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 a senior citizen. My experience 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 13 years. Every couple of weeks I will attempt to post a new set of musings from the Outback. Click on a Topic to go directly to that topic.
If you would like an excellent free World Time Clock for your computer, so you can track the time in Baghdad and elsewere, go to: www.pawprint.net/wt and download the Stable Release 5.5.2.748 and also the Location Data file. A list of French-owned companies can be found at www.metrospy.com, for those who are considering a boycott of French products. I plan on starting by boycotting Dom Perignon Champagne. Since I have yet to taste a glass of that bubbly, it will be an easy call. Try Korbel and support America. In my judgement, President Bush is probably sorry he built up the massive forces near Iraq so soon. A substantially less massive military presence, along with his ultimatums, would probably have left him a little wiggle room, once the world and the U.N. turned against us and demanded more time for inspections. Now, even keeping the troops on a high state of readiness for a couple of months will be a problem. We'll probably know shortly. Whatever happened to the anthrax investigation? For all the furor the anthrax letters caused,
this thing is so far on the back burner that it is not even simmering. Yet, it will ultimately cost the Postal Service billions of dollars for screening equipment. I think the "media whores" are at it again. Why have there been so many published reports that
we think we know where Osama bin Laden might be hiding? One of the most recent was that the
laptop seized from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed contained information about some of bin Laden's
hideouts. As a former Federal agent and CIA agent, the idea of telling a fugitive that you think
you know where he is located is stupid. Other than complete media irresponsibility, I can think of
only one other explanation. And that is: the intelligence community may have encouraged the
media to give out the hints about bin Laden's whereabouts in the hope that it might flush him
out. Then, they might have a better chance of spotting him on the move. That's a pretty charitable
take on the matter.
While visiting a State Farm office the other day, I noticed a sign that touted their CDs, Money
Market, and Savings accounts. It surprised me to learn that a State Farm Savings account is
currently paying more in interest than the short-term CDs I have with a major bank. You also get
an ATM card to make withdrawals from your account. And online access, of course.
You hear a lot of talk about a "Bush Dynasty" in politics. It is alleged that Osama bin Laden
has 23 sons. Now, there is a dynasty in the making. No wonder President Bush seems to avoid
answering the question whether the war on terrorism can be won without the death or capture of
bin Laden. What Bush would probably like to say is: " What difference would it make? If we get
him, there are still 23 evil monsters in the wings - in his own family."
Product placement of the week. Ross on "Friends" said that he was on his way to buy some
"Photoshop software." Soon, there will be no need for commercial breaks. After about a year of refusing to watch any TV channel that runs a "screen crawl," I am unhappy
that I miss some, not many, interesting programs. I long ago refused to give in by using my
cardboard strip with the duct-tape hinges. While fiddling with moving picture-in-picture (PIP)
boxes around on the TV screen, moving views around on DVD presentations, and reflecting
on how easy it is to drag a Windows Task Bar to another location, the answer is clear. Somebody
needs to either incorporate into the TV, or provide an add-on box, a way to manipulate around
the screen a horizontal bar, that is sizeable and with choices of color and background. In a pinch
you could use a PIP elongated window and switch to a an unused - and blank - video input for the
PIP window. You could use your Arrow keys to position the bar, perhaps a nice solid pale blue,
over the area taken up by the screen crawl. This is technically easy to do. Maybe DishNetwork or
DirecTV might lead the way with such a function in their Personal Video Recorders, which move
icons and things around - by software. Even now the software upgrades are downloaded from the
satellites. Well? It is increasingly hard for me to read The Wall Street Journal, due to the continual reminders of
how obscenely rich many people are in comparison to the general hard-working public. One
article noted a $3950 woven-leather tote bag. You can buy a tote bag at Wal-Mart for ten bucks.
