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. Kerry Picks Running Mate July 6, 2004 After the thousands of hours of talking heads and pundits on TV and pages of ink about the Democratic candidates, all you had to do was read a few excerpts from the Outback to get the picture, early and often.
For the election in 2004, the Democrats are floating the following names: Daschle, Gore, Gephardt,
Edwards (he is a Senator in case you don't recognize the name), Lieberman, Kerry, and Al Sharpton. What a
crew! All are intelligent men, but if that were all it took, Bill Gates might run. Senator Gephardt
has no charisma. He comes across as mean-spirited, disingenuous, slick - and a little reptilian.
Sen. Edwards is too young and has done little to distinguish himself. Rev. Al Sharpton gives
religion and black leaders a bad name.* For him to run for President is an insult of monumental
proportion to the public and black people. Sen. Kerry may be the pick of the litter at this time.... From the Outback for Dec. 21, 2002 Now that Al Gore has said he won't run for Prez, the Democratic beehive has opened and the
drones are flying about - getting ready to start stinging each other. In an earlier Outback ("Sen.
Tom Daschle for President - How Absurd," January 12, 2002), I commented on how little chance
Lieberman, Daschle, Gephardt, Edwards, and Sharpton had to become president, regardless of
the Republican opponent. A poll seen on NYC TV asked who would be the favorite of
Democrats in NY. Lieberman 23%, Kerry 20%, Al Sharpton 14%, Gephardt 11%. If I were Dick
Gephardt, I would drop out of consideration right now. Beaten by the Rev. Al Sharpton in a poll?
What a disgrace. If you are unfamiliar with Al Sharpton's record and method of operation, do a
little research. He is another Albatross around the neck of black Americans. Maybe Dick
Gephardt should consider not even running for re-election to the House. Beaten by Al Sharpton
in a poll? Goodness gracious. From the Outback for Feb. 09, 2004 Based on what I have seen up to about Feb. 5th, 2004, I would put my money on a John Kerry and John Edwards ticket. It has been a long time since the Democrats could field as formidable a team as the probable team of John Kerry and John Edwards for prez and vice prez. Kerry has the experience and stature. Edwards is one smooth and smart sumbitch. I like him better than Kerry. From the Outback April 11, 2004 CNN is running a Veepstakes for Kerry on its Web site. You can vote for your choice for VP in several categories. John McCain is one choice. Sen. McCain has said without reservation that he will NOT be a VP candidate for any presidential candidate - of any party! Dick Gephardt have proven over and over that he is a loser. Ann Richards, former Texas governor, is a dried up has been. Tom Brokaw is on one list. Mr. Brokaw appears to be having cognitive difficulties just getting through the reading of the evening news. Howard Dean is not on any of the lists. So, all in all, this seems like a dumb exercise by CNN. The two most viable candidates to me appear to be Sen. John Edwards, and my favorite Democrat, Sen. Joe Biden - a man of vast experience, thoughtfulness, and reason. Well, maybe the above excerpts will cure you of watching the pundits and experts on TV run their mouths endlessly for months with useless and pointless speculation. I did not bother. If you think Asphalt is somehow related to Flatulence, you may be a Redneck. If your wife sends you out to buy a weed trimmer and you come back with a Goat and a six-pack, you may be a Redneck. A government-owned Lake City plant in Independence, Missouri, currently makes more than 90 percent of U.S. small caliber ammunition. I hope they have several fences, anti-aircraft missiles, and machine guns loaded with their own production rounds. What a stupid thing to have so much critical ammo production in one place. I am so proud of VP Dick Cheney. He is supposed to have told Sen. Patrick Leahy (D. Vt.) either "f--- off" or "go f--- yourself" on the Senate floor after a picture-taking session. Cheney thus spoke for millions of us, and thousands in DC who would like to have the courage to do that. Sen. Leahy is so full of himself, so arrogant, reprehensible, and obstructionist, that I expected by now that somebody would have decked him on the Senate floor. Cheney's remarks are a start. Maybe that will encourage others. Sen. John F. Kerry's Jewish connection came, in part, as a surprise to him when it was researched by reporters. Kerry's grandparents were Fritz and Ida Kohn, Czech Jews. In 1902, Fritz Kohn changed his name to Frederick Kerry. He also converted from Judaism to Catholicism. Fritz (Frederick) and Ida came to the U.S. in 1905. In 1915, Ida gave birth to Richard, who was John Kerry's father. Richard married Rosemary Forbes, a descendant of two wealthy Massachusetts families, the Forbes and the Winthrops. Richard and Rosemary's first son, (Sen.) John Forbes Kerry, was born on December 11, 1943. Isn't it a bit ironic that John Kerry would later marry an heir to the Heinz food-products fortune? A chip off the old block. As Gov. Ann Richards said of George Bush, "Poor George, he was born with a silver foot in his mouth." "Poor John ...." I dropped a note to one of the honchos at Bank America noting that on my slow country dialup that it took me 5-minutes to pay one bill with online banking. I solicted no reply, just FYI. I got an e-mail and a phone call from the fellow who runs the online banking project. He said that my short note caused some discussion at a meeting and they are always looking into ways to speed up access for those who still have dialup. Sometimes my faith in corporate America is restored, at least for part of a day. I plan on being buried in the lovely Veteran's Cemetery that lies between Dallas and Ft. Forth. But, I have decided on an interim request. I want to lie in state in the audience at the "Oprah Winfrey Show." Although I am opposed to any open-casket affairs, I would want my casket open and hope that many of the women in the audience would stop by to kiss me on the cheek. Truly then, I would have thought that I had died and gone to Heaven. Does Oprah have a "beauty screening staff" for the audience? At a minimum there must be a rule for camera persons "don't put no ugly broads in the audience on camera." Never have I seen such an overwhelming display of attractive and downright beautiful women in a TV audience. (By the way, I don't think I am anywhere near death, unless I have a massive stroke. But, I talk about it a lot, simply to allay the fear of dying that most of us have. Then, every day you survive is a blessing and a bonus prize. Better than winning the lottery. It's only money if you win the lottery, and you can't take it with you.) Ken Jennnings is the JEOPARDY! contestant who as of today (6-23-04) has appeared 16 times and won $512,959. Ken needs to leave his brain to science. Not only does he have a vast storehouse of facts, but he does lightning-fast mental gyrations, often I think after he has pressed the button, to either reason through to an answer in seconds or make an educated guess. In the history of game shows, I have never seen anybody like him. Most of the time, he knows the answer before all of the clue has been read. You see the nod or the look of recognition in his eyes. He is a software engineer and his quick "mouse finger" probably helps him ring in so fast. There have been many