THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 28, 1995 TAG: 9511280045
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
MY CAT IS a very important person.
A fat male tabby, Hank recently received a personal letter in the mail from President Clinton. No kidding.
It starts, ``Dear Hank . . . ,'' as if they were old college buddies.
Clinton goes on to ask my cat in friendly but serious tones if he would be interested in joining the Democratic National Committee and, by chance, donating a few dollars in the process.
Our president even sent Hank a membership card in advance. It has a neat color picture of the White House on the front and Hank's full name - HANK HARPER - typed in bold letters on the bottom.
Just a casual political observer, Hank declined the offer. He seemed content to stay focused on afternoon naps and the next can of tuna.
(Footnote: A Bill Bradley fan, Hank is disillusioned, too, with Washington these days. So joining the Democratic Party just didn't seem appropriate on several fronts.)
But we kept the card anyway. It's taped to our refrigerator door, evidence that at least one of us is on a first-name basis with the Prez.
Then we started pondering a rather disturbing question: Why did the president of the United States send our cat a personal letter?
And, moreover, how did he know where to send it? As far as we know, Hank keeps little correspondence, especially with national leaders, and has scant funds to contribute to political causes.
The answer, it seemed, was twofold: 1) our subscription to the New Republic, a so-called politically liberal magazine, and 2) the fact that a friend thought it would be funny to give us the subscription under our cat's name. (Ha ha, Dan).
Another clue soon appeared. More ``leftist'' mail.
Within days of our first New Republic's arriving, we got all kinds of other ``liberal'' stuff in the mailbox, including:
A brochure from Greenpeace, asking Hank for money to save dolphins from tuna fishermen (not a favorable subject to appeal to Hank, by the way, given his sympathy for a good can of tuna despite any consequences.)
A subscription offer from Rolling Stone magazine that had slick little photos of Madonna and Roseanne in varying degrees of undress. Needless to say, Hank passed on this offer, too.
A frightening letter from the American Lung Association, asking our cat for a donation to ``save children'' from the intense peer pressure and subliminal advertising that is luring young people these days to smoke like chimneys.
Yes, Hank had been labeled. Through the magic of computer ``info-sharing'' - a nice way of saying corporate America knows where you live - Hank had been tagged a sympathizer, a liberal, a bleeding heart.
And worse, a bleeding heart with money.
Imagine the junk Robert Redford must get in his mailbox every day.
For fun, we tried another experiment. We took a subscription to Newsweek in the name of our other cat, Emma, a frail little kitten with a small pink nose.
Sure enough, the onslaught soon began.
It was more mainstream, though. Stuff like pre-approved credit card applications for Emma Harper, respected consumer and businesswoman. (Oddly, my cat has better credit than me, given some of my old college debts that still keep me off any pre-approved MasterCard list.)
Emma got a shiny encyclopedia brochure promising knowledge at her fingertips (claws?) in exchange for a low monthly installment payment.
And there was a virtual torrent of long-distance phone-service offers - all pledging, amazingly, to give our cat the absolute biggest savings package on the planet.
For the record, Emma has yet to make a long-distance phone call to anyone, although she has stumbled over the phone in the middle of the night a couple of times.
To be fair, I'm sure all these solicitors didn't know they were sending their offers to cats. At least, I hope so.
But in an increasingly impersonal world, where deals are sewn and gifts are bought with the press of a blind computer key, I might as well be a cat.
Problem is, my cats probably have more clout than I do. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
[Membership card bearing the name Hank Harper]
by CNB