And $12,000 for a woman's handbag. For about four times that much, you can buy a nice little
house here in the Outback. And there is the corporate mogul who tried to auction a "painting" of
what may be a single plumb on a huge brown canvas for more than $2 million. In the first place,
how can anybody pass a sanity test for buying such a "painting"? This flaunting of opulence is
nauseating. The FBI is said to have about 80 aircraft flying surveillance over the United States. Some
have night-vision capability and can record from court-approved bugs and cellphones taps. I can
remember the days when finding a photo/audio surveillance post was one of the hardest parts of
working a criminal case or an intelligence operation. As would have been expected, the civil-rights twinkies are complaining about the airplanes. Stick it in your ear - or elsewhere. I am glad
that we are finally starting to show some initiative to try to prevent further terrorist attacks. For
the hundredth time: the FBI has more than it can handle just trying to keep tab on terrorists,
without taking time to "spy" on the average citizen as they fly over our cities. Instead of bitching,
people ought to look up and say, "Thank God they are finally doing something proactive, instead
of just sitting around waiting to investigate the rubble at a bomb blast." I am still very, very upset with Dan Rather for his interview with Saddam Hussein. What did
that prove? Other than acting as a PR platform for Saddam to show what a nice, misunderstood,
grand-fatherly guy he is. More fuel for the U.S. children who skipped school to protest in the
streets - and protesters around the world. Dan Rather is a disgrace to Texas. The least he could
have done for his country was to have a poison needle in a ring or surgically embedded in the
palm of his hand when he shook Saddam's hand. Of course, my bet is that Saddam did not shake
his hand. He ain't stupid. Saddam may have kissed Rather after the interview - in gratitude -
but who would have thought to implant a poison needle in Rather's lips. Google.com and Alltheweb.com are among the great search engines. But archiving the results of
a search is difficult. Usually you have to download each page of interest or download the search
result page(s). Copernic Agent Professional search software has 120 categories of searches and
variously uses 1000 different search engines. Each search can be saved for later reference. Just
log onto the Internet, go back to one of your saved searches and click on a Web site. For serious
research, it is a fine tool. (www.copernic.com) In the 50 or so years that I have been aware of the politics of Africa, there has never been
much of a showing that they did many things right. I was a CIA desk officer for Africa for
technical operations way back when you needed a map of Africa on a blackboard, so that you
could chalk in the rapid changes in country names or affiliations. Chaos did not begin to describe
it. As I sat and watched the representative on the Security Council from Cameroon struggle to
read a prepared statement (the usual "war is a last resort" speech), I thought: Is the fate of the
world in the hands of Cameroon? The whole Security Council membership criteria and procedures are suspect. Every year five
new member nations are elected to the two-year terms on the Security Council. The seats rotate
on a geographical basis. This is all very "democratic," but what kind of an organization does it
produce? One where tiny nations, who may have no record of accomplishment, no economic
power, no military power, can scuttle the will of even a consensus of the major countries. Yeah, I know. It was designed to protect the little guy. But at what expense? Voting requires nine votes, except on substantive matters when all five permanent members must
support the resolution. So, here we have the spectacle of the U.S. courting Cameroon, for
example, to get a nine-vote majority and the French trying to get Cameroon to vote NO on the
resolution. And, if there are nine votes in favor of the resolution, the U.S., U.K., France, China,
or Russia can veto the whole thing. Who put this brilliant strategy together? No wonder they
have so much trouble getting anything done. The current president of the Security Council is from Guinea. The post rotates each month.
During his opening remarks at the debate on the new resolution backed by the U.S., U.K, Spain,
and Bulgaria, the representative from Iraq made a statement to the effect that he was confident
that the president's "African wisdom" would help the Council reach a proper conclusion. Jesus,
the guy might as well have walked over and kissed the president from Guinea on the mouth. Not
to cast aspersions on the fine president of the Security Council, but I noted in some passing
research that Guinea has a population of 5,700,00 and an adult literacy rate of 41 percent. How
seriously should their views be taken in a matter of such momentous importance? The U.S. Congress has non-voting members from Guam, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia ,
and the Virgin Islands. The female delegate from Guam graduated from Saint Katherine's
College in St. Paul, Minneosta, which is just blocks from the grade school I attended. (See also
Kofi Annan St. Paul, connection. This research is getting spooky.) These delegates
(Congresspersons) can sit on committees and take part in debate - but they cannot vote. You might think that Secretary General, Kofi Annan, would have gotten some of the mess
straightened out by now. I never really thought about him much or his background, other than he
was born in Ghana. Mr. Annan is probably a closet American. He received a bachelor's degree in
economics from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, which is not far from where I
attended grade school. He worked for the U.N. for 10 years and then received a master's degree
in management from MIT in 1972. Kofi Annan was the first career U.N. official to be elected
Secretary General. In 2001, he was elected to a second five-year term, which started in 2002.
