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, plus. 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. Some insights come from talking with ham-radio operators in every major country and such idyllic places as the Cook Islands. The Outback is the rural area in Northeast Texas where I have lived for the past 14 years. Every few weeks I will attempt to post a new set of musings from the Outback. Click on a Topic to go directly to that topic. If you think Ginko Biloba is a vacation resort on the Spanish coast - you may be a Redneck. If you think that Angioplasty is used to fill cracks in sheet rock - you may be a Redneck. If you think that Thai-dyed cloth is something used to bury a dead Thai - you may be a Redneck. Look for the circulation figures for USA Today to go down. Hiring Michael Moore as a columnist for the Republican National convention is one of the most egregious pieces of poor judgement in recent history. Michael Moore is not a journalist. He is at best an ignorant, fat, obnoxious, unkempt, lying, muckraker. Thanks to John McCain for putting him in his place during his speech. Mr. Moore will not be returning to the convention hall. Come on back Michael. It might be the last time you ever put pen to paper or event to film. He is a disgrace to America and a traitor. Free speech is one thing. Giving aid and comfort to our enemies is another. They shoot people for that in most places. The fact that he lives in America is the only thing keeping him alive. Have you read his quotes when he is overseas? The next time you see the Master Card commercial with Bret Favre, take a close look at the construction workers. One of them is a stagehand on the Letterman TV show. He is the one who dangles a cigarette from his mouth and reads the "Oprah Transcripts." I think his name is Kenny. Nice gig. "X-Men" star Patrick Stewart is recovering at home after undergoing an angioplasty procedure earlier this week to widen an artery" reads the headline. "He is recovering at home." The "recovery" consists of waiting for the tiny slit to seal up in the groin where the catheter was inserted. Hundreds of thousands of people each year have an angioplasty procedure. Who cares that Patrick Stewart had one? Our cult of celebrity is completely out of hand. Must we hear about it every time someone in the public eye has what is now a routine medical procedure? People often go back to work in a day or so. Give us a break you PR flacks and the desperate media who have nothing better to print. Craig Kilborn has retired from the Late Late Show. Now, he has enough money to install wall-to-wall mirrors in his home. The "eating Grapefruit will help you lose weight" mantra is back. Maybe so, but check with your doctor or a good medical site regarding any prescription drugs you take. Grapefruit or Grapefruit juice can alter the way certain prescription drugs react in your system. The day after the Grapefruit "news" was making headlines, I came across a sales rep in a grocery chain putting collars around bottles of Grapefruit juice noting $1 OFF. Makes you wonder how they got those color tags printed so fast. Could it be that the Grapefruit people sent out the press releases and already had the $1 OFF things printed? Naw. That's too cynical.
The average DVD buyer has amassed nearly 50 movies, but up to 10% of those titles have gone unwatched, according to consumer surveys for Universal Studios Home Video. In these times of "joblessness" and "dire economic times" (if you listen to the pundits and politicians) where do people get the money to buy all these DVDs? I own one DVD movie, the original "Matrix," which I bought to test the capabilities of my DVD player and sound system. Wow! How many people pay $20-$27 for a movie on DVD and watch it more than once? Maybe senile people like me could qualify - if I bought movie DVDs. I used to never watch a movie twice on TV, but I watched "In the Line of Fire," with Clint Eastwood, the other night for the second time. I had no clue as to the plot or the ending. I remembered only that it was about the Secret Service. Time for more Ginko? The claims being made for the statin drugs, originally prescribed for lowering cholesterol, are getting preposterous, unless you believe that a statin is capable of affecting more classes of disease than perhaps any drug in history. Now, they are making claims that statins help with glaucoma disease in the eyes. From Spanish doctors comes a report that statins may slow down the AIDS virus. The headline is all that many people will read. They tested the statins in the lab and on SIX people. Levels of the