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. I still don't understand why Sen. Joe Biden (D. Del.) is not running for president. Joe continues to impress me in his work in the Senate - and the many speeches he gives - as being a very smart and thoughtful guy, who does not always agree with the party line. His thoughts on foreign policy are always insightful, and although I don't agree with him on everything, he makes the rest of the Democratic pack look like a bunch of kids in grade school studying their first Civics class. Maybe he figures Bush is nearly unbeatable. That would leave it open for him to run in 2008, probably with Hillary then the supposed front runner. He would grind Hillary up and spit her out before breakfast. Keep taking your fish-oil capsules and doing your situps, Joe. We may need you to put an end to the Clinton Curse. (12-16-03) Many have heard about how in class-action lawsuits the plaintiffs get very little and the lawyers make possibly millions in fees off the top. Well, I got a check for $0.28 (28 cents)! It seems that I was an unwitting member of a class-action lawsuit against Citibank and AT&T Universal cards. Until I cancelled it, I did have a Citibank card. I put the check in the Archives, as a testament to the idiocy of class-action suits. Interestingly, the postage cost more than my settlement. Also, the envelope had a return address of Fenton, MO, but the First Class Permit (stamp) was from Mpls., MN. And the letter invited those of us with questions to write to an address in Jacksonville, FL. - what a tangled web. Checking the Web, I found another happy recipient who had received a check for $1.17 and another for $.17 cents, and another For $0.05 (5 cents). I guess the first order of business for the lawyers was to buy a new house, a new Lexus, and then spend the rest of the settlement on postage, sending out checks for mostly less than a dollar. As I said in an earlier Outback, we need to close all the law schools for 10 years (maybe 20?) and give a lot of these current shysters a chance to die off or go to prison. Here is a quote from a guy who got one of the checks and said he found this info on Westlaw (read "class counsel" as "greedy lawyers"): The ID badges of members attending The World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva were embedded with RFID chips. That could allow "someone" to track the movements of the participants during the meeting, such as in meeting rooms, conference halls, etc. RFID is a chip that responds to the reception of a radio frequency signal, like the tags put on retail items that set off an alarm as you pass through the detector on the way out - unless you have paid for the item and the tag deactivated. It is analogous to a transponder on an aircraft. It is inert until it receives a blast of radio-frequency energy (or radar for a transponder). Let's see, we have RFID tracking, GPS tracking of vehicles and people, cell phones that can take and transmit photos, surveillance cameras increasingly being mounted in public places, and facial recognition software tied into some of the cameras. What we need now is a "stealth car," a disguise kit, and an RFID and GPS jammer to maintain some small level of privacy. Wal-Mart has been involved in a controversy about the use and potential expanded use of RFID tags on merchandise in its stores. That is a matter for an entire column later on. I will say that I nearly always pay CASH at Wal-Mart, since I have heard that their computers are so sophisticated that they can track your buying patterns by matching your check against the register tape. And finally, Radio Shack quit insisting on putting your name into the computer for even a 79-cent purchase, which then went into a massive database at Radio Shack HQ. Pay cash, wear a wig and sunglasses, never use an ATM (which takes your picture) - especially if you are on the lam from the law. Bored with basic cable netwwork shows and reruns, I tuned into Home Shopping Network (www.hsn.com) just as they were showing a demo of a Wolfgang Puck Panini Maker and grill ($54.90). It looked great, in shiny stainless, it appeared. My phone had not been connected, and I did not want to get put on hold on my cell, so I went to www.hsn.com and opened an account and ordered the grill, in about two minutes. Shortly, I got an e-mail confirmation. This probably was only the third thing I have ever ordered from a TV program. In a few days UPS delivered my shiny new grill. It is large and can hold a couple of good sized steaks. So far, I have cooked sausages, a hamburger (about 4 minutes) and a rib-eye steak (about 6 minutes). Great item for those on the Atkins diet. There is a drip pan and a cleaning tool for the grooves. The meat is evenly cooked and has those nifty grill marks across it that makes you think you are eating at a "char-broiled restaurant." Next, will be a Reuben sandwich, when I get all the fixings. This unit seems different from many similar ones in that the top lid comes down parallel on what you are cooking and can handle some very thick meat or a really thick sandwich. This will not be my last Home Shopping Network purchase. The quality is good, the price was good, and the delivery was speedy, especially during the holiday season. I have my eye on a convection oven for the counter top. (12-14-03) A man came to hook up a service at my residence. As is my custom, I talked his ear off and found that we had some things in common - among them computers and cable modems - and as a young man I had done some work in