hundreds of quiz-show contestants who have had photographic memories and have read every important book and play and most encyclopedias. Never has there been a contestant with both an encyclopedic knowledge and a nimble brain that allows him to construct logical answers and guesses on the fly. Until Ken Jennings. I hope I did not jinx him today by writing this. A district judge in Oklahoma has been charged with masturbating and using a penis-enhancing pump behind his bench during several trials. This gives a new meaning to the phrase "the judge had a hard-on for the defendant." (www.thesmokinggun.com) In earlier musings, I protested loudly about the disservice to consumers of media conglomerates, like Viacom, who can "extort" fees from satellite and cable providers by forcing acceptance of "program packages" because they have leverage with one major program source. In the case of Viacom, the leverage is CBS. In the WSJ for June 23, 2004, writing about "Comedy Central" which is owned by Viacom, it was noted that the fee-per-viewer is very low in comparison to comparable programming. Judy McGrath, president of MTV Networks oversees "Comedy Central." Judy said that she thought that the price tag for "Comedy Central" would grow because of Viacom's ability to use the power of its other networks and CBS to boost fees. You heard it from the horse's mouth, not just from a bunch of cry-baby consumers like me. Is the Congress paying any attention as they debate, over and over, the inordinate rise in cable-TV fees in recent years? And does Congress remember the recent impasse between DishNetwork and Viacom, during which Dish took Viacom programs off their satellites (including CBS!) until the contract dispute was resolved? For those following the DLP rear-projection HDTV saga, on June 22, 2004, I found at least two online retailers with Samsung HLP5063W (50 inch) sets in stock. This is the series with the "mass market" HD3 TI DLP chip. On one forum, a salesman at Best Buy said they got in some HLPs. I suspect they too are the ones with the HD3 chip. It will probably be a month or two before the Samsung DLPs with the better TI DLP chip (HD2+) will be in stock. How much patience do you have? I don't want to make a purchase until I can see the DLP HD3 chip sets side-by-side with the more advanced HD2+ sets. If an ad does not tell which DLP chip the set uses, if it says the Contrast Ratio is 1500:1, that is the HD3 DLP chip, the less expensive one. The more expensive sets with the DLP HD2+ (HD2 Plus) have a Contrast Ratio of 2500:1. Also, the HLP numbering scheme is that a set with an HD3 DLP chip is in the "63/67 series" and a set with the HD2+ chip is in the "70/77 series" - at least so it appears to date. So far, none of the DLP HD2+ sets are in the retail chain. Samsung is finally showing the HLP-5063W on their www.samsungusa.com Web page, although they have the hyphen in a different place than previously shown (HL-P5063W). I did not see a mention of which DLP chip it uses, but the Contrast Ratio of 1500:1 means that it has the less-expensive HD3 DLP chip. The good news, their .PDF brochure lists a "7-Segment Color Wheel." There had been some mystery about exactly when they would debut the 7-segment color wheel. There is no HDTV tuner or CableCARD, of course. I am almost afraid to go to Dallas to see the 46-inch HL-P4663W when it arrives. I might weaken and not wait for the sets with the HD2+ DLP chip, which are now slipping back to the Fall of 2004. (See the Outback for May 16, 2004 for a more complete discussion of this topic.) Computers have corrupted us. Why, instead of saying, "I'll print that for you," do we say, "I'll print that out for you"? A printout is a noun. Print is a verb. There are a few advantages of getting older. I buy a lot of electronics gear. Always, the salesman asks me if I want to buy the extended warranty. "How long is the original warranty?" I ask. "One year." "Oh, I will be lucky to outlive the original warranty, let alone an extended warranty." Works every time. What can they say? How can anyone take Bill Clinton's biography seriously? The Washington Post says that Clinton claims that after he admitted to Hillary his affair with Monica Lewinsky, he was banished to a White House couch for two months. A couch? It seems to me that I remember there being his and hers bedrooms in the presidential suite - to keep peace if the prez was burning the midnight oil - or wanted to watch a double-overtime basketball game. If not, there are several other bedrooms. Like the famous Lincoln bedroom where fat cats have historically paid for overnights. In any event, he should have done a Kobe Bryant and given Hillary a giant diamond ring in the hope that she could be bought off. It works with most everybody else in the political arena. The U.S. Supreme Court has stuck another needle in the eye of the flower-children in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California (the most reversed circuit in the nation). The Supremes said that "one nation under God," can remain in the pledge of allegiance to the flag. Sadly, after all of the appeals, and paperwork, and hoopla, and legal fees, the case was decided on the grounds that the plaintiff did not have legal standing to bring the suit. More lawsuits over "God" will follow. Writing in The Wall Street Journal for June 4, 2004, Daniel Henninger points out the interesting confluence in an election year - where liberals are desperate to unseat Bush - of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," "The Day After Tomorrow," and the vitriolic and intemperate speech by Al Gore sponsored by Moveon.org. It would be nice if Moveon.org would move on over the edge of a cliff, followed by the fat bag of wind Mr. Moore. My favorite sentence in Mr. Henninger's piece was: "But between the twin cities of Manhattan and Hollywood, where condescension is a civic virtue, many Americans identify with Mr. Bush's lack of sophistication." Re-read the intro to "The View From The Outback," and you will see why I liked this sentence so much. After countless hours of watching testimony before the 9/11 commission, I wonder what they have accomplished. To me, it has mostly been a show of partisanship questioning and trying to place blame. Always looking back, seldom forward. Their mission was to suggest ways to not let another 9/11 happen again. I can't wait for the final report, if it is made public. There ought to be two or three good paragraphs of constructive suggestions in there somewhere, if there is a 1000-page index. Pontificating, posturing, blowhards. It seems to me that their main contribution is to further divide us and show the terrorists that we are as screwed up as we were 10 years ago. And maybe to force George Tenet's hand into retiring - if in fact that is a plus. I don't have any opinion. Other than; until the president starts kicking shins at the Pentagon, CIA, FBI, NSA, Homeland Security, et al., - and firing, transferring, or demoting a whole hell of lot of people - we still have embedded fiefdoms that will survive any CIA Director, FBI Director, Homeland Security Director, NSA chief, or Secy. of Defense. More of it pays to buy good stuff. About 17 years or so ago, maybe longer, I was in New York City at a trade show. WaterPik was demonstrating their new shower massage nozzle, with a long hose. The lady who showed it to me, made suggestions about all the places you could "rinse off" using the long hose