AIDS virus, fell and T-cell count went up. When the patients stopped taking the statin the viral levels rebounded, the researchers reported. I wonder who funded this "research" on SIX people? Wanna bet it was one of the makers of statins? They sure got their money's worth; a headline that means virtually nothing in terms of real research. Part of the "statins are a miracle drug" conspiracy. Somehow, the information from such sources as www.statinalert.org don't seem to get headlines. I wonder why? President Bush has proposed a plan to remove many troops from old Cold War bastions, such as in Germany. As I said in an earlier article, how many people does it take to guard the PX in Wiesbaden, Germany or in Naples? Already, about 13,000 are leaving S. Korea. Many politicians, mostly (all?) Democrats, are complaining that removing troops from Korea is a signal of weakness to N. Korea. The South Koreans have about a million men under arms! All the U.S. needs is a few people manning nuclear-tipped missiles aimed at N. Korea and a couple of missile subs and other naval vessels capable of firing nuclear missiles into North Korea. Then, we simply tell the idiot dictator in the North, "You drop one shell, or roll one tank, into South Korea and your country will be toast." It worked with the Russians for decades. It is still a viable concept when dealing withe a fledging nuclear power, even if we respond with nuclear only in the event the North uses nuclear against the South. Don't forget, a huge number of South Koreans want our forces out of their country. They beat up on our troops, they stab them, and they toss Molotov cocktails over the fences at our miliary installations. So, to all those Democrats trying to make political points about us appearing "weak" against North Korea if we withdraw some troops, go screw yourselves. It is an argument that simply has no merit. It is pure political expediency. Remember my motto: For the sake of the American consumer, we must protect the factories of Samsung, LG Electronics and others in South Korea. A nuclear deterrent will do just fine. I missed John Kerry's acceptance speech. When I heard that it was going to run 55 minutes, I decided to to watch a documentary on HDTV, someting about rats in the sewers, etc. - honestly. One cannot avoid the sound bites, though. "I defended this country as a young man." Sen. Kerry, that is bullshit! I enlisted in the Marines during the Korean War. Since I don't recall Korea being any immediate threat to the U.S., I could hardly say that I "defended" this country. I "served" my country in the military. While Kerry was spending his four months in Vietnam, I was spending two years with the CIA in Laos (in the "secret war"). I don't recall Vietnam or Laos posing any threat to the United States. Neither Sen. Kerry nor I can honestly say we were "defending" our country in Vietnam or Laos. We were serving our country. Big difference between "defending this country" and "serving this country." Especially since in both Korea and Vietnam, our government had its head up its ass. So, Sen. Kerry knock off the crap about "defending" your country. You weren't there very long anyway, and your Purple Hearts and some other actions have a cloud hanging over them. You would be better served by downplaying your service in Vietnam, especially since you came back and became the leading spokeman for trashing the war effort. In the end, it is probably going to bite you in the ass. Don't say I didn't warn you. I caught only snatches of the Democratic convention. I was displeased to see Robert Caro, the esteemed historian, making a speech from the podium. What kind of message does that send about his "impartial view of history"? What's next, a Supreme Court justice speaking at a political convention?
The several-year TV "screen-crawl" nightmare is over for me. My new Samsung HDTV DLP set has a "zoom" setting that allows you to move the picture around on the screen, and zooms in automatically. With this setting, which is on the remote control, the screen crawl at the bottom goes away! And you can move the picture up and down using the arrow keys on the remote, just like on a computer screen. I receive the programming from the usual suspects, CNN, FoxNews, CNBC, MSNBC, etc., on my digital DVR, which is an SD digital pic (standard definition digital pic). A long, long time ago, I wrote that somebody ought to invent a little box to add to the TV that would allow you to move the picture up and down, etc. Now, there are TVs that can do it. Sony has announced a new chip that will allow TV users to "pan" around the screen.