his field. He complained about pop-up ads. I suggested Norton Internet Security for the firewall, anti-virus, ad-blocker, and protection of personal information on your hard drive. Also, I showed him how to disable "Messenger" in "Services" in Win XP, as that is the service that a hacker has exploited to send a new form of pop-up ads. As we parted, I gave him my usual admonition. "There are 11 million questions about computers and software. I know the answers to only a thousand of those questions, and maybe not that many over the phone." Well, a day later he called me and asked me to walk him through the Messenger disabling procedure, since he forgot my little demo. After 20 minutes of searching in Control Panel and elsewhere for "Administrative Tools" and then the "Services" section where Messenger can be disabled, I gave up. I told him to go to www.belarc.com and download the free Belarc Advisor. He did, and the Belarc report showed that he was running Windows 98 and an AMD chip whose number did not mean anything to me. No wonder we could not find XP Services, not in Win 98! He thought he might upgrade to Windows XP Home. After waiting on the phone for long periods while he tried to get his machine to respond to various commands, and some serious questions I had about the age and speed of his AMD processor, I suggested that he might look into buying a new computer. Especially if his AMD was not at least comparable to an Intel P4 processor. You see, those are two of the 1000 answers I know. The first is, back up your program data, reformat your hard drive (or buy a new one) and install Win XP Home edition from scratch. Number 2 is buy a new computer if it is 3 or 4 years old. That's about as much help as you get out of phone tech support for most computers or software. And I don't charge for this bad advice. Computers are like Bic lighters. You use them a few times and it is time to buy a new one. And I feel great empathy for those who are not really "into computers," but expect them to work like a car, turn on the ignition and press the pedal. If you don't even know what operating system you are running, you are in for a heap of grief in the long run. Incidentally, Microsoft announed that they will be discontinuing support for Windows 98. I still have Win 98 SE on my laptop and and have no plans to change - until it becomes a security hazard due to lack of updates. (12-14-03) Do you know anyone who is not a little intimidated and perhaps queasy about getting a injection, such as for a flu shot? I really don't mind anymore, since I have so much fat on my arms to protect me from the needle. But what is the morbid fascination with the media about showing kids and adults getting a shot? First the needle into the vial, then the tapping to get the air bubble out, then SLAM the needle into your arm or butt. Every show that has covered the flu and the flu vaccine shortage has shown someone getting a shot. We know how it works! Give us a break. I remember Marine boot camp, at Paris Island, S. Carolina. We were not yet "Marines" which would then mean pretty macho and able to shake off pain. They lined us up, told us to roll up both sleeves to bare the upper arm, and sent us into the Infirmary. Surprise, there was a medic on each side of the door with a big needle and they both got you at once, before you knew what happened. That, I suppose, was to keep your friends from seeing you cry when getting a bunch of shots. I did see some tears in the barber shop, where they shave you bald. Especially emotional where some people from urban areas where long hair was a sign of manhood - or belonging to a gang, etc. (In the 1950s, as in other eras, judges often said, "I'm giving you 10 years in the state pen - or you can join the Marine Corps.") Of course, those of us from the Midwest thought that long hair meant you were a sissy or a hippie. That's why they shave your head. You were no longer identified as being from Philly, or Minneapolis, or Atlanta, or Toledo. You now had one single identity, United States Marine. A "skinhead." A simple concept, with very quick and dramatic results. (12-11-03) It is so tiresome to hear the liberal media, the Democrats desperate for an issue, and the liberal law professors who continue to cry out in anguish about the "abuses of the Patriot Act" and of its "unconstitutionality," and how Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft is some kind of Gestapo or KGB chief with "unprecedented powers that endanger our civil liberties." As a former federal agent and law grad, I followed this legislation and its implementation closely. I was heartened by a piece in the Wall Street Journal on Dec. 9 by Eric Posner and John Yoo (both of whom are law professors). One standout quote from the piece:
