The View From the Outback© 2000 Richard C. Rhodes
A great deal of what we read in newspapers, magazines, and books, and what we see in the movies and on TV is written and produced in New York City or Los Angeles. Much of the "political wisdom" comes from the PR machines of the White House, the Congress, and from the Washington media corps.
In short, one might conclude that all knowledge, wisdom, and wit are confined to those who inhabit New York City, Washington DC, or Hollywood.
I am now in my 6th decade of life experience - which was gained in many cities in the U.S. and in about 30 foreign countries. That experience has included the U.S. Marines, law school, the ATF, the CIA, Fortune 500 executive, writer, public speaker, educator, editor, and publisher - for openers. For over 20 years, I have written articles off and on for various magazines and newspapers. I've had an enormous number of letters published in major national publications. The Outback is the rural area in Northeast Texas where I have lived for the past 11 years. Every couple of weeks I will attempt to post a new set of musings from the Outback.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be attacked by an Octopus? You can find out
by turning your bath mat over, one with suction cups, and taking a shower. Really weird. I must
get a better light in the bathroom.
A friend got a hand-me-down computer and did not know what processor it ran or how much
memory it had, and so on. I downloaded Belarc Advisor (www.belarc.com), version 5.1g and put
it on a floppy for her. Belarc Advisor is free for personal use. It digs into your computer and tells
you so much about your hardware and software that it is hard to believe. It reports on your
processor model and speed, which socket has what amount of memory, even the serial numbers
of your software, and much more.
Dr. Steven Hatfill is described by the FBI as "a person of interest" in the anthrax investigation.
That is an interesting euphemism. Now the FBI is "spinning" us. The man's apartment
and a rental shed have been repeatedly searched, with media in attendance, and sometimes tipped
off in advance. So far, there is no smoking gun, only some coincidental things. Due to the heavy
media attention, when he is not even named as a "suspect," he says that his life is ruined. Dr.
Hatfill publicly denies, in the strongest terms, that he had anything to do with the anthrax letters,
It's the Atlanta bombing and Richard Jewell revisited. Another mock trial by the FBI and the
media. Either Dr. Hatfill is a monumental and convincing liar, or the FBI is completely out of
control in the case - and the media should be tarred and feathered for following "a person of
interest" everywhere with cameras. Granted, Dr. Hatfill has many questionable things in his past,
But, even if he is lying, the FBI and the media are way out of bounds in this case. On Friday, August 30th, David Letterman did a short skit with one of his writers who came on using the name Dr. Steven Hatfill. The skit was, of course, in very poor taste and impugned Mr. Hatfill. It was a disgrace. I hope the real Mr. Hatfill sues CBS and Letterman for further damaging his reputation. Hatfill is a pretty big guy. I would rather seem him come on the show and knock a few of Letterman's teeth down his throat. If you are being cast as a criminal, you might as well do something to deserve the reputation.
I got an unexpected compliment the other day. We all know how haughty the French are about
someone who tries to speak their language and does it poorly - in their opinion. I was speaking
with an old ham-radio friend in France. It has been 30 years since I have visited France, and I
remember only a few phrases. As I was signing off, I said a few quick things, among them,
"Merci Beaucoup, mon ami. Au revoir." My friend replied, "Your French is very good." Knock
me over with a sesame breadstick. That was a first.
Normally, we all hang around with people of similar interests. Often, we get in a rut. Even the
all-knowing Internet is largely cordoned off into areas of interest. One advantage of ham radio is
that you are exposed to the most incredible cross-section of people and talents that one could
imagine - from truck drivers to heads of state. I like classical-guitar music, but have only one CD
by Segovia. In an on-air conversation the other day, I ran into a fellow who is a classical guitarist
of long standing. He suggested that I look into the music of Christopher Parkening, and I did. I
auditioned a few cuts on Amazon.com, ordered the two-disk set "The Great Recordings," (EMI
Classics) and am now enjoying them. He also mentioned guitarist named Williams, but I have
already bought my quota of CDs for now. If you take the time to get beyond "what kind of
antenna do you have," I have found that each conversation will bring new knowledge or insights.
At a party, get beyond "Boy, was the traffic horrible on the expressway." Try, "Tell me about
your work? And what kind of interests do you have outside the office?"