Jessica Simpson was on David Letterman's show on Aug. 4, 2004. I am pretty sure she was lip-syncing her song, none of which I could understand anyway. But, the most precious thing was the look on the face of one of the backup singers, a black lady. All over her face was written, "Your lily-white ass can't sing a note." I replayed it several times. No mistaking that look. I doubt that Jessica Simpson could make it into the final 12 on "American Idol." How in the world did she get so much fame as a singer? A letter published in the Aug. 11, 2004 edition of the WSJ states that Jerry Vlasak, M.D., is a spokesman for Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). And that PETA describes PCRM as a "related" organization. Speaking at the "Animal Rights 2003" convention in LA, Jerry Vlasak encouraged the murder of biomedical researchers who use animals in their work. He used the words "kill" and "assassinate," which leave little room for interpretation. In 2003, as just one example, animal-rights activists bombed two California biotech firms, including one that is responsible for much of our flu vaccine supply! I have a couple of ideas. Take up a collection to hire hit-men to assassinate those who espouse killing medical researchers or bombing or setting fire to research facilities. Tell me where to send the money. Or, arrest all who violate the law with regard to biotech facilities, or burn structures that these nut cases think are encroaching on "nature." Put them in one facility, where they would be used as "human guinea pigs" in biomedical research. Just think of all the animals that could be saved. Until the Democratic convention, few had heard of Barack Obama, a black man running for the U.S. Senate in Illinois. Mr. Obama represents one of my pet peeves, half-blacks who trade on their black ethnicity. Many, including Mr. Obama, seem inevitably to be involved as attorneys in civil-rights cases. On the surface, I don't see a lot of being a victim in his academic and professional background. Mr. Obama's father is a black man from Kenya. His mother is white. He was born in Hawaii, where, as I recall, his father taught economics at the university. By whatever means, Barack Obama made his way to Harvard Law School and became the first "black" (half-black) president of the Law Review. He is now in the Illinois State Senate. You don't hear much about his white mother, as is usually the case with "blacks" with one white parent. Apparently, they view being half-white as a badge of shame. Plus, it would lessen their standing when talking about being "victims" or passionately representing victims of prejudice or injustice. Just as Prof. Lani Guinier at Harvard Law bills herself as a "black" activist, with virtually never a mention of her Jewish mother. What hypocrisy. What I want to see are more "real" blacks in places of prominence. People with two black parents. There are some, but the half-blacks seem to be the more high-profile folks. For example, the two "really-black" guys who delivered my new refrigerator and washer. Somehow, they are not on the fast track to Harvard Law or the Senate. And I don't expect to see them anchoring the evening news anytime soon. The use of the term African-American is probably not a good idea. Many blacks simply do not use it. It is a divisive term - along with all the other hyphenated Americans. Now, Teresa Heinz Kerry, who was raised in Mozambique, is calling herself an "African-American." She is not playing with a full deck. We have enough problems with Jamaicans, half-whites, and others of color calling themselves African-Americans. We don't need the wife of a presidential candidate - who was born to Portuguese parents - further confusing the issue. The issue is clouded even more by Lani Guinier, whose mother is Jewish, Halle Berry, whose mother is white, and Barack Obama, whose mother is white - among many others - calling themselves African-American. With all the intermarriage taking place, maybe in 50 years these stupid racial distinctions will cease to exist in the United States. The ideal Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senator: a decorated female military veteran, who is a lesbian, whose mother was white, father black, grandfather Native American, and is married to an Asian lady whose mother was Chinese and whose father was Jewish, and grandfather an Eskimo. The candidate attended community college and paid for her tuition by cleaning dorm rooms. She is now a machinist in a union shop. Her "husband" is a self-made millionaire, having made her money in manufacturing American flags. They have