connection. At the same time, she put the nozzle on pulse and smiled. I got the message quickly and bought two. Over many, many moves, I took my WaterPik shower massagers with me. Finally, after all these years, one sprung a leak in the handle. I found that they still make nearly the exact model I bought eons ago. Now, I have a new WaterPik shower massager with a hose and am happily rinsing off as before. Seriously, I don't know how you can get all the soap off without one of these type things. And speaking of rinsing off. I must ask my son how well he remembers our native neighbors in Laos taking a bath in the yard. They collected rain water in a 55-gallon drum. The ladies all wore wrap-around sarong-like garments. They would stand in plain view of our house, pull the garment away from their body and wash and splash here and there until they were finished. At no time did you see any of their body, except shoulders and feet and arms. But it sure was fun to wait to see if anybody lost their grip. In Laos, there was also modesty in the suburbs. Out in the countryside, ladies tended their gardens topless. One day, I rode my little Honda motorcycle quite a ways out of Vientianne city. I passed a lady working topless in her garden. When I came by on the way back, she had taken modesty measures. She had put on a bra. I smiled and waved. She waved back. Now you've got me started. In Thailand, I did some work with the Thai intelligence service. In gratitude, they took me to a massage parlor and paid the bill. The treatment consisted of two girls in hot pants massaging me, given me a hot bath, and then bringing in a lovely plate of lunch and a quart of cold beer. After about an hour of this and other minor amenities, I felt like two new men. My two Thai friends saw the big smile on my face as I came back into the waiting room. I thanked them profusely for their generosity. They said, "You Americans just don't know how to live." They had a point. While I was working on this Outback, I heard the following from the TV in the living room: "Everybody wants more of it and nobody's getting enough." Well, this work would have to wait. I rushed in to see what was being shown. It was a show about Sleep. Man, this being a recluse really makes you jump to conclusions. I get plenty - of sleep, that is. For the FDA to approve a new drug, the maker must show in at least two clinical trials that the drug works better than a placebo. Makers of antidepressants are trying to change this, as they say that "the placebo effect" - and not knowing who is most likely to think they are getting better on a placebo - is skewing the results of clinical trials. Placebos are essentially sugar pills, and those who get them in the trials think they are getting the "real" medicine. The size and color of the placebo, and the rapport between the clinician and the patient all can affect the outcome. The placebo effect works both ways. In the literature for my new blood pressure medication is a chart comparing the side effects of the drug with those experienced by those taking a placebo during the trials. More than twice as many who got the placebo (the inert pill) experienced headaches as those who got the actual medicine! The mind - and your attitude or expectations are powerful forces. Those who expect the worst, usually experience the worst. Those who expect the best probably have less nagging pains and ailments than the gloom and doomers. One of the greatest proponents of "mind over matter" are Christian Scientists. In my youth, I did attend CS services often with my mother. CS has many detractors, especially if a child dies when its parents refuse conventional medical care. But, there is a lot to be learned from a study of their beliefs. Some health insurers allow payments for consultations with a "Christian Science Practitioner." Stream-of-consciousness writing is so interesting. In the paragraph about the FDA and placebos, the thought of the Christian Science religion never entered my mind - until it suddenly appeared from nowhere on my computer screen. When working on a piece of fiction, people often ask "How does it end?" The answer: "I have no idea. The characters will decide where the story leads and how it ends." In the previous Outback, I commented at length about a visit to an ER room and what I, and my cardiologist, think were excessive tests and charges - considering the nature of my complaint. Although fraud may not be the exact word to describe the charges, I did find a gem in the Medicare handbook for 2004. If you report Medicare fraud, you may get up to $1,000 from the government if your report leads directly to the recovery of at least $100 of Medicare money. And if the fraud is not already being investigated. I may have just found the perfect part-time job - using my experience as a Federal agent, my legal training, and my vast amount of medical research. Check it out yourself. Help save Medicare and earn the dough for that cruise to the Virgin Islands. I heard a bread commercial on the radio. The industry has been hit hard by the low-carb craze. In apparent desperation, they were touting the Food Pyramid that calls for 6-11 servings from the bread, cereal, rice and pasta group. This suggestion has been completely discredited, especially if it is white bread, white rice, and white pasta. (See www.home.earthlink.net/~rickhgtx/outbac86.htm Jan.8, 2004.) Look for significant changes in the Pyramid when the current revision is finalized. German researchers have found a Border Collie that understands 200 words, and they act like it is some kind of scientific breakthrough. Border Collies have long been reputed to be perhaps the smartest dog breed. All the Germans had to do was read my tribute to my Border Collie (On my main Web page under Memorials) and they could have done something better with their time. Until she died, a few months ago, my Border Collie was about the only "person" I spoke to on many days, since my soul mate had died some time back. My dog understood so much English that at times it was eerie. I always told her I loved her, and not just casually, but holding her face gently and looking into her eyes from inches away. As she came closer to death, I could see how much more it meant to her. She knew the end was coming and my professions of love were all she and I had to cling to. Crap, I knew I would cry if I started writing this. But, that's good. Tears wash away dust and debris from your eyes. Seriously. Although I spent many formative years in Minnesota and dabbled in neighborhood games as a goalie and spent one year as a child in Canada, skating at recess, I have never understood the interest in hockey. I watched one period of the Stanley Cup Finals. Nothing has changed. Hockey is what we called in the Marines "organized grabass." People skating two or three yards controlling the puck, only to have their stick slashed at or their body slammed into the boards. Then more people in a fight to get the puck back in play. Then more disorganized mayhem. Finally, somebody scores. We have to take it on faith, unless we have a recorder and do a slo-mo playback several times. The puck is too small, it travels too fast, and there are too many people in the way to often tell exactly when a goal is scored - or where the hell the puck is. The players raise their arms and the light goes on. Something obviously happened. The announced said at one point, "that might have been a