It is now about three months since I decided to not watch any TV channel that ran a "screen
crawl." Have I missed anything? I doubt it, other than a bunch of self-styled experts rattling on
about the same subjects, hour after hour, day after day. If you have not done so, I urge you to e-
mail or write the heads of the networks that run crawls and tell them you no longer will watch
their channel until they take off those distracting and annoying crawls. See Media List.
Race relations took a couple of hits on the chin in recent days. First, there was the "Slavery
Reparations Rally" in DC. There were a lot of very angry blacks there, spouting some pretty
inflammatory stuff. A newspaper reported that there were "Kill Whitey" T shirts on sale. Oh,
dear. Shades of the Black Panthers. Then came the black farmers to protest. They have some
legitimate beefs, as do all small farmers. The government programs favor the big operations. The
small farmer who is in trouble financially generally gets very little, if any, of the billions spent on
the farm programs. But, again, there was inflammatory rhetoric flowing from those flatbeds. Both
events were unsettling to watch. One step forward, two backward.
Senator Fred Thompson is quitting the Senate and will join the cast of "Law & Order." That will
tip the scales for me to watch the show. I like Fred, as a Senator, and as an actor. He has gravitas.
For those of you in Yorba Linda, look it up. The word is not in the WordPerfect spelling
dictionary. I had to add it.
Our FBI, CIA, NSA, et al., were not the only ones who failed to uncover the 9/11 plot. Much of
the planning was done in Hamburg, but the Germans were apparently sipping beer and nibbling
on knockwurst and too busy to investigate. Now they tell us that one of the suicide pilots bragged
to a Hamburg librarian that he was planning to destroy the World Trade Center. That was a year
and half before 9/11. There is plenty of blame to go around. I am now reading "Breakdown" by
Bill Gertz (who happens to be on C-SPAN as I write this). Gertz details the intelligence failures
prior to 9/11.
Dr. Phil McGraw (Ph.D.), who first counseled Oprah during her court beef in Amarillo with the
meat producers over her "no more burgers" comment, is getting his own show on CBS. Unless
you have been living in a cabin in Montana with no electricity, you know that he rocketed to
prominence with his weekly appearances on Oprah. My prediction is that his show will get very
good ratings. He is so refreshing, compared to the parade of psycho-babble TV shrinks we have
seen in the past. When he scowls down at you and says, "What part of being in an abusive
relationship do you not understand?" it is great theater and a pretty good message.
One of my stops on the Internet every day is MSNBC.com for a variety of news. Not only do they
have broad and often comprehensive coverage, but when you download a page to read offline,
you do not have to delete a long string of "credits" in the title to MSNBC News, etc. Yahoo and
others should take a hint. I spend time each day deleting the words "Yahoo News" from the title
of page downloads. Otherwise, I could never find a title, as they would all be sorted and listed
under Yahoo News. This is as bad as the Webmasters who title their page "Welcome to ...." I
have about 500 "Welcome to" favorite sites on my hard drive. When you download a
FOXNews.com page, the title is always "FOXNews_com. What is that all about? Get with the
program FOX. Once in a while I rename a few. Right click on a Favorite, press Home and use the
Del key to get rid of "Welcome to" or other extraneous words.
The Invade Iraq Mantra Continues
Let's see, the best that I can glean from the world press: We have no concrete evidence that Iraq
had anything to do with 9/11. Other than one possible meeting with an al-Qaeda member outside
of Iraq. We assume that Saddam is building chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, but we
have no hard evidence - at least none that is being shared with the U.S. public. Apparently, there
is no evidence that Saddam even has the fissionable material needed to produce a nuclear bomb,
nor the plant to produce it. There is only speculation that he could buy the material on the black
market. If, but, and maybe don't tell much of a story.
If we have hard intelligence that Saddam currently has the capabilities so glibly talked about in
the abstract, President Bush better share it with us - or put the Iraq "invasion" on hold for a
while. I, and I suspect millions of other citizens, are growing weary of an invasion to topple a
dictator - "because he is a dangerous man." We don't have a good record in that arena. When we
did topple a regime, often a worse one took its place. We supported Castro against Batista, you
may recall. Terrific outcome there. Fidel, amigo, what about the democracy? That is just one of
many.