four adopted children, from Bangladesh, Africa, Mexico, and one that was cloned. They live in a log-cabin in Montana - off the power grid, using solar and wind power. Their only vehicles are battery-operated motor bikes. They buy only American-made products. They are vegetarians and do not take prescription drugs, preferring natural remedies. Bill Clinton was on with David Letterman saying that it was imperative that the "assault weapons ban" be extended. He rambled on about how with the terrorist threat, now, more than ever, we need to make sure these type folks don't have access to assault weapons. How damn stupid can you be? How can an intelligent man spew out such idiotic garbage? Terrorists are not going to buy assault weapons in stores, where they would be subjected to criminal background checks. Terrorists do not "register" their illegal weapons. And firearms are not their "weapon of choice." They like bombs and airplanes and chemical and biological and nuclear. Guns? I don't think so. Terrorists know that American civilians are armed to the teeth. That in itself will give them second thoughts about using firearms as a means of attack. The risk/reward ratio is just not there for them. The whole "assault weapon ban" was more emotional drivel (liberal "feel-good" legislation) than substance. I wrote extensively in major newspapers about the subject years ago. One TV media outlet showed the California bank robbery from years back where the crooks were using automatic weapons - as an argument for continuing the assault weapon ban. Automatic weapons have been regulated by the Feds since Prohibition days. The assault-weapon bill relates to semiautomatic weapons. But the footage looked dramatic, and that is all the media and the liberals care about. Facts are irrelevant. The public thinks that criminals are running amok on the streets with "machine guns." This is not true. One of my finest moments was a presentation I made to the senior editors of The Dallas Times Herald about the media's poor and uninformed reporting on guns and gun crime. I was asked to write a three-part series on gun-control legislation. For the editorial staff, I wrote the "Media Guide for Reporting on Guns and Gun Crime," which later was widely distributed to major media outlets. (It is on my main Web page.) Most of the public's and the media's belief that criminals have large numbers of "machine guns" no doubt comes from action movies. Automatic weapons are tightly regulated by the ATF (my old employer), but movie makers are allowed an exemption to use "automatic weapons" in their action films. In one film, you may see fifty gangsters, spies, et al., firing automatic weapons, mostly "sub-machine guns." It is so dramatic with hundreds of bullets dropping people like flies and glass breaking, and so on. Actually, they are firing blanks! The public is inundated with these images. Soon, they believe that criminals in general have "machine guns." I got so tired of people writing letters to the editor of The Dallas Morning News calling for Federal regulation of machine guns, that I wrote a letter-to-the-editor in which I pointed out that "fully automatic" weapons had been regulated since the 1930's. And that the "assault-weapon ban" related to semiautomatic weapons. I also got a promise from the editor of the letters page to never again run a letter calling for the Federal regulation of "automatic weapons," "machine guns," or "sub-machine guns." I bought a Samsung HL-P4663W DLP HDTV set and a DishNetwork 811 HD receiver. The pictures are stunning, but here in the outback, HDTV programming is limited. Too far out for cable, we must rely on satellite or over-the-air HDTV. The HD packages offered by DishNetwork and DirecTv are pretty sparse. DiscoveryHD is spectacular, but of course limited in scope, with a lot of repeats. HDNet has some interesting programs and also a movie channel, if you like old movies. ESPNHD shows only the channel with Sports Central and a few sporting events, mostly baseball, so far. And the entralling and gripping World Series of Poker. Over and over. Where can I watch paint dry or grass grow? ESPN will be broadcasting 17 NFL games in HD on Sunday nights. There is an HBOHD, but it is mostly old movies. Sex and the City is gone. The Sopranos is on hiatus.
If you have a "progressive" DVD player, the "nearly-HD" pics are spectacular, but I have only eight DVDs, mostly music videos, like Diana Krall in Paris. Mind you, a standard progressive DVD only plays at 480P resolution. True HD does not start until 720P, which is the native resolution of the Samsung DLP set.