Maybe Mr. Annan can put his master's degree in management to work a little better and
make some sense out of the Security Council membership criteria and/or voting procedures. As
in the U.S. Congress, maybe there ought to be a number of "non-voting members" in the U.N.
Security Council or in the U.N. generally. And maybe it should take three of the five permanent
members of the Security Council to veto a substantive resolution. Those might be places to start.
On "60 Minutes II" for March 5, 2003, Bob Simon ran his interview with reporter Yosri
Fouda of Al Jazeera TV about Foud's meeting with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of
the 9/11 attack. Mr. Fouda said that the White House was originally on the hit list for one of the hijacked
airliners, but was later taken off due to "navigation reasons." One must assume that means
the plotters knew it would not be easy to hit such a low target in and among other structures.
The U.S. Capitol took the place of the White House on the list. The plane that went
down in Pennsylvania was then the one targeted on the U.S. Capitol. In the Outback for Sept. 20, 2001, in "The Other Targets," I wrote in part: The Capitol, or CIA headquarters would have been much more logical targets. I still have not resolved the following question. If the Pentagon was on the final list of four
targets, and not an alternate to the White House, as many in the media suggested at the time,
why did the terrorists fly into the only part of the Pentagon that had undergone structural
refurbishing to harden it against attack? I was half right. In several earlier Outback columns, I predicted that the replacement for the
WTC would not be nearly as high as the original Twin Towers. Saturday, March 15, 2003
Thoughts While Staring at the Ceiling Fan
The U.N. Security Council Charade
The Fourth Target on September 11, 2001
It would take a pretty skilled pilot to ram the White House with a big jet airliner. As I have said,
it is relatively easy to take off (without a strong crosswind) any aircraft. Flying at altitude is not
that difficult. But landing is another story. Because the White House is such a relatively small
target and is not very high, hitting it with a big jet would be the equivalent of landing on a precise
spot on a runway, which is probably not easy to do without considerable training in large aircraft.
The World Trade Center Finalist
Some reports have said that there will be offices as high as the 110th floor, but the official Web site for the project (Lower Manhattan Development Corporation ) indicates that there are two possible "use plans." In neither is there an office higher than the 70th floor. (www.renewnyc.com)
Actually, there will be five towers. Plan one calls for Tower 1 to have 70 floors of occupied space, Tower 2 to have 65 floors, Tower 3 with 60 floors, Tower 4 with 55 floors, and Tower 5 with 50 floors. Plan two is very similar.
The photo shows how the project will look once it is completed. Tower 1 will in fact tower over lower Manhattan. In my opinion it is garish, tasteless, out-of-place, and a gold-plated invitation to terrorists.
The governor and mayor see it differently. Gov. Pataki said, "When it is finished, it will be a symbol that will reach into the sky to tell the terrorists they have failed." Mayor Bloomberg noted that it would be the 10th time in the city's history that it would have the world's highest structure. Men! And New York men in particular. Why does everything have to be the biggest with you guys? This is the sort of machismo one might expect from Kim Jong Il or Saddam Hussein. Maybe Dr. Phil could have all of you who embraced the final plan come on his show and talk about this phallic obsession.
More Reasons to Disparage Unions
In previous Outbacks, I have made several mentions of how unions defeat efficiency by outmoded "featherbedding" rules that protect jobs at the expense of efficiency.
An editorial in the Wall Street Journal noted that the AFL-CIO president said that he had never seen a secretary of labor (Elaine Chao) who was so anti-labor. Her crime is telling the truth about union criminal activities. If you go to the following site:
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/olms/enforc_actions.htm
you can feast on about 50 pages of criminal enforcement actions against labor bosses. The Labor Department is averaging about 11 convictions a month, mostly for misuse of union funds.
The standard charges often are: conspiracy, false ERISA statements, money laundering conspiracy, money laundering, unlawful labor payments and embezzlement. At least that's an improvement over the old days of murder and dismemberment.