Oh, but the masses in Iraq will revolt, once they know they have a way out. We tried that in
Cuba, but never even secured the beach. The masses said, "Look at the stupid Gringos." We
knew about bin Ladin (it is spelled Ladin on the family company HQ) and friends for years, but
did nothing. It took a catastrophic blow to get us off our ass. Maybe we ought to see what kind of
offensive actions Saddam comes up with before we make this huge and costly commitment. Or
we have some photos of his weapons, or some real proof that they exist and that he is planning to
use them offensively. Remember, a lot of the Russian arms race was because they were
convinced that we were preparing for a pre-emptive first strike. Saddam, as evil a man as he is,
has not even fired a Scud missile at Israel since the Gulf War. And they are right in the
neighborhood.
I'm glad that both I and my sons are too old for military service. Because, I would not be inclined
to want to take part in an invasion of Iraq, not without much better justification - and proof.
Korea, Vietnam, and the Bay of Pigs were big enough blunders. An invasion of Iraq might make
them look like a paint-ball battle. We risk bringing the whole Arab world, Korea and who knows
who else, down on us if we invade Iraq based on just what we know - or don't know.
If Saddam is in violation of so many U.N. resolutions, and he is, let the U.N. arrange a force
to take him out. It is not our problem to enforce U.N. resolutions by ourselves. I don't have time
right now to read the U.N. Charter again. But, I am sure there is no statement; "The United States
military shall enforce all sanctions and resolutions passed by this body." The U.N. has been
taking up space in New York for years without showing much for their efforts. Token peace
keepers here and there. Maybe it is time for the U.N. to put up or vacate the damn building.
NYC could use some additional office space after the WTC disaster.
Department of Homeland Security to Deny Employee's Rights?
In putting together the Department of Homeland Security, President Bush and his advisors want
some flexibility about hiring, promotion, disciplinary actions, and termination rules. You would
have thought he was advocating a return to slavery! Here is the problem in a nutshell. A great
deal of what is wrong with the departments that will be melded into Homeland Security is that
they are inefficient because of the Civil Service, collective bargaining, and all other stuff the
unions are whining about. This is a chance to make some sense out of being a Federal employee.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, prepared a Senate
version of the Homeland Security bill that would keep civil service protections in place. This is
ridiculous. Once again, Civil Service is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Naturally,
Sen. Daschle is riding the same lame liberal horse. There are a lot of votes in the ranks of Civil
Service. It is not about what is good for people or what is good for the government. It is about
making people dependent upon you and getting re-elected. Bunch of hypocrites.
I repeat. I have worked in a Civil Service job, Criminal Investigator, U.S. Treasury, and two non-
civil-service job, the U.S. Marines and the CIA. The difference is like night and day. Civil
Service rules make it nearly impossible to discipline anybody, promote solely on merit, or fire a
complete idiot.
You stay in the Marines because you meet their high standards. One false move and you are in
the brig and on your way out. In Treasury, there was little passion for the work, only people
waiting in line like sheep to get promoted. A secretary threw an ashtray at our boss, the
investigative supervisor, who was a prince of a guy. Nothing happened to her. There are a lot of
bright, hard working people working in Civil Service jobs. They are doing a good job in spite of
Civil Service, not because of it.
In the CIA, I was on probation for a year before I was even put on the permanent payroll. You put
out - or went out. Those were the old days. They have apparently fallen prey to the civil-service
mentality by osmosis. Before all the lawyers, commissions, and lobbyists got involved, you could
actually fire people in CIA and FBI who were completely incompetent.
My views are shared by Gary Aldrich, the former FBI agent who wrote a great expose of the
horrific lack of security in the Clinton White House, "Unlimited Access." Gary worked for the
Feds for 30 years. In a recent column on Newsmax.com, Gary said in part: "First, there are
thousands of federal employees who can and should be fired 'on the spot' for a lot of great
reasons, including the fact that in some cases there isn't enough work for them to do to justify
employment..... nobody would ever miss them." He discusses the downside of the pressure to
hire "this kind" or "that kind" to meet imposed diversity goals. And how human resource
managers often have to make compromises in mission success with their eyes focused on
"diversity hiring."
