Word: mahaffey
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...Shannon Mahaffey's experience is a case in point. He was living in Sweetwater, on the flat Texas plains that spawn tornadoes during the spring storm season. Often he would stay up nights watching the horizon as twisters cut deadly swaths nearby. Twice, he says, they touched down on his property, tearing up fences and farm equipment, though luckily missing his house. One night, while waiting up in a storm-induced blackout, he wondered whether there was a better way to warn people that a twister was forming: "I knew that the one thing that always worked in the disasters...
When the lights came back on, so did Mahaffey's television. Lo and behold, right there on the screen was an ad with a toll-free number for Invention Submission Corp., the nation's largest patent broker and promotion company. He picked up the phone and dialed...
Today, after four years, Mahaffey, 34, is more than $13,000 poorer, and his invention is still a dream. The father of two girls is disillusioned and bitter...
...counter the blow dealt by the Iowa Farm Bureau, which endorsed his opponent, Mahaffey called for a series of debates to show that he too supports farmers. He believes a smaller government would lower interest rates, which would in turn translate into cheaper houses, cars and equipment for his constituents. He also thinks some things such as education can be handled best on a local level...
Despite the setting, the Thomasons seem less interested in political satire than in replicating Designing Women. Suzanne's staff is another kaffeeklatsch of man-abused females: a spacy receptionist left by her husband (Valerie Mahaffey); a boozy press secretary fired by the Washington Post (Teri Garr); and a hard-boiled chief aide (Patricia Heaton) embittered because the Congressman whe worked for ("the man I served...under for 14 years") is now in prison and his wife is getting all the conjugal visits...