A 79-year-old man has been sued under the Copyright laws for offering 774 songs for downloading. Two problems: he does not own a computer, and some of the tunes he is accused of offering for download are by artists including Vanilla Ice, U2, Creed, Linkin Park, and Guns N' Roses. You show me a 79-year old guy who is listening to U2 and Guns N' Roses and I'll buy you a steak dinner. I approve of going after the BIG downloaders and those who offer to download (via peer-to-peer nets) large numbers of files. But, the music police need to be a little more diligent in their investigations. I now am on cable modem. Let's see, where can I download some U2? And get some spyware installed on my computer and a virus at the same time?(12-09-03) I now live (or did live) some of the time about 75 yards back from a secondary city street - on a cul de sac. Even while inside my residence, I can hear the cars going by on the nearby street with the big bass woofers thumping. I hope all these morons go deaf and when they are 45 years old and are standing in line for hearing aids. I own three subwoofers, two on computers and one associated with my home theater gear. But, I set them as they were intended for use, to augment bass - not to become the overriding and overwhelming sound. It doesn't help that I am an old geezer and consider all rock and roll and rap to be the compositions of the Devil. After 15 years of utter solitude (except for Coyotes howling) on my 20 acres in the country, several times recently I could hear a bass woofer thumping through the woods from about a-third of a mile away. If you recall, the FBI used loud music to try to disorient the Branch Davidians in Waco. Music can be soothing and therapeutic, or in the hands of so many of today's young people - a weapon. The FBI is looking for a few good men with woofers. There are only two refuges from this insanity - having about 200 acres to live on - or death. Surely woofers are not allowed in Heaven. Hopefully all those with big woofers in their cars and trucks will be given a free ticket to Hell. Oh, and those who put the really loud dual pipes on their pickup trucks. Show me a guy with loud duals and I'll show you a guy who has most likely never done anything significant in his life. Are you proud of yourself that you can finally get noticed? And the cul de sac turned out to be a deceptive lure. Cars and trucks come into the private driveway, which is about 3-feet from your living space, at up to 40 mph, to drive about 100 yards, some with loud duals, some blaring stereos, but all very distracting to a boy from the Outback. These idiots have driven me out of one of the most beautiful duplex rental properties I have ever seen. It has now become a very expensive "climate-controlled" warehouse for much of my belongings - until my 6-month lease is up. (12-09-03) ESP must work. Only a day or so ago, I was thinking of Andrew Firestone (from the "Bachelor" TV show) and his fiancee Jen. Mostly, I was hoping the best for Jen, whom I regarded as the pick of the litter of females on the Bachelor shows I watched. I was going to contact Andrew and ask him how their relationship was going, since I wrote so glowingly of Jen in an earlier Outback and hoped that this would be the ONE "Bachelor" pairing that worked out. Not to be. Andrew announced that he and Jen are splitting up. He found it a challenge to give up his single status. Poor baby. To review, Andrew is the great grandson of Harvey Firestone, the tire guy. Andrew and his family are now in the wine biz in California. If you would like to e-mail Andrew and tell him you think he is just another rich, spoiled, immature, brat, who has lived in a bubble removed from the real world, try : andrew@andrewfirestone.com or you could call the Firestone Family Estates wine operation at 800 910-3940 and tell his dad, Brooks, that he needs to talk with his son about growing up. That "Bachelor" show was the last reality TV show I watched. It took me three tries to realize they were picking narcissistic, self-centered weenies for Bachelors and none would probably ever be able to find true love in a few dates on TV - or in any context, for that matter. Are you still watching this garbage? Somebody is watching. (12-09-03) Regular readers have no doubt noticed that I have not talked about Iraq for a long time. It is simply too big a mess to even waste time on. And I have given up on the Congress, after the bitter, back-biting and partisan recent session. Any moron can see that they don't give a damn about the public good, they are simply angling for "issues" for the next presidential election. My guess is that there are a bunch of members of Congress who get daily death threats. If ESP works, there are a few that are getting a message from me. I'm not going on record, nor will I send a letter or an e-mail. I feel no need to be visited by the FBI. Security is very tight around the U.S. Capitol. My recollection was that after the 1954 incident, where about 30 shots were fired onto the House floor from the visitor's gallery - and five people wounded - they put bulletproof glass in the visitor's gallery in the House. I can't find any reference to the bulletproof glass in my cursory research. In 1856, Rep. Preston S. Brooks, a State-Rights Democrat from South Carolina, used a heavy cane in an attack on Sen. Charles Sumner, R-Mass., in the Senate Chamber. Sumner was beaten unconscious and was not able to resume his Senate duties for more than three years. Brooks resigned from his seat but was re-elected. And in April 1850, during a debate on the Compromise of 1850, Sen. Henry S. Foote, a Unionist from Mississippi and supporter of the compromise, drew a pistol on Sen. Thomas Hart Benton, D-Mo., and a compromise opponent. Other senators intervened before Foote could fire. I wonder if Congressmen and Senators are checked for weapons as are visitors to the Capitol? If not, and given the heated partisanship of recent times, the best crime drama might yet turn out to be on C-SPAN. The Cable Guy is the oldest joke around. My Cox cable TV and cable modem were scheduled for installation between 10 a.m. to 12 noon. At 10:00, the door chime rang, and at the same time my computer World Time clock chimed 10 (Free World Time clock - with alarms - www.pawprint.net). The cable man was here. I had