Jimmy Carter ran as an outsider and talked about reforming the government management. I wrote him a letter in which I urged him to reform the Civil Service and fire about 25 percent of federal employees. Well, we know how that worked out.
My dear departed soul mate told me of her short tenure in Dallas as a Civil Servant. "I had so
little to do, that it was embarrassing. I hid out much of the day in the restroom."
I don't know if there has been any discussion in the White House about this backdoor way to
reform the Federal service, but I would be surprised if it had not come up. Maybe something like:
"This is a chance to streamline our workforce, make it more efficient, motivated, and dedicated.
That is what we are going to need to fight terrorism. Not people playing Solitaire on their
computers for half of the day, or throwing ashtrays at their supervisors with impunity."
Gary Aldrich, former FBI agent, and I agree. War on terrorism or not, this is the right thing to do
(put some flexibility in the hands of federal managers with regard to personnel matters).
You can read the entire Gary Aldrich column at Newsmax.com in the Aldrich archives at the
right side: "Senator Daschle's Self-Destruction," Aug. 20, 2002.
Government employees are not in sweat shops. They are not on assembly lines being driven to
put more bolts on per hour. They have terrific benefits and retirement plans. They get adequate
vacation time. On balance, they are not underpaid. Why do they need all the "protections" that
the Democrats want to ensure stay in place. They need it because many are afraid to compete
based on their ability, and the Democrats and enterenched bureaucrats in general want them to feel dependent - beholden.
Civil Service was conceived in 1883 as a way to provide permanent government employment
based on merit rather than on political party and appointments as political favors. It guaranteed
the right to compete for federal jobs without regard to politics, religion, race, or national origin
(sound familiar in 2002?). Only about 10 percent of the federal positions were covered by the
new law. By 1980, more than 90 percent of federal employees were protected by the act, and
each administration had broadened the scope of the act.
What started out as a great idea has degenerated into a system that is a haven for the unfit and the
incompetent. If given a chance to vote, many capable and dedicated federal employees would do
some downsizing in their own offices.
There are some basic solutions. Modern laws provide the opportunity to get a federal job, or any
job, without regard to politics, religion, race, or national origin. Set some entry standards for the
various jobs and do away with the Civil Service Commission and organizations like the
American Federation of Government Employees. There would need to be a mechanism to limit promotions or appointments for political or ideological reasons. Possibly something like a career board within the office of Personnel Management, which could examine an applicant's experience and qualifications.
For example, consider the actions of former CIA director Deutch. He placed four Democratic congressional staffers in key CIA positions, among them the current director, George Tenet. Deutch also promoted a CIA analyst, with no experience as a field agent, to be the head of Clandestine Services! That was inexcusable. Louis Freeh, when he was director of the FBI, made some horribly stupid and counterproductive appointments and promotions within the Bureau. There simply needs to be some check, where a person who is not remotely qualified for a position is not approved. Heads of Federal agencies in general have a very poor record when it comes to picking qualified and experienced people for top jobs.
When the smoke cleared, we would be basically back to where we started in 1883 -
and would have a more flexible and efficient government. Let the Office of Personnel Management
handle salary levels, job descriptions and competency levels, vacations, health benefits, and
retirement. Even in matters of "national security" appointments and promotions, OPM could at least examine the qualifications of the proposed candidate. No more heads of the Clandestine Services at CIA who would not recognize a good intelligence informant if he bit him on the ass. Then, let the managers manage. That means demoting goof-offs and firing incompetents. Not in my lifetime. Maybe in yours. Otherwise, there is no hope for an efficient federal government.
Do you have any idea what it is like to be well educated, intelligent, motivated, dedicated and
focused on making a difference and be flanked by people (under Civil Service) who are simply
biding their time until their next promotion? I do! I put up with that crap for a few years and then
resigned. Several people in my office asked me if I was not afraid to give up the security and the
assured pension of a Civil Service job. You could see the fear in their eyes of losing their security
blanket and their Teddy. My answer; "I work on the theory that jobs need me more than I need
them. Everything will work out."