save." Exactly. Who knows what is going on? You have to read the score the next day to be sure. (Senilty approaches rapidly. I wrote "How knows", instead of "Who knows." It's getting harder and harder to write a coherent sentence. Once a champion speller, I now make 3-5 mistakes per paragraph.) A former Texas deupty sheriff wrote me an e-mail after reading some of my material on guns and gun crime. He said that his brother-in-law lives in Kenesaw, Georgia. You may have forgotten the Kenesaw story, so I will repeat some of the recent e-mail. Each household is required to keep a weapon in ready condition in their home and take training in the use of firearms. Crime in Kenesaw is virtually non-existent. There were billboards warning potential criminals that Kenesaw's citizens were armed and would shoot first and ask questions later. Of course, an outside liberal group managed to get the billboards removed. The guns are still there. The criminals are not. There was a bill being debated in the Congress that would limit the amount of money lawyers in the tobacco-settlement cases could recover from the future payments. I think the intent was to take the "surplus" of these awards, after lawyer's fees, and apply it toward supplying more equipment to our military. The proposed cap on the recovery from the tobacco fund's future payments was suggested at $20,000 an hour! I bitch and bitch about lawyers gouging everybody, but this was the most unbelievable thing I had ever heard. Capping payments to lawyers at $20,000 per billed hour. Lawyers may have been working on contingency, and might never have gotten a dime if the case failed. But by no stretch of human imagination is any lawyer, in any case, on any continent, on any planet, worth $20,000 an hour. Mind you, since the bill failed as I recall, many lawyers will be compensated at rates greater than $20,000 an hour! And not a one of them can hit .400, produce a "triple-double" in the NBA, or throw for 400-yards in one NFL game. Only an attempt at sarcastic humor, since I think pro sports salaries are right up there with class-action lawyers in the "absurd and obscene" category. Have you looked at your football ticket or NBA ticket price lately? And I am damn tired of paying a minimum of $60 for sneakers (cost $3.50 in China) so some 23-year old 7-footer with a sponsorship deal can drive around in a Rolls Royce. In the Outback for Jan. 7, 2003 (www.home.earthlink.net/~rickhgtx/outbac74.htm), I suggested that we move our troops out of South Korea. Partly because the new generation of Koreans don't appreciate the fact that for 50 years we have kept their country safe. And partly because S. Korea is wealthy, has a huge military, and should start providing their own security. Well, we are now going to move 3,6000 troops out of Korea to Iraq. And there is talk of moving our troops away from the DMZ. And some have already been moved out of the Seoul area to less contentious areas - less contentious to the S. Koreans, that is. On a website devoted to the North Korean "mess," one U.S. soldier who had been stationed at the DMZ between North and South Korea, said that in the event of an attack from the North, he figured his life expectancy to be about 2-6 hours! The North Koreans have an army of about 1.2 million and are playing around with nuclear weapons. In the 60 years since WWII, the U.S. has paid most of the bill to protect Europe. For this, they now crap on us. Thanks for remembering. Aside from the human cost of an attack on S. Korea, I worry about the world's supply of LCD computer monitors, HDTV sets, DVD drives, and so on, if Samsung and LG, just to name a couple, are taken out. Think about the devastation of the S. Korean economy if they start taking artillery rounds, bombs, missiles, or God forbid, an atomic strike. The threat from N. Korea is not to lob missiles to the U.S., but to take out one of our main supplies of electronics - that we now find we must have to function, both in business and at home. Let's start phasing out ALL our troops, otherwise Americans may sit there on their ass for another 50 years. By the time the current S. Korean kids have kids, those kids will be mowing down American troops with AK-47s, as they will have been taught (and already are) that the U.S. troops are an "occupying force." Read the Outback of Jan. 7, 2003, noted above, and you will be surprised at how little appreciation there is in South Korea for our role there over the past 50 years. Who needs this grief, Mr. Rumsfeld? And let's stop worrying that the Chinese are going to fire missiles at the United States. Then, to whom would they sell all the billions of dollars of stuff we import? Radio Shack would go out of business, as would Wal-Mart. The only thing I have bought in recent months that did not come from China was a home theater amplifier/receiver from Yamaha. You remember the venerable Japanese company Yamaha. My $1000 Yamaha receiver was made in Malaysia, as was the 5-year-old Yamaha I replaced (which still works great, my son is happy to know). It's getting so I am thrilled to find anything that is not made in China. Malaysia, S. Korea, and Taiwan are "top-of-the-line" producers of electronics on my short list. I paid $179 for a fabulous 5.8Ghz radio phone, with caller ID, digital answering, from Panasonic, with even a speaker-phone in the handset. You remember the venerable Japanese firm Panasonic. My Panasonic phone was made in Malaysia. Other than some cars and trucks, just what do the Japanese manufacture today? I can't find anything in the house that says "Made in Japan." Well, my John Deere lawn tractor has a Kawasaki engine in it. Runs like a stuck deere. Adding to our trade deficit, software piracy in China is estimated to be as high as 90%, costing us $2.4 billion in 2002. Another reason why consumers who pay for a CD here get livid when the industry puts - or threatens to put, copy-protection on a CD so that it cannot be ripped to MP3, or so that you cannot make a personal copy to carry in your car or truck. It is becoming more and more clear that gasoline prices will never be stable until we get more refining capacity in the United States. Most of the old and archaic U.S. refineries require "sweet crude," which is not in plentiful supply - even in the best of times of supply. An idle refinery recently could not find a buyer, probably because it uses archaic technology and the cost to bring it up to environmental standards were staggering. Since states are sitting on their hands, with environmental and not-in-my-backyard pressure, and the Congress refuses to pass an energy bill, here is a thought. Based on national-defense needs, the Pentagon could build some refineries just to supply the needs of the military. Do you have any idea of how much fuel a Humvee, or a tank, or a transport truck, or a jet fighter or bomber consumes? The average battle tank appears to get about 2.4 to 3 miles-per-gal! That overall demand is surely a huge proportion of our national fuel needs. The Defense Dept. also might save a bundle on fuel if it had its own refineries. I say "might," because the government has a way of making things cost twice as much as they should. And the Pentagon could no doubt get waivers on pollution for the government refineries, since pollutions costs millions to filter out. Do you think there are catalytic converters on Humvees? I dunno. I doubt it. If you remember, I wrote what I think was a thoughful piece