pulled the VCR out of the cabinet for easy access. My computer had a Gigabit LAN built into the motherboard. As best as I understood it, I activated the LAN. The TV install took about 2 minutes. Up came a picture, but my remote would not change channels. Cable guy suggested that I could find the problem with my remote later (it turned out that I needed to do an auto-channel search on my TV). We moved to the computer. He handed me one end of the Ethernet cable while he plugged in the AC plug into my UPS. A quick setup of the LAN to Modem connection and we popped up IE6 and then Netscape 7.1 up and tested a few of my Favorites/Bookmarks. Cable Guy was gone about 34 minutes after he got here. It had been more than 15 years since I had Cable TV. I was dreading this experience, and went to the cable office the day before installation to confirm my appointment time. All that anxiety for nothing. With Basic Cable around here, you get no Eggroll, that is, there is no onscreen program guide. The guide is for First Class passengers only. I remind you that the only reason I have Basic Cable is that I was forced to subscribe to it in order to qualify for a Cable Modem subscription. That's a policy that bears some scrutiny by the FCC. Of the TV listings I found on the Internet, Yahoo.com was the best for me. I was able to customize to the local cable company and only those channels I cared about watching. Best of all - they tell when a show is a REPEAT and even give the original air date. Each day I print the schedule for the evening. I already have the sked printed for the Fall Season from www.epguides.com (a terrific site). But, the networks are in a period of more turmoil than I can remember in years. Programs are substituted, programs are quietly put on hiatus, programs are cancelled. A monthly printed guide is close to worthless for the primetime hours. Speaking of cable modems, even though I have Norton Internet Security and keep my anti-virus definitions current the moment they are released, it drive me nuts that my computer is "always on the Internet." I don't do instant messaging, and practically nobody writes me e-mails because only a few people know my new e-mail address at my ISP. At first, I starting clicking on Norton's Firewall on the command "Block Traffic," which shuts off the flow of data from the Internet. But, it turns out that the Block Traffic command is only for emergencies. (A search of Symantec's Knowledge Base turned up the answer.) If you leave it blocked too long (so far, it seems that 30 minutes is not too long), you cannot click on "Allow Traffic" later. The cable modem thinks you have shut down and you end up having to reboot to get back on the Internet. It seems to me that Symantec could provide a second blocking function that would send a packet or two now and then while in Block Traffic, to let the cable modem know you are still alive. In the meantime, I use Block Traffic sparingly, such as anytime I open a program on my disk for which I use a password, or for short sessions in word processing or database work - and when I do backups to my removable USB hard drive. Me Paranoid? You bet. A couple of times, I have right-clicked on the LAN icon and "disabled the LAN," but that seems like asking for trouble - messsing with something that is working properly. I will consult with the Cable techs to see what they say. We continue to see vindication for the Atkins diet, and that rather than kill you with clogged arteries and high cholesterol, it often lowers LDL and raises the good HDL cholesterol - and you probably will lose weight faster than on some other diets. But, the multi-multi billion-dollar industry built on selling us cholesterol-lowering drugs and refined carbohydrates is staying up nights with counter strategies. There have been one or two complaints (out of how many million people who have been on the Atkins diet?). One man said that he "believed" that the Atkins diet clogged his arteries. Was that even worth printing unless there was some "agenda" working? A teenager died while on the diet. Thousands of people die every day on a variety of diets, and by diet I mean a regimen of eating, not necessarily a weight-loss program. Officials in one city have asked that manufacturers, suppliers and contractors stop using the terms "master" and "slave" on computer equipment, saying such terms are unacceptable and offensive. Where have you PC (PC, as in Politically Correct) geniuses been? This may be the first PC complaint about the PC. Ain't that a hoot. It took you over 20 years (for just the PC alone) to finally discover the "offensive" master-slave nomenclature. If you build or upgrade computers, you know that most PCs have a couple of IDE channels, each of which can handle only two devices. So, you may have a Master hard drive, and a Slave hard drive on one IDE channel, and a Master CD-RW burner and a Slave CD-ROM/DVD reader drive on the second IDE channel. Changing the names will cost a bundle of money. And what to change to? Primary and Secondary? How about Channel 1, Drive 1 and Drive 2, which would leave room for Drive 3 and Drive 4 - and so on (2,3, and 4 being slaves) in future motherboard designs - and the same for Channel 2. The two-channel IDE concept is archaic. Thus, the rise of the popularity of Firewire and USB devices. I never use my Firewire output, but at times have six of my eight USB 2.0 channels in use. Of course, the city complaining about "master" and "slave" is, ta dah! Los Angeles. During my recent move, I was impressed with how fast I