For about 30 more years, that philosophy worked fine. This is not bravado. It is the
truth. There is no better security than knowing that you are doing a good job, and that
anybody would be crazy to fire you. I never ran into a crazy boss in the next 30 or so years, in or
out of government. And I challenged more than one boss. One especially comes to mind. I suggested to the CEO and Chairman of the company where I was a manager that his son-in-law lied to a customer and needed to be reprimanded. He yelled at me, "Don't screw (worse) with my family!" After looking into the matter, he fired the young man, and apologized to me for the outburst.
The Tree-Huggers Never Give Up
It is obvious to anyone with a brain that if the nation's forests had been thinned by selective
logging and the underbrush cut away, the devastating forest fires this season would not have been
so widespread and often out of control.
Now, President Bush, has proposed a plan to thin the forests and better manage them to prevent
future unchecked forest infernos. Guess what? The Tree-Huggers say that it is all an evil plan to
help his corporate buddies in the logging industry make more money. Kiss my bark.
As this is being written, there are 20 large fires in 10 states. About six million acres have been
burned, 2,000 buildings burned, and 20 firefighters have died. What is the matter with
the militant environmentalists? Where do they get their inordinate, irrational, maniacal, zeal for
leaving all the trees that ever grew in place? If charged with murder, they could not pass a sanity
test.
In the law, there is a theory known as "proximate cause" that deals with looking back to see what
originally was responsible for an event or chain of events. One can make a good case that the tree-huggers and their lawyers were the proximate cause of the out-of-control fires - by their lawsuits
that blocked plans to thin forests and deal with underbrush. Now, there is a potentially good
class-action suit for some underemployed attorney. Sue the tree-huggers in civil court. Indict
them criminally as co-conspirators in the death of the 20 firefights and the destruction of 2,000
buildings.
I went back into the Outback Archives and pulled up these excerpts, which seem worth
repeating:
(Outback Aug 21, 2000) Outback #2
Forest Fires, Tree-huggers, Owls, Coyotes, Mice, and Cockroaches
About five-million acres of forest have been burned so far. One can only reflect on all the trouble
and turmoil the "tree-huggers" have caused over logging and destroying the habitat of an owl or a
mouse. How frustrated these folks must feel. They have no control over lightning bolts and the
fellow that does have control is not listening to them. All of the shouting, name calling,
invective, and protests going up in smoke, if you will. There won't be any of them out there
chaining themselves to any trees this year.
Those of us in the Outback, who have had a male and female owl swing all night long on the TV
coax outside the bedroom, alternately hooting and screeching at each other, have a perverse wish.
We hope that the fires will drive some of the Spotted Owls to trees in the back yards of a few
Beverly Hills homes. Those folks need to get a taste of reality. Some have already discovered that
the Coyotes that they were so fond of "saving" are sneaking into their yards and killing their cats
and dogs....
(Outback Sept 1, 2001)
The "save the forests - no logging" policies of the "tree huggers" has largely been responsible for
the dense forests and the amount of deadwood and undergrowth that has fueled the voracious
wildfires. Trees absorb Carbon-Dioxide (CO2). So, a large fire reduces the number of trees
available as a "CO2 sink." Large fires increase the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere.
And fires deprive us of trees that could have been used for furniture and new home construction
(if logging had been allowed in the first place). Smooth move! President Bush and the Secretary
of the Interior are at work on a more realistic plan for management of our forests. The "tree
huggers" might now chain themselves to electric high-tension towers (which environmentalists
seem to hate so much). One might hope that the chains somehow get twisted in the wires...
(I sometimes use the term tree-hugger to include all militant environmentalists. It has such a nice
image associated with it - of someone bereft of good sense chained to a tree to prevent logging.)
Now, we have the United Nations "Earth Summit" in Johannesburg, South Africa. If you think
there are a lot of hot gasses being emitted from the U.S. forest fires, wait until all the PR from
this gem hits the fan. There are 60,000 delegates from 182 countries at the summit, along with
thousands of media and thousands of lobbyists. Oh boy, is that a grand recipe for
hyperbole and illogical pronouncements.
The London Sun railed against the excesses of the delegates, who are supposed
to be working toward a solution for world hunger. The Sun reported that the delegates will be
feasting on 5,000 oysters, 1,000 pounds of lobster and other shellfish, buckets of caviar, and 450
pounds of salmon, for starters. There is also more than two tons of steak and chicken breasts and
more than 1,000 pounds of bacon and sausage. The delegates are expected to drink 80,000 bottles
of mineral water, yet each day 6,000 African children die of diseases caused by contaminated
drinking water. Hundred of trees have been cut down around the conference center to provide
parking for the fleets of limousines.
