Close Relations: The president-elect of a national...

Close Relations: The president-elect of a national feminist group has a husband and a female companion, and she doesn’t intend to give up either one. “People are so interested in saying you should limit your love,” Patricia Ireland says. Of her husband, artist James Humble, she says: “I love him. He is a very important part of my life and has been for nearly 25 years.” She said her female companion of more than four years is also important to her. She refused in a telephone interview Monday to say whether she is having physical relationships with Humble, or her companion, whom she did not identify. On Dec. 15, Ireland takes over as president of the National Organization for Women.

* Santa, Help: Letters to Santa, both heart-wrenching and hopeful, have been pouring into New York City’s General Post Office by the thousands this troubled holiday season. “I am a very poor woman and I have three kids,” wrote one New York mother. “If you will please send us something to eat, clothes to put them in and toys to play with.” New York postal workers set aside the letters, and patrons can choose families or children they wish to help. The postal service’s John F. Kelly said most of the missives are actually written by adults.

* Say What?: Dan Quayle won a booby prize from London’s Plain English Campaign for what it called an incomprehensible remark on an unidentifiable subject. The vice president said in July: “We offer the party as a big tent. How we do that within the platform, the preamble to the platform or whatnot, that remains to be seen. But that message will have to be articulated with great clarity.” A spokesman for the campaign said Quayle’s remark was “a classic example of U.S. doublespeak.”

* Injury: Prescott Bush, elder brother of President Bush, suffered a minor knee injury in a fall at a Tokyo airport. Bush, 69, was walking toward an airport bus Monday to take him to a plane bound for Hong Kong when a suitcase fell behind him and he lost his footing. Bush was treated at a hospital and was spending the night in a hotel.