Standard definition digital programming from my DishNetwork satellite looks great. I still have my Dish DVR 510, so I can record up to 100 hours of standard definition (SD) programs, and watch an HD program at the same time on the 811. All of this from one Dish 500 Pro dish with a dual LNBs, with two coaxes, one for the DVR 510 and one for the HD 811. No external switches needed. Sometimes, when I am watching SD, I have to check to see if I am on a hi-def channel, the picture is generally so good. Most of the original HDTV programming provides Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, and the Dish 811 has an optical Toslink output which feeds my Yamaha 7.1 channel receiver - which feeds the six speakers. HDNet tells me that all of their programs have DD 5.1 encoding. By the way, HDNet is a venture of Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and a friend.
There is a 15-pin SVGA jack on the back of the Samsung, and I intend to hook up my laptop and surf the Web on my 46-inch DLP Samsung.
There are several other DLP sets on the market, but Samsung was the first to use the technology, and the HLP series is the third generation. To review, the HL-Pxx63W series uses the TI HD3, third-generation DLP chip. I have NO complaint with the picture quality, the brightness, nor the contrast. In a few months, the Samsung sets will be offered with the HD2+ DLP chip. It has a higher contrast ratio, will have an HD tuner and CableCard built in. The CableCard is one-way, so will not work with interactive cable TV functions, if your cable provider has such things. The HD2+ chip is more expensive than the HD3 chip, and the MSRP for HD2+ sets of comparable size will be about $500 higher than for the HD3 sets.
The problem is with getting major network programming from ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and PBS in the Outback. Current law allows people in this general area to get CBS-HD on satellite only with a waiver from the CBS outlet that is located somewhere near the Texas/Okla border. Most of the people I know would have to put up a 50-tower, a pre-amp and a monster antenna to get any HD signal from the local CBS outlet. I have never met ANYONE who has ever gotten a waiver in far NE Texas from the CBS station. And that goes back to when they forced people to drop their standard definition CBS network, even if they could not get a solid picture from the local transmitter. Then, local-into-local passed, so that those in the Dallas DMA, most of NE Texas, could get the Dallas network stations. There is a bill in Congress that would allow DishNetwork and DirecTV to provide the networks in HD if the user cannot get a satisfactory HD picture over the air.
The lack of networks in the Outback is particularly galling to football fans since CBS will air three HD games each Sunday. ABC's Monday Night Football will air in HD. FOX sports network will have 97 games in HiDef! And FOX is where most of the Cowboy games are aired. Since most of the folks I know are about 115 miles or so from Dallas and about 85 miles from the CBS station in NE Texas, there is some hope - if the bill passes that will allow "unserved" satellite owners to get the Networks in HD. But there will probably be a lot of stonewalling by the networks, especially the CBS outlet in NE Texas, arguing over whether a household can receive an "acceptable" signal over the air. The FCC is struggling with old analog signal-coverage models to determine which locations are "unserved" by over-the-air HD stations. Most HDTV signals are now transmitted in the UHF range. I have checked all the "hot" over-the-air antennas I can find, and they generally rate the "maximum reception of UHF" at 60 miles. To obtain a TV signal, you must have a line of sight to the transmitting tower. In other, words, if you had super-powerful field glasses, you could see the transmitting tower from the location of your receiving antenna. At the end of this article is a formula to determine the probable maximum distance you can receive a TV station, based on the transmitter tower height and the height of the receiving antenna. Sometimes, you can receive TV stations from hundreds of miles away, but that is due to atmospheric phenomena (determined by the weather, the time of year, etc.) called "troposhpheric ducting," "sporaic E layer," etc. (See: www.dxfm.com for fantastic disucssions of how distant FM and TV [DXing] are acheived.) You cannot depend on this sporadic propogation for regular reception. Ham radio operators know that there are only certain times of the day, certain times of the year, and the timing within the sunspot cycle that can allow them to predict reasonably well when they might be able to make a DX two-way contact to a specific country or area.
