March 20, 2008. From Senator Obama: “Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t’ want them punished …. With an STD.”

That’s punished with a baby, conception as a mistake.

The blogs and talk radio were all over the remark, of course, but it’s an indication of how protective the national media is of their chosen candidate that this disturbing comment went mostly unnoticed by them. After the initial outrage, nothing in the past two weeks. If words matter, as Obama has famously said, then “punished with a baby” should matter.

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No, not the lovable little ardvaark on PBS, nor the redemptive alcoholic played by Dudley Moore in the film of the same name. I’m talking about my Arthur, a thirty-seven year old writer who lives somewhere in Los Angeles and who seems to have become attached to me. It might be love, I don’t know.

This is personal.

We all have Arthurs in our lives. You’ll find them at school, at work, in organizations you belong to, maybe even in your neighborhood. I met my Arthur at a privately run writer’s website.

The site is interesting and valuable except for the political forums which, as a gathering spot for Hollywood writers, is overwhelmingly liberal. Many of the conservative voices have left and the political forum is mostly a liberal circle jerk. It’s smart people sitting around patting one another on the back. Okay, fair enough.

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Back in the sixties, during my singing/dancing career in New York, a dancer friend, Bill B., was asked to choreograph the act of a Pat Suzuki wannabe in Vegas. Ms. Suzuki was a young Japanese who rose to modest fame in the Rodgers & Hammerstein Broadway production of Flower Drum Song singing I Enjoy Being A Girl. (Incidentally, Flower Drum Song was directed by Gene Kelly and starred perennial Asian actors like Keye Luke — Kung Fu’s blind master Po, and the late Jack Soo of Barney Miller fame.)

San Francisco born Suzuki had a clear, vibrant voice and she sang with great verve. Asian girls then became the flavor of the day and many less talented Suzuki imitators were booked in lounges and clubs throughout the world of lounges and clubs.

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Rest in peace all you who died.

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Spent another Sunday afternoon at Holy Family Nursing Home in Philadelphia visting my mother, who is a ninety-four year old resident there. Though in a wheelchair, her health is excellent. She’s like that old commercial for Timex that put the wristwatch through a destructive test, after which the sonorous spokesman, John Cameron Swaze, picked it up and said, “Takes a lickin’, but keeps on tickin’.”

That’s mom. Her body’s been tested and ravaged by age, but it’s still ticking. This depresses her. With no trace of the martyrdom Italian mothers have in their interpersonal arsenal she asks, “What am I still doing here?”

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