called "Halle Berry, First Half-Black Woman to Win an Academy Award," (www.home.earthlink.net/~rickhgtx/outbac58.htm). I looked at Vanessa Williams and wondered from whence she had come. It is very difficult to find anything definitive about her parents, other than that they were both music teachers, that her mother is light skinned and that her dad has apparently a considerable amount of Caucasian blood in his background. It is obvious that Vanessa Williams has a good bit of Caucasian blood somewhere in her background. She is married to Rick Fox, who plays basketball for the Los Angeles Lakers. I have always thought Rick was a handsome and fine-featured "black" man. No wonder. His father is a black man from the Bahamas, and Rick's mother Dorothy is a white Canadian who was an Olympic athlete. As you recall, Vanessa Williams lost her Miss America title after months on the job. She had posed nude in a "Penthouse" magazine, and that cost her the crown fairly late in her reign. In a delicious bit of irony, Vanessa Williams was replaced by another black, Suzette Charles. But Suzette's mother was black and her father was white, making yet another half-black turned into a full-fledged black in the eyes of the media and the public. At the time Vanessa Williams posed in "Penthouse," I was working as an extra on the TV show "Dallas." I had befriended Larry Hagman. He had read my novel and agreed to play the lead if Lorimar would produce it as a movie. One day on the set, Larry and I were sitting in a couple of canvas chairs thumbing through the "Penthouse" in which the photos of Vanessa Williams appeared. Like Pearl Harbor and the death of JFK, I will always remember where I saw the nude photos of Vanessa. I never got my own copy. I have a term for lovely ladies like Vanessa Williams and Halle Berry; "barely black." But that does not keep the media, and the public from referring to these folks as blacks or the PC "African-American." Often, barely-black people are in forefront of the civil rights movement - and are quick to cast themselves - and other blacks - as victims. In his book "The Nation's Rule, Who Is Black?" F.J. Davis tells some great stories about some "barely black" folks who were prominent in "black causes." I vididly remember the handsome and dashing Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who was the minister of the Abyssinian Baptist Church of Harlem, a NY city councilman, and a Congressman from the state of New York. Even blacks complained that he was "too white looking" to represent them. He had the fairest of skin, blue eyes, and hair so light it was almost blonde. In college, his roommate did not know that Adam was black. Then his father, Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. gave a speech at the chapel on Negro rights. Afterward, Adam Jr.'s roommate said that because Adam was a Negro they could no longer be roommates or friends. Outed by his own dad. The two giants of the movement for equality for blacks in America, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. DuBois, (who was the founder of the NACCP, along with several whites) were of mixed parentage. One reports states that the NAACP was formed by Du Bois and 12 Jews. Booker T. Washington's mother was a black slave, his father white. W.E.B. DuBois is said to have a French, Dutch, and African heritage. DuBois became so dispirited with the plight of blacks in America, after his many years of championing their cause, that he became a Communist, renounced his citizenship and moved to Ghana, Africa - where he died. F.J. Davis, states that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "had an Irish grandmother on his father's side and apparently some American Indian ancestry (Bennett, 1965:18)." If you think about it, there is a practical political reason for a person with any black blood to be "counted" as being an African-American. Black leaders, like others, play a numbers game for political clout, so they can say "we are X% of the population and politicians need to pay attention to us." Similarly, my observation over many years is that gay-rights groups nearly always overestimate the number of gays and lesbians in the country, so that gays and lesbians can have more political muscle. Now, we see that Hispanics are the largest minority. Here again, we may fall prey to the "one drop" theory, with someone with any Hispanic blood at all being counted as Hispanic. Lena Horne's parents were both very light in color. Her grandfather was very light skinned and blue eyed. Her grandmother was the daughter of a slave woman and her white owner from the family of John C. Calhoun - well known defenders of slavery. One of Lena's father's great-grandmothers was a Blackfoot Indian. One of her mother's grandmothers was a French-speaking black woman from Senegal in Africa. Her mother's father was a "Portuguese Negro." Two women in her family passed as whites and became entertainers. I grew up listening to, watching on TV, and admiring Lena Horne. I never recall her being called anything but "black," and back when she and I were much younger, there was a lot of baggage associated with that characterization.
Back to the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education and one of the "black" panels, which also included one Asian man and one Hispanic man. Jumping off the screen was Lani Guinier. Lani Guinier, (Black) Harvard Law professor, was nominated to be head of the Civil Rights Div. in the Justice Dept. by Pres. Bill Clinton and withdrawn under pressure. Ms. Guinier is mostly known as a Black activist. Her father, Ewart, was a well-known lawyer from Jamaica who became the first chair of Harvard's African-American Studies Department. But in fact, her mother is Jewish, something you have to look hard to find in the many accounts of Lani's life and career. When I saw her at length for the first time that day on C-SPAN, waxing eloquent about the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board, I said "that is a Jewish face," and started my digging. There is nothing wrong with being half-Jewish and half-black. What I object to is Ms. Guinier being one of the shrill voices about how blacks are victims. When she was introduced as part of the panel, she was acclaimed as the first African-American woman to become a tenured professor at Harvard Law. The introducer got it half right. Was Lani also the first Jewish woman ever to be given tenure as a professor at Harvard Law? You look it up. I'm worn out. While you are at it, read early accounts of Lani's father's work in labor unions - and of his Communist political leanings (Ewart Guinier). And realize that Lani and Hillary are bosom buddies. It's all part of the "vast left-wing conspiracy." I guess that offsets Hilllary's "vast right-wing conspiracy" that was out to get Bill. For some reason, I am reminded of the great cartoon from decades ago. Two bulky Russian Commissars are eating at a table. One Russian says, "Comrade, that buzzing sound, is it your tape recorder or mine?" Conspiracy theories have a history as long as there has been civilization. Imagine two cavemen. One believes that all meat killed should be shared with the group. The other believes that whoever kills the meat should keep it all - and thus the term "fat cat" was born. However, the fat cats allowed the others to partake of the drippings from the meat - thus the term "trickle-down theory was born. (It's before lunch, and I'm sober, honest.)