President Bush will not attend the Summit. A wise decision. One outcome of the Summit will be
an incredible amount of anti-American rhetoric. Even if he is not there, Bush, or his press office,
needs to spend some time doing damage control on the lies and distortions that will inevitably
come from this conference.
Here's another bulletin. One of the fellows who was in the forefront of the "Free Willy"
movement (an okay goal, but considerably overdone), Gar Smith, online editor for the Earth
Island Institute of San Francisco, is speaking out against the introduction of electricity. He says
that with the introduction of electricity, the African villagers spend too much time watching TV
and listening to the radio. This causes their primitive traditional ways to fade away. Well, I can
think of several "primitive traditional ways" that might best fade away, such as the mutilation of
female genitalia, those plates in the lips, and on and on.
On the other hand, a case can be made that electricity in the U.S. has lead folks to become a "couch potato,"
watching TV, snacking on junk food, getting obese and dying from heart disease, diabetes, and so
on. Maybe Mr. Smith in onto something in a perverse sort of way.
Let's all move to Wyoming, build an earth home, use solar and wind energy, and grow our own
food. Don't laugh. I have a couple of hundred dollars of books on the above subjects and custom
plans for an earth home. I was ready to do it, but could not find the right property at the right
price.
There must be a wonderful feeling of independence when you have a house that needs little or no
heating or air conditioning, are not dependent upon the power company for electricity. And in
Wyoming, the wind generator practically never stops running. Wind at zero cents per mile-per-
hour. Solar the same. Maybe I am a closet tree-hugger.
One free-market commentator described the Earth Summit as a "collection of advocates
gathering to attack wealth." Succinct and to the point. All poor people hate rich Americans, even
poor Americans. If only we hadn't exported our movies and TV shows like "Dallas," (which
glorified wealth and conniving) the resentment would not be so great. We have flaunted our
wealth and our lifestyle to the world for decades. Now, we are paying the price for that ego trip.
Who Lives In All Those Big Houses?
For years, I would drive through the affluent neighborhoods of Dallas and its suburbs and marvel
at the huge houses and 10-acre estates within the city limits. I asked myself, "who lives in all
these mansions?" The same question can be asked in posh neighborhoods in most every state. I
published a book for a guy who lived in one of those Tudor mansions on 7-acres in the heart of
Dallas. It was a revelation to visit there often and see who came and went and their lifestyles.
Now, we are getting some answers to the question of "who lives in those big houses?" It is:
CEOs and other executives who earn up to 500 times the wages of an average company
employee. It is CEOs and executives who get millions in stock options and then cook the books
to run the stock prices up. It is insiders who get cut in on IPOs (initial public offerings) of stock,
which nearly always appreciate quickly for those who get in early. It is inside traders who get tips
from their highly-placed friends that a company is either going to make big news and high
profits, or that the company is going to tank and they need to sell their stock or sell short. It is
accountants who look the other way when the books are being cooked, so that they can continue
to enjoy lucrative consulting contracts from the rogue companies. It is CEOs and executives who
create tax havens or shield debt in spinoffs and take kickbacks for their efforts.
It is a Congressman who promises government jobs to people if they offer a kickback on their
salary. It is telemarketers who tell people they have won a big prize, but that you must send them
$1,000 to cover the administrative expenses of claiming the prize - and there is no prize. It is
dot.commers who rode the rocket and got off at the top, making millions and billions from ideas
that were worth perhaps a few $100 thousand dollars at best. It is officials of charity
organizations, like the former head of the San Diego chapter of the Red Cross, who were (are)
paid about $3000,000 in salary and benefits.
It is baseball players, basketball players, and football players, who are paid millions of dollars a
year to play a game for several months out of the year. It is lawyers who charge $750 an hour
(that ought to be a crime in itself) or work on huge contingency fees and take home millions in
class-actions suits while the plaintiffs get stiffed. It is doctors who charge $70 for an office visit
and spend 4.25 minutes with you - or 15-20 minutes if you block the exam-room door.
