colleagues, and she looked elegant indeed, as you would expect.
>
> Here's what I posted in Nov. 2002 in MM's newsgroup:
>
> Saw her at a small gathering at the library last Wednesday. She has a
> very nice smile and what surprised me, though I've heard her voice
> before, was how down-to-earth it sounds. OK, deep. Anyway, some people
> asked questions and one came from the Nigerian novelist S.A.(Sunny)
> Abakwue, who asked: "If you had George Bush Sr, Saddam Hussein, George
> Bush Jr, and Osama Bin Laden in this room, what would you tell
> them?" (Big round of applause.) She told him if she thought
> international diplomacy were as simple as etiquette, she would be only
> too glad to take on the task,
> but it's not the same thing, of course.
>
> I asked her the name of a 17th-century Spanish play she had (in her
> column) mentioned seeing with her teen daughter years ago in which the
> painful differences, regarding rape, between then and now were made
> clear. She said it was by
> Calderon de la Barca and I managed to track down a likely candidate -
> "The Mayor of Zalamea." (Apparently, it's not as Stone Age as you
> might expect in its attitudes, if not quite humane.)
>
> Also, I asked her why we still use the term "feminist" so much still
> when black people have never felt the need for a word to describe
> black people who believe in racial equality, and she said, in effect,
> that it's simply a matter of wanting to preserve the memory of those
> who fought for our current rights, paying them tribute, and
> remembering when women who thought like that were in fact the
> exception.
>
> I also asked her if she liked "old-fashioned liberal" Wendy Kaminer's
> books and she said yes. (Actually, I didn't describe her that way, but
> I'm sure it wouldn't surprise her to hear that description. For those
> not familiar with her, two of her books are "I'm Dysfunctional, You're
> Dysfunctional" and the sarcastically titled "True Love Waits.")
>
> Wonderful night, especially since I had friends along!
>
> Lenona.

years ago, there was a question in her column that went something like
this:

'last night someone at a party said to me of another man 'have you two
met?' actually, we had met the night before in an anonymous sex situation.
what should i have said?'

her reply: 'you should say 'i believe we might have, but we've never been
properly introduced.'

she's unflappable. (i can't dig it up online, though. )

your pal,
blake