One group that seems to escape public scrutiny is the teacher's unions. Who wants to be critical of our dedicated teachers? In December of 2002, homes of officials from the Washington Teachers Union was raided by the FBI. Carted off were a Tiffany's silver service, fur coats, alligator shoes, and other goodies, which the agents said were bought with as much as $5 million of dues stolen from the union coffers. That is just one local teacher's union!
On February 6, 2003, in United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Leroy Holmes, former chauffeur for the Washington Teachers Union, pled guilty to conspiring to commit money laundering in an amount in excess of $1 million.
I had earlier mentioned the terrible waste and duplication forced on the TV and movie industries by the unions - and how that ran up the costs of production beyond any reasonable limits. Now, the shows on Broadway were shut down over a dispute about how many people should be in a show orchestra. Broadway is heavily unionized. The WSJ summed up the current situation, and what I had said previously:
In any event, all the union featherbedding contributes to the huge fixed costs of mounting a Broadway show and goes a long way to explaining why most producers won't take a chance on anything new.
The unions tried to organize the TSA screeners, although I believe that was expressly forbidden in the legislation that created the screeners. You cannot slay dragons if you have unions in the middle, trying to keep incompetents on the job, fighting reassignments, or arguing about what color to paint the break room.
By the way, if you look at the list of crooks in union leadership, there are some convictions in there for leaders of unions that represent government employees. No. Say it isn't so.
Why Are You Buying Name-Brand Aspirin?
Bayer Aspirin ran a full-page ad in the WSJ a while ago. That is one reason that Bayer Aspirin is so expensive - advertising. Most all aspirin sold by major stores is made to the same exacting standards. Most of the generics in major retail outlets conform to the USP standard, which ensures that the ingredients and the safety of the manufacturing process are essentially the same.
The U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) is a non-profit organization which sets quality standards for medicines, over-the-counter items, and dietary supplements, for example. It is analogous to the Underwriters Laboratory (UL) mission with regard to electrical items. USP has recently issued new stricter standards for dietary supplements. Look on your bottle of vitamins or herbs and you may find references to conformance to several USP standards.
A bottle of 50 Bayer Aspirin (325mg) at a local Wal-Mart costs $3.77. A bottle of 500 of a generic 325mg aspirin costs $3.47! If your calculator is broken, the Bayer costs a little more than 10 times as much as the generic. A bottle of 100 of the generic 325mg tablets costs 96 cents. At SAM's Club, with Member's Mark brand, a bottle of 1000-325mg coated Aspirin costs $4.87. Yes, that is 1000 for $4.87.
At Wal-Mart, Bayer 325mg in a 300 count bottle sells for $10.46. The 300 bottle of the generic is $2.37. The price differential also narrows with the 81 mg coated aspirin, the type and dose often recommended by doctors for protecting you from heart attacks. A bottle of 120 Bayer coated 81 mg is $5.48. A bottle of 120 x 81mg of the generic, sold under the Equate label, is $2.97.
The Equate box says "Compare to Bayer Adult Low Strength Aspirin active ingredient." Here's a clue. They are essentially the same. Bayer can protest all they want. In the small print, it also notes that this coated aspirin, which has a "delayed-dissolve," will not provide fast relief of headaches, fever, or other symptoms needed immediate relief.
If you happen to be in the aspirin aisle at Wal-Mart when I am there, as two elderly ladies were during my last visit, you will get my "buy the generic" lecture. Chain drug-stores, other discount stores, and grocery stores often have their own generic brand(s) of Aspirin and other over-the-counter preparations at comparable savings as noted above.
I could fill 10 pages with comparison prices. Check Metamucil's price versus the comparable product under the Equate label at Wal-Mart (Equate Natural Fiber Laxative - with 100% natural Psyllium Husk Fiber). From cough syrup to mouthwash, there is a cheaper - and equivalent - way to go. Read the labels. You will be amazed. Same ingredients, same percentages, and so on. What do you suppose is different? The price! And I am willing to bet that some of the generics are made in the same plants and in the same vats that make some of the name-brands.
Remote Viewing, Aliens, and All That Jazz
As part of my "numb my mind to go to sleep program," I sometimes listen for a few minutes to Coast to Coast AM. I call it Ghost to Ghost AM. George Noory is the host, and I often wonder how much of the ghosts and aliens and UFO stuff he believes. He certainly does a good job of catering to the callers. "Send that to the Web site for posting." "Boy, that must have been scary." And so forth.