It is network news anchors who are paid millions to read from a teleprompter and once in a while
interview somebody to keep their "journalist" credentials in force. It is movie stars, many of
whom could not make a living at a regular job, getting $10-20 million per picture. Or, it is TV
stars who make enormous amounts of money for often playing themselves (who often flop when
they are forced to really act in a motion picture). It is Hollywood writers who may get $100,000
or more for an outline or for a script that is tossed in the trash. It is TV entertainers who get from
$17 to $30 million a year to tell jokes other people write - and interview the $10-million airheads
about their latest action-adventure film with all the exploding cars.
It is the auto-garage owners who tell you that you need a new alternator when the only problem is
that your fanbelt is loose. It is the restaurant owner who charges you seven times his cost for a
glass of wine. It is the auto dealer who sells you a $47,000 car, so you can sit in a traffic jam in
style. It is the jeweler who sells you a $5,000 watch, which does the same thing as a $39 Casio
(actually, the Casio probably has more functions).
It is wealthy people who spends tens of thousands on tax attorneys and CPAs to shelter their
income from taxes. It is pop musicians who sell 20-million albums, consisting of songs where
not one phrase can be understood without liner notes. It is drug dealers and those who launder their money.
I tell you who does NOT live in those big houses:
It is not the average working person or middle manager who works hard, plays by the rules, pays
their taxes without fudging, does community service, tithes to their church, is faithful to their
spouse, and is home most nights to have dinner with the family.
It is not a policeman, a firefighter, a teacher, a preacher, a nurse, a librarian, a social worker, a
bank clerk, or a pizza-delivery guy.
Wall Street and corporate America have forgotten who brung 'em to the dance. It is the
American worker who is responsible for the American economic miracle, not stock brokers, junk
bond dealers, financial analysts, lawyers and imaginative accountants, or CEOs who operate on
the fringes of the law - or even over the edge.
Finally, some crooked corporate executives are being arrested. And incredibly, the prosecutors
are trying to recover some of the ill-gotten gains - maybe even seize a mansion and sell it. This is
a watershed moment in our history. Picture this: the $93 million mansion of the former CEO of
Global Crossing is seized and it is turned into a residence for 50 Global Crossing employees who
lost their retirement savings. Wouldn't that be a hoot?
American Idol - A Huge Surprise To A TV Cynic
All I had heard about "American Idol" on FOX was that they were searching for a superstar and
the British guy Simon Cowell was a sourpuss and a smartass. Ho, hum. It's another "StarSearch"
and the riveting "spokesmodel" category. Accidentally, I tuned into the show with the three
finalists. It was a huge surprise, marred only by one girl with a pierced tongue. What in the hell is
the matter with her? It is like trying to sing with a marble in your mouth. She was eliminated,
leaving only two to warble it out.
Both finalists are very, very good. They sing with more polish and greater enunciation than most
of the top vocalists on the rock/pop scene. If Kelly Clarkson does not win, the fix is in. Even the
dour Simon, whose face nearly cracks when he issues a compliment, said to Kelly "You're the
best singer in this competition." Other judges used words like "amazing." They should have
called the fight right then on a Technical Knockout.
I plan to watch the final episode, delayed on a PVR of course, because it will be a long two-hour
night of verbal drivel and recaps punctuated by a couple of good songs - maybe four. If Kelly
does not come up with lame vocal chords (she pushes the vocal envelope pretty hard), she should
take home the recording and management contracts. Justin Guarani, who is an "adorable" young
man, will also become a star on his own, regardless of his final standing. They really did find
some extraordinary talent. Who would have thunk it of FOX? Celebrity boxing. Now a real
show.
Sept. 05, 2002 Update: I watched the last 15 minutes, more or less. Two hours was too much to take. Kelly won and should have. But, how fair is a voting procedure where people vote over and over? They need to clean up. Justin Guarini said that he and Kelly became best friends. Maybe more than that. He looked at her with such adulation and adoration - and I think I read his lips a couple of time saying "Baby" to her. And there was a lot of serious hand-holding and hugging going on. Perhaps they will become the new Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme (for you young folks, Steve and Eydie are married and were a fabulously popular singing couple for many years). In any case, Kelly and Justin are a lovely couple - even if they are just "good friends."
COPYRIGHT 2000 Richard C. Rhodes
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