Also on the Brown v. Board panel was Constance "Connie" Rice, Co-Director of the Advancement Project. She is a second cousin of Condi Rice, the National Security Advisor (and now Secretary of State in 2005). Connie Rice is fair skinned, and fine featured. At a glance, she might be mistaken for Vanessa William's twin sister. Need I say, a stunning woman. One report I read cited her background as "Irish, British, Senegalese, and Cherokee Indian" (Dad is or was an Air Force helicopter pilot). If I am wrong about any of this, please correct me. My point again is that so many "partly black" people seem to be among the most strident in making speeches about the plight of blacks and preaching victimization. In his book, cited above, F.J. Davis has a subheading "Black Leaders, But Predominantly White." He notes, among many other examples, that the president of the NAACP from 1931 to 1955 was Walter White. Mr. White was judged to be no more than one sixty-fourth African black! He was so light skinned that when he told whites that he was black, they often responded with "Are you sure?" He could have passed for white, but chose to claim himself to be a Negro - for reasons that one can only speculate about. One final fascinating story from the book of F.J. Davis. During any discussion of the Brown v. Board case, the case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) is always brought up. Plessy v. Ferguson challenged the Jim-Crow statute that required racially-segregated seating on trains in interstate commerce in the state of Louisiana. Without going into the gory legal details, the case established the "separate but equal" concept. Brown v. Board's lawyers successfully argued that "separate but equal" in education did great harm to blacks. In a fairly rare instance for the Sup. Ct., in Brown v. Board the court allowed a lot of sociological and psychological evidence to be included in the briefs. What is really amazing is that the plaintiff in Plessy v. Ferguson (Plessy) was only one-eight Negro. Thus, the court in Plessy implicitly perpetuated the "one drop of Negro blood" theory (in 1896!) which seems to persist to this day, Brown v. Board, thousands of civil-rights cases, and hundreds of thousands of intermarriages, notwithstanding. Of course, the 50-year commemoration of Brown v. Board was replete with towering accolades (and rightly so) for Thurgood Marshall. Mr. Marshall had been a civil-rights attorney, later a legal counsel to the NAACP, and eventually became the first "African-American" appointed to the United States Supreme Court. During his civil-rights days, he had vigorously sought to erode or overturn the Plessy v. Ferguson concept of "separate but equal." He was one of the lead attorneys in bringing together the five cases that eventually were consolidated into Brown v. Board of Education. As I recall, he argued only one of the five cases before the Supreme Court. He served on the Sup. Ct. from 1967 to 1991, where he was renowned for his work in attacking injustices in the law against minorities. He died in 1993 at the age of 84. I watched a very long interview of two authors who had written a book about Justice Marshall. When asked about his fair skin and straight hair, one of the authors said with a half-smile "I think it is fair to say that Justice Marshall had a variety of bloods coursing through his veins." (As best as I can recall the author's remarks.) In doing some research to refresh my memory of Justice Marshall, I noticed that his first wife, Vivien, had died of Cancer and that Thurgood had married Cecilia Suyat only 10 months later. I thought this to be a fairly short period of mourning. Several accounts say that Cecilia Suyat was Mr. Marshall's secretary at the NAACP and that they had been having an affair while first wife Vivien was still alive. This in no way detracts from Thurgood Marshall's contributions to civil-rights and the law, but only points out once again that people of all stripes and professions are subject to human frailty. Anyway, after watching several prominent blacks (and part blacks and one Asian and one Hispanic) discuss what progress has been made in educational facilities as a result of Brown v. Board, the consensus was "not a hell of a lot." The august panel members were more inclined to credit Brown v. Board with setting a tone that lead to a lot of other civil rights and better treatment for blacks. On the one panel of several hours in length, it was the first time I had ever heard the Rev. Jesse Jackson make any consistent sense and not playing victim's advocate in every sentence. Well, as much sense as it is possible for him to make with his tortured analogies and grandiloquent speechifying. (I will now relate the notes I took from part of his presentation. He speaks in strange cadences, often does not enunciate well, swallows a word here and there - and so I may have a word or a phrase slightly mangled.) His remarks were preceded by a discussion of how many black kids tend to make fun of blacks who try to do well in school. "What's you doin' trying to act white?" More or less was the tone of the previous remarks. Rev. Jesse: " I want to distinguish between the psychology of those who grew up in the shade and those who grew up in the sunshine.... And all those Negroes not liking each other is the shady side of town .... There's so much of the music industry that is perpetuating the degeneracy. And that's why we call women bitches and whores and make millions - and get medals for degeneracy - if it's aimed at us.... I asked some kids not long ago, who had their underwear showing, and you could see the crevice of their butt.... I said, that style, you have the $150 tennis shoes on with no strings, and you show your buttocks. Now tell me, which Italian designer designed that? Which one? I give you three guesses. No neither one. That's jail! (some applause) Where they don't want you to wear strings in your tennis shoes because you might hang yourself or someone. And you can't have a belt because you might hang someone. And your pants are not tailor-made in jail. So, your pants hang low and you show your butt.... And the TV made of that in sit-coms the black thing. So, that becomes a self fulfilling psychology on the shady side of the wall.... On the other hand, they tell us to be the best basketball players on earth. I've seen Negros in wheelchairs ... trying to figure out how to dunk. (laughter) So, there is a psychology about what is expected of us."
At another juncture, Rev. Jackson talked about the preeminence of blacks in football, baseball, basketball, golf and tennis (well, the golf and tennis are slipping a bit). He said "what if" blacks had to run 12 yards for a first down, but whites had to only make 8 yards. His point. When the playing field is level, blacks can - and do - very well. Update: for June 22, 2004. I was talking with a black sales rep whom I had just met in a retail store. I told him about the Brown v. Board show on C-Span. I related the comments Jesse Jackson made about the shoes with no shoelaces and pants with no belts. The black man said to me, "You're not going to believe this, but I told my son the same thing yesterday about the belts." I said, "Well, tell him what Jesse Jackson said." He replied, "He will pay more attention to me than to Jesse Jackson." What a great exchange. Take that Jesse. I have been saying for years that you do not represent the mainstream of blacks. Not long after, Bill Cosby was criticized for making similar remarks about the lack of responsibility among many of the black youth of today. The man has a doctorate in education. He has a right to speak his mind about the often sorry and often self-inflicted state of black youths. There is still plenty of racism, but why go begging to be put down? Just what good can come from rap music that implores people to slap or rape their "bitch" or to kill a cop (pig)? Where is Tipper Gore when we need her? When are we going to stop going in reverse - with the trend to segregate people more and more into ethic minorities, cliques, and enclaves? High schools with separate proms for the races and other nonsense. The multiculturalism concept may help people better understand their culture, but on balance it tends to separate us more and more as a nation. There are neighborhoods in this country where there are more foreign flags flying than American flags. That is a hell of a way to build a consensus. We are no longer Americans. We are pockets of this and that - more or less getting along. The "melting pot" has turned into a "centrifuge." (Those in Yorba Linda, consult your dictionary - and you will see the profound nature of that sentence.) One study reports that only 19 percent of white kids interact with kids from other ethnic groups, and 62 percent of black kids live in neighborhoods and attend schools that are predominately black. So much for the great promise of Brown v. Board. "With all deliberate speed" turned into a question of "in which century?" Hispanics are leading the way in numbers, surpassing the number of blacks. I used to say that Hispanics needed to learn English to get good jobs (I had two articles on the subject published in major newspapers). Now, it might be better for English speakers in America to learn Spanish and get ahead of the curve. Make no mistake, I love the Hispanic culture and once spent several weeks in Costa Rica, with a view of possibly moving there. The best vacation we ever had was in Spain. I loved hanging out in San Antonio at Hispanic art and music festivals, and so on. The handwriting is on the wall - and it is in Spanish. Now that I think about it, the only two pieces of original art now hanging in my home came from Costa Rica, painted by a well-known artist and the wife of a friend. She took them off the wall at an art exhibition so that