Major Ed Dames, U.S. Army Ret., was a guest on Cosat to Coast AM on March 7, 2003. He is a Remote Viewer. More about Remote Viewing later.
Ed Dames says that Osama bin Laden is dead and buried, and that he died of wounds. He will not say where Osama is buried. He and Mohammed the captured terrorist leader need to get their stories straight. Mohammed says that he met with Osama a while back. Recent tapes have been judged to have been made by Osama.
"I have the most horrible message that I have ever put out in my 7 years on the show," said Major Ed Dames. He predicted a nuclear attack by the North Koreans which he said will come from a hidden tunnel. It will occur on the border between North and South Korea shortly after the U.S. attacks Iraq, and its purpose will be to damage the American military that is stationed there. "The whole world will be horrified," said Dames.
One caller said that in the several years Ed Dames had been a guest on the show, he had never gotten anything right. Nothing!
Remote viewing is not "being psychic" in the way commonly understood by the media and many practitioners of "paranormal" arts. Remote viewers are not the typical "clairvoyants," "fortune tellers," or "psychics" we often see on TV or read about in the papers.
Remote viewing (RV) is a skill by which a person (a "viewer") can perceive objects, persons, or events at a location removed from him or her by either space or time - and either describe them or sketch the object(s).
Yet Mr. Dames makes outlandish predictions. Remote Viewers are not prognosticators.
I tend to believe that Remote Viewing is possible. The CIA and others were trying to utilize it during the Cold War. The Russians were using it for sure. I have a couple of books on the subject. But, I lost interest in the predictions of Remote Viewer Major Ed Dames that night on the radio. He was predicting future events, not something within the purview of a classic Remote Viewer. Mercifully, I dozed off and the sleep timer turned the radio off in a few minutes.
This is but one example of the weird and wooly creatures who inhabit late-night radio. Scores say they have been abducted to a spaceship. UFO sightings are as common as Elvis sightings. Ghosts are turning lights on and off. Ethereal figures dart about bedrooms.
Take a look at: www.coasttocoastam.com
It will open up a whole new world for you - maybe several new worlds. Tune in the show around midnight. Then, try and get a good night's sleep.
Radio Shack Abandons Asking For Name
For over 20 years I fought Radio Shack over their stupid policy of asking for your name during a cash purchase, to enter your purchase into in their database - even if it was for a 96-cent package of fuses. I wrote to two successive presidents of Radio Shack and pleaded that the policy was intrusive, offensive, counter-productive to good customer relations, and an invasion of privacy. Several women encouraged me to write about the privacy issue.
John Roach, the previous president, wrote me a nice letter in which he explained that the policy was largely to select names to receive the Radio Shack flyers - which were the lifeblood for return customers. But, he said, none of us were under any obligation to give our name. You would never have known it from the conduct of RS clerks. I carried John's letter in my glove compartment for years - and discussed it with more than one manager.
After I sent a letter to Len Roberts, the current president in about May of 2002, I got a pathetic e-mail response from some guy at Radio Shack, which I posted, along with the details of my futile battle with RS, in the Outback for June 15, 2002 (www.home.earthlink.net/~rickhgtx/outbac60.html). That insipid - and logically faulty - response firmed my resolve to stop shopping at Radio Shack. But , on March 6, 2003, I needed a battery for the heart-rate monitor that I wear while on the treadmill. I reluctantly I visited a RS store. Surprise! Shock! Awe! Our 20-year fight had been won.
Radio Shack is no longer asking for your name at the time of a sale. If you want to be on the list for the periodic flyer, you can volunteer your information.
Congratulations to Radio Shack for their new policy. If I had anything to do with it, I am ever so grateful. If you read my piece of June 15, 2002 and wrote a letter to Len Roberts, I thank you. If you are one of the thousands who voiced your disapproval to the clerks and manager at RS over the past 20 odd years, thank you, too.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Richard C. Rhodes
You are welcome to quote sections from this page - or the whole page, as long as the source URL is included. Of course, I would be flattered if anyone linked to this page. It is very hard to be the writer, editor, fact checker, copy editor, and publisher of anything. So, I beg your forgiveness for the many mistakes that creep in.
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Richard C. Rhodes
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