was given "instant" credit after giving the utility clerk only my DL number or SS number. Think about that ease. It means that your personal financial data and probably medical data is on untold numbers of computers and databases. And that millions, literally millions of people have "authority" to view that data. Some time back, I bought Paint Shop Pro from JASC (www.jasc.com). Version 8 had not been out long, when there was a free update online to version 8.01. The other day I got a CD-ROM in the mail from JASC. Crap. I had not ordered anything. Now, there would be the letters and the hassle. Inside was a letter saying in essence that a lot of people were not happy with the performance of Paint Shop Pro 8 and 8.01. So, they were sending a complete new program, version 8.1, on a CD-ROM - and they paid the postage. I nearly fell over. A lot of companies could learn from that. I will always remember that unsolicited gesture of good will. And, yes I had been having some trouble converting my Kodak digital photos into JPGs, but I found a workaround and had more important things on my mind. Paint Shop Pro 8.1 is superb. I don't do a lot of digital camera work and very little fiddling with the outcome. The other day, I took some interior shots of rooms in the house I am selling. It was an overcast day and even with the tiny flash, they were underexposed. I clicked on Automatic Contrast Adjustment and it was like the sun had come out! One click and I had great pics to post on my Web site. The roofers had left a pile of shingles in the yard for about a week and the grass underneath was brown. I "cloned" in some green grass from nearby for the exterior shot. This is so much fun, I now have to find more things to take pictures of - and screw up more. Quite by accident, I recorded the ABC "Nightline" program for November 21, 2003, called "America In Black and White." I was nearly delerious with joy. In the "Outback," I have written several pieces about calling a person black or African American if they have any black blood at all - and the consequences of that policy. Some might have been offended by, for instance, "Halle Berry - First Half-Black Woman to Win an Academy Award." The piece was not racist, far from it. Later, I followed with some more observations on the issue of what is called the "one drop" theory. That is, if you have one drop of black blood in you, then you are regarded as black. If you have one black ancestor who was black, no matter how far removed in time, you are "black" in America. Never mind that 50,000 years ago all our anscestors came from Africa, according to Prof. Lee Silver of Princeton. A Black Jew himself, by his own definition of the anthropological facts. The "Nightline" program revolved around Wayne M. Joseph, an educated man with a moderately dark, certainly not black, skin. He was raised to think of himself as black and he was treated as a black with regard to prejudice by Whites. Mr. Joseph took a Family-Tree-DNA test. The results: 57% Indo European, 39 % Native American, 4 % East Asian, and 0 (zero) % African. This is a relatively new use of DNA and is not precise, and Indo-European includes people from a swath as wide as from Finland to India. Even so, Mr. Joseph finally decided that on the next Census he would list his race as Native American. With tongue in cheek, he noted that he was definitely "native to America." His birth certificate lists his race as Negro.
I was a little ahead of the curve on the use of DNA to prove ethnicity, and I had never heard of the test taken by Wayne Joseph. On August 17, 2002, I wrote: "Being Partly Black - Part II." (www.home.earthlink.net/~rickhgtx/outbac64.html) One paragraph from that piece: Like Wayne Joseph, I may list myself as Native American on the next Census. The attempt at precise labeling in the Census is partly that much federal money is spent on programs aimed at people of a specific ethnicity. Private business uses the racial data to make business decisions, such as where to put a certain kind of store. And on and on. As always, I like to find humor in the absurd. If, by chance, the "black" Wayne Joseph had been upset by the lack of black actors on the major TV networks, he might now (with Zero African blood, and 39% Native American) switch to complaining about changing the name of the Washington Redskins and protesting the Tomahawk Chop at the Atlanta Braves games - and maybe changing the name of the Braves to something else. It is all about perception. Here's a pregnant thought that will never come to gestation: The U.S. Congress should pass a law that there be no checkboxes for race or ethnicity on the Census form. And where possible they should outlaw all forms and interviews that ask about "race" or religion. Some of that is already in existence. But, if a person shows up for an interview and they have some characteristics, such as skin color of features, that are generally associated with "being black," nobody needs to ask the question. They will jump to their own conclusion. We are never going to get anywhere, as long as the government and others continues to collect statistics on racial background. And as we have learned from the Wayne Joseph story on "Nightline," even the person providing the information may not really know his or her own heritage. 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. Suggested Reading From Past Columns Click Here for Suggested Reading List Archive of Back Issues Media List of Addresses and e-mails Postal Service State Abbreviations, etc. Richard C. Rhodes End |