I could make my flight. Hispanics can, if they get organized, determine the outcome of the 2004 election. There are 37,000 Hispanics (U.S. citizens) in the U.S. turning 18 each month! There are 6,000,000 unregistered Hispanics of voting age, who are citizens. To some degree the same is true of blacks. If all blacks of legal voting age registered and voted, they could affect the election's outcome. Especially since much of the while population are so disenchanted with lying politicians, or so self-absorbed that only a small percentage will vote. Have you ever heard Soledad O'Brien on CNN referred to as a "black"? I doubt it. Like Jimmy Carter, I have lusted after Soledad in my heart for years, since she was an obscure host on a Tech TV show in San Francisco on Cable and Satellite TV. I sent her an e-mail back then and implored her to put on some makeup, take off the black jackets, and let her real beauty come out. For reasons unknown, she seemed to prefer taking on the persona of a biker dike, which she certainly was not. As usual, I am proud that way back then I spotted her talent and her beauty - which she was hiding. Soledad's father is Australian (his parents are Irish), and her mother is a black Cuban. What a lovely blend. Like a cup of Cuban coffee with a shot of Irish whiskey. Update Jan. 31, 2007: On a recent episode of JEOPARDY!, Soledad O'Brien appeared in a video clue in which she noted her ethnicity: "African-Cuban-Irish-Australian-American." And, I might add, a Harvard grad, which I try not to hold against her. She was touting diversity in the clue. She was as lovely as I remembered her, since I do not watch A.M. shows or any channel that runs a screen crawl (e.g., CNN). There are constant postings on the Web and searches asking if Miles O'Brien of CNN and Soledad O'Brien are married. No! She is married to investment banker Brad Raymond. They have four children, twin boys Charlie and Jackson, and earlier children Sofia and Cecilia. I close for now with my favorite "What do you call him?" We all know that Tiger Wood's dad is black and his mother is Thai, at least I think that is the common perception. I read an account that Tiger's dad is 1/2 African American, 1/4 Chinese, and 1/4 Native American. His mother is said to be 1/2 Thai, 1/4 Caucasian, and 1/4 Chinese. So what does that make Tiger? A great golfer with a good tan, a white girlfriend - with whom he may eventually produce beautiful children. I pray to God that by then his children will not be called African-Americans or Afro/Asian Americans - or Afro/Asian Americans with a white mother. Mozilla Firefox Internet BrowserFor a long time, I have been using almost exclusively Netscape 7.1 to browse the Internet. For one thing, it is not such a target for hackers and viruses and worms as is Internet Explorer. And there is the great tabbing feature, where you can have several pages open on one site, or more than one site open at a time in Tabs. The smart folks are saying that version 7.1 is probably the end of the line for Netscape as a standalone browser. The buzz has been about Mozilla Firefox, the open-source browser that is a free download. Basically, it is Netscape on steroids - and with a future. I had been waiting for Firefox Version 1.0 to post, but downloaded the version .9 (a last beta iteration) since it was getting such raves.
The Firefox download, without e-mail, an html composer, and all that extra stuff that comes with the full version of Mozilla, is only 4.7MB. It installed easily and imported my Netscape bookmarks, cookie settings, and taskbar selections, etc. One click and everything was moved over in a flash. You get pop-up blocking and cookie management (with an editor where you can delete cookies you no longer need or want). The tabbing system is THE main reason I will only use IE6 if I am forced to, possibly to do Windows Update. You can go to a site, pick out seven things you want to read, open them in their own tabs and read the first one that loads. And jump back and forth between articles or multiple pages in an article. Firefox fans claim that pages load faster in Mozilla Firefox than in IE6, but I have not run a stopwatch on the two so far. I am using the Web accelerator Propel (a fee-for-service add-on) with Firefox and it works fine, speeding up my surfing on a dial-up connection by 3 to 5 times as fast. Of course Propel does the same speedup for IE6 and Netscape. I have many often-visited sites on my Personal Toolbar, with the ones that don't fit on one line at the top spilling over onto a hidden list down the side (easily accessed with one click). I notice in Foxfire that when I first visit a site, the logo for the site usually shows up on my toolbar selections and stays there (Yahoo, CNN, NY Times, etc.) Foxfire will save passwords, has a download manager, will save form information, has a temporary file cache, and other features that you expect to find in a good browser. It has a Google search box on the navigation toolbar. So, if you want a great browser, with the MUST HAVE Tab feature, download Mozilla Foxfire .9, import your bookmarks (favorites), cookies, etc., and never look back. Version 1.0 is not far off, but I can't see any reason to wait, especially at these prices (free) and with only a 4.7MB download. (www.mozilla.org) A few comments about Web "accelerators." You see ads for Earthlink, NetZero, AOL, and others talking about software that speeds up your surfing by as much as 5 times. This technology generally uses a combination of caching common Web pages on their server and compressing graphics, so that pages load faster. Some also use a separate disk cache on your computer to further "catalog" frequently-visited sites. For now, I am using Propel, which costs $7.95 a month as an add-on. On most of these accelerators, you can set a slider in a range from "Maximum Speed/Highly-Degraded Graphics to the other extreme, or somewhere in the middle. I use the setting for maximum speed. The graphics look like impressionist paintings and are mostly blotchy. But I don't care, and you probably don't either. How many photos of Bush, Clinton, et al. does one need to see? Another popular accelerator is Slipstream. I originally chose Propel because I read that it was used by Earthlink, the #3 ISP in the United States. It has been working great, but as soon as my ISP offers a comparable accelerator, I will drop Propel, since $7.95 is an outrageous fee for this service. One can never say this too often. Microsoft's Outlook and the Internet Explorer Web browser are among the most attacked programs by hackers, viruses, worms, etc. Consider the latest threat: The "Scob" outbreak has been called more dangerous than the recent "Sasser" and "Blaster" infections. The servers that become infected in turn exploit a vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser to install a Trojan Horse virus on the PCs of Web surfers who visit the infected Web sites. Just by "visiting" (no downloading is required) an infected Web site, your financial data and passwords can be stolen. This is yet another reason to use a Web browser other than Microsoft's Internet Explorer, such Foxfire, Opera, or Netscape. And the main reason I use Eudora Pro for e-mail instead of Outlook. Wives' Financial Veto PowerAs I have researched the HDTV market, it has taken me to many forums, about HDTV sets, HDTV Digital Video Recorders, antennas to receive over-the-air (OTA) signals, and so on. There is a recurring theme. "My wife won't let me spend that much on an HDTV set. My wife had told me no-way am I putting a big antenna on the roof. My wife has put her foot down about the amount of HDTV programming we subscribe to." Of course this is not limited to purchases of HDTV equipment. Wives, even those who choose to stay home and raise the kids (a laudable thing, for sure) - and contribute no income - seem to have absolute veto over how money is spent. Granted, men are just boys with bigger toys, but how this financial veto has become so pervasive is an interesting phenomenon. If there is food on the table, the cars run okay, and you are not behind on the mortgage or have enormous debt, I cannot understand this irrational female veto power over spending. And the absolute veto power over the aesthetics of the home and property. A lot of ham-radio operators I know can not put up "big, ugly, antenna towers" because the wife has said no. Were you a ham when she married you? Did she not know that would be what you wanted to do? Put it in the pre-nup! So, you can't buy the HDTV set you want because it costs too much, and you can't put up an outside antenna so you can get a good picture. Whatever happened to compromise? Your programs for the whole familiy will look better, too. What's the problem? How did women get such absolute power? Why do men give in so easily? I have no answers? Other than one, and we won't go there. Suppose that an HDTV set, or whatever, costs $3,000. That seems like a lot of money when you can buy a 27-inch regular TV for under $200. Yes, and you can buy a used compact car instead of an SUV. Priorities. I found a solution with my second wife. We both made decent incomes and we had a very small mortgage payment. We set up three checking accounts. Hers, mine, and the household. We put enough in the household account to cover the mortgage, insurance, utilities, and a modest amount for entertainment and eating out. We contributed to the household account by a percentage of what each of us made, so that the one with higher income contributed more each month. What we did with the money in the His and Hers accounts was never discussed. Not that we were entirely selfish with "our" accounts. I might buy her an expensive gift or take her to a fancy restaurant beyond our "budgeted amount." And vice versa. I don't ever recall having an argument over money.
