Now, the Power Santa List: It’s a Fine State of Affairs

Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer’s letter to Santa Claus, typically, tries to impress the jolly old elf with his good behavior during the year. “I answered 100,000 letters from citizens who wrote to tell me they liked--or didn’t like--what I was doing,” Schaefer wrote Santa. “I even put on 212 silly hats, so the newspapers could take pictures of me in unflattering poses.” Schaefer’s wish list of 17 items is not typical, however. He asks for, among other things, better medical care and housing, more resources committed to helping the disadvantaged, better fishing in the Chesapeake Bay, a professional football team and a winning Maryland lottery ticket. Schaefer and the legislature are at odds over whether to spend a projected surplus, so he added a special request: 188 copies of a nonexistent book, “Surplus Budgeting Made Easy,” for “my friends in the General Assembly.”

--The Rev. Al Sharpton, who was an adviser to Tawana Brawley, the black teen-ager from New York who said she was raped by a group of white men, has been accused of not paying his rent. Sharpton and his roommate, Kathy Jordan, were ordered to appear in housing court Monday. The landlords, Barbara and David Oldham, say they owe $11,000 in back rent for their Brooklyn apartment. Lorraine Coyle, a lawyer for the landlords, said Sharpton was paying $1,000 a month under a lease that expired Aug. 15, 1987, but the rent was raised to $2,500.

--It wasn’t a typical day at the office for Deputy Atty. Gen. Harold G. Christensen. A sign on his conference room read: “Wedding in progress.” Christensen, 62, a Utah lawyer who came to the Justice Department earlier this year, married Jacquita Corry, former assistant dean at the University of Utah College of Law. The couple will continue to combine business and pleasure with a honeymoon in Vienna, where Christensen is to attend a drug conference. Among the wedding guests: Christensen’s former boss, Edwin Meese III, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh and Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah).