Posted by pancho from pool0776.cvx24-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.213.11) on Sunday, December 01, 2002 at 5:51PM :
For the first three years I knew her Jackie had nothing but contempt for those who were focused on Iraq. That could have been because the idea didn't originate with her...or that no one came asking her for help. The AAS was started along by other people...who came to Narsai instead...not the kind of thing Jackie could ever forgive.
Fortunately for her...as the "tragic train" was leaving the station without an invitation for her... fortunately for her , I say, our people in Georgia were dying. Here was an opportunity not to be missed...all those poor ravaged starving children and NO ONE to shed a tear? It helped of course that Father Benny has tight buns. Anyway he called her...said he needed her help..she saw him...swooned...and became a stanch supporter of Assyrians in Georgia and still a mocker of anyone trying to help in Iraq.
I well remember the day all that changed. I don't know if something happened between Benny and her...but a call from the Whacki Iraqi did it. During a whirlwind tour of Turlock, Ceres and Modesto...the Rabi of Iraqi called Jackie and gushed all over her...they just had to meet and meet and meet. He told her how much she meant to him...how he'd cherished her bucks from afar...how he'd heard tales of her prowess at check writing and besides was such a brainy lady that from then on he would not make a move without her input ( or, as he said in that delightful backwards way we have of talking..."I will do nothing without first I put it in you")...that she was to be his eyes, ears, nose and throat in America, and on and on. I remember the day she told me in her kitchen...sipping Lincoln's fine brandy ( poor artists can't be choosy)...she was like a teenibopper who'd just been "Bopped".
Nothing had changed in Iraq...only in Jackie. And all it took was the firm and hairy hand of the right Whacki Iraqi and she melted like grease...crackled like chitlins...and went down like Gatorade.It isn't difficult to get Jackie to back your cause...it just takes the right guy...saying all the right things, and a disaster somewhere...and Jackie will do "So Much".
-- pancho
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