When there are kids, the budgeting of money becomes more difficult. But still, where is it in the Constitution that "the wife shall have the final veto power over all spending"? Let's get back to the expensive HDTV. First, the whole family will benefit, so it is not like the man buying a motorcycle which he rides three times a year. There probably ought to be a budget "conference" on expenditures like that - or for the boat. Do you have a written budget? If not, list how you spend your money. We all fall into the trap of having recurring bills that we never re-examine. How many of your 1,000 cell phone minutes did you actually use last month. How much are you spending for lunches? For bottled water? Snacks. A small Snickers cost nearly a buck! How many CDs did you buy and listen to once? How many DVD movies did you buy and watch once? How much for magazine subscriptions that you seldom read? God forbid you spend money on cigarettes. How much for wine or beer? How many pairs of shoes does the wife have? How many has she actually worn this year? How many pieces of jewelry does she own? How many has she actually worn this year? How many bottles of cologne and perfume does she have? How many purses? How many billfolds do you have, and aren't you ashamed to take your tattered one out in public? How many jeans, slack, jackets, and suits and dress shirts do you have? How many blouses, dresses, skirts, jeans, pant-suits does she has (consider whether she works outside the home)? What do you spend for long distance calls? Can you get free long distance on your cell plan? The dollars can add up in a hurry. Now, back to the $3,000 HDTV set. Let's say that it is good for at least five years (the average set is kept for much longer). That is $50 a month for five years, or about $36 a month for seven years. There is not a single family above the poverty line who cannot cut back on $50 a month of frivolous spending. I just bought a refrigerator for about $450 that has everything I need, including an icemaker. How often has a man been appliance shopping with his wife. The $450 fridge looks good to him. The $1200 one, with cold water in the door, etc., is what they end up buying. Men do not seem to have much veto power over spending. It is nearly a one-way street in many homes. I really miss not having a lady with whom to share my life at this time. My companion died. But, I am preparing to spend about $4500 for a new HDTV set, an HDTV satellite receiver, and a new Home Theater amplifier. And I am by no means well off financially, just comfortable. There is nobody with veto power over my expenditures, other than my own common sense. Since my total debt is now is about $150, I have no qualms about spending the money. Actually, I have been squirrelling it away. Somebody needs to figure out where this absolute veto power by women over spending came from. And the absolute last word about what can or cannot be placed in the yard, on the roof, or what kind of furniture or recliner you buy. Somewhere there must be room for compromise. I don't want to cause any marital rifts, but I see and hear entirely too much of "my wife won't let me buy ...." Somebody needs to re-read the Constitution and The Bill of Rights to see where this veto power comes from. Do you have about $8,000 in credit-card debt, which is about the national average? If so, you should not buy anything but food, socks, and underwear until your debt is paid off. Forget the HDTV. Forget the new digital camcorder, etc. A TV economics expert said that the average family has $31,000 in debt. Installment and revolving debt doubled in the past 10 years to $2.1 Trillion. So, maybe in the final analysis, spending decisions in the average family should be made by an independent financial adviser. Seriously. We see ads for "payday loans" on TV. The interest on those loans can run to 500 to 800 percent! Credit cards charge many times the prime rate of interest on most of their cards. I nearly always pay off my cards each month, much to the dismay of the card issuer. A banker once told me that I was not a real "money maker" for him because I never had a late fee on a loan or a credit card. They want you to be late! They like the money they make. What sense does it make to shop all over town and on the Internet to save $50 on an item and then charge it to a card that has a 20-percent interest rate? What have we come to? A merchant has to pay a fee to the bank to process your purchase on a credit card. It used to be that savy shoppers could negotiate lower prices by offering to pay cash and allow the merchant to avoid the credit-card charges. Well, I tried that the other day on a $900 purchase. The merchant, from whom I had bought in the past, said that with all the check fraud, he now uses a screening service that costs him more than the banks charge on credit-card transactions. Would I please use a credit card, he asked? Okay. How dumb can we get? And if you hand somebody a stack of $100 bills, they look at you like you just got out of prison and start swiping the bills with their anti-counterfeit pen. They do this in small stores where they know I am close friends with the owner! What an insult. I wish there was a national ID card that you could get, with a background check, that says, "Mr. Rhodes has never written an NSF check, never defaulted on a loan, never had to pay late fees on a credit card, and has no history of counterfeiting money." The new bills are so well done, that a Chimp should be able to spot a counterfeit without those stupid pens they use. I nornally have an old out-of-service phone number on my checks. When the clerk asks, "Is all the information on here current," I say, "Yes." So sue me. But don't try to call me or sell my number. It is a waste of time. 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. Postal Service Abbreviations - Richard C. Rhodes End |