The local stations that will fight HD networks on satellite don't care that many, if not most, homeowner's associations, duplexes, etc. will not permit a tower or even an outside antenna for HDTV. Digital (HD) is different from the old analog TV in a key reception phenomenon. In analog, if you were far away from a TV station you might get a picture that was full of snow, ignition noise, or that faded in and out. In HD, generally you will either get a sharp picture or none at all. So, if you are on the fringe, you might spend hundreds of dollars for a tower, antenna, and pre-amp only to find that you get NO HDTV reception. Topographic maps, available to consumers on CD-ROM, can help some in scoping out your chances of receiving a distant HD station. Maybe your house is on a hill which is 500 feet higher than the surrounding terrain.
I am glad I bought the HDTV set, but would suggest than anyone in a rural area who is totally dependent upon satellite HDTV hold off until we are able to get more programming, especially the major networks. I bought the DishNetwork 811 HD receiver, which does not have Digital Video Recorder (DVR) capabilities. The Dish 921 DVR has been largely a nightmare, if you believe the disgruntled folks on the several forums that I monitor. It costs around $1000. One dealer told me: "I hope they don't send me any more 921s!" For obvious reasons. He is tired of the grief. The 811 costs $399 with a $100 credit if you trade in an older receiver. There is apparently a new DishNetwork DVR in the works for the end of the year or early 2005. By then, I hope the Congress has quit ignoring the plight of rural HDTV owners and has passed the bill that will allow us to receive the major networks via satellite, and the DishNetwork next-generation DVR is out and works well. So, bottom line, if you live in a rural area and can't receive any cable or over-the-air HDTV stations, you might wait until the first quarter of 2005 to take the plunge.
From what I read, the DirecTV DVR, also around $1000, and based on TiVO, appears to be working well. DirecTV is also going to be producing DVRs from another source used by Rupert Murdock, who now owns DirecTV. DishNetwork will probably debut a new HD DVR in the Fall of 2004 or Q1 of 2005. So, as to equipment, it is all pretty volatile. DirecTv suffers from the same limited HDTV programming as does DishNetwork. In fact, Dish has TNT-HD and I don't think at this time DirecTV has it in its HD package. DirecTV has a very expensive NFL football package, which is subject to some local blackout rules - which I know nothing about and would not be willing to pay for even if I had DirecTV.
My little HDTV venture cost me some unexpected money. I started lifting one lens at a time on my glasses and discovered that one eye had had changed in the past several years. With new glasses, the HDTV is now fully in focus. Even with one fuzzy eye, I had thought it was great! How Far Away Can You Pick Up an HDTV Station? TV transmissions involve a transmitting antenna and a receiving antenna, both need to be considered for these calculations.
In Statute (land) Miles
H1 = TX antenna and H2 = RX antenna Example: Transmitting antenna (H1) height = 500 feet (This is about the average antenna height of the several stations I checked in the FCC database. See: www.fcc.gov and search on TV station info. It's all there, including the grid coordinates for the transmitting towers, which you can punch into your GPS receiver.)Receiving antenna (H2) height = 12 feet (antenna in your attic) Square root of 500 = 23.361 x 1.415 = 31.64 (D1)Square root of 12 = 3.464 x 1.415 = 4.901 (D2) 31.64 (D1) + 4.901 (D2) = 36.54 miles (theoretical maximum distance) Receiving antenna at 50 feet on a tower: Square root of 50 = 7.071 x 1.415 = 10.00 (D2) 31.64 (D1) + 10.00 (D2) = 41.64 miles (theoretical maximum distance) These reception-distance figures can be improved upon by using a very high-gain receiving antenna and a mast-mounted pre-amp. About the highest-gain antennas with reasonable prices come from www.antennasdirect.com, and their 91XG (UHF with 91 elements) is rated up to 70+ miles. A good source of information about types of antennas required for specific stations in your area is: www.antennaweb.org. Update: May 12, 2006: We now have HiDef on satellite in the Outback from NBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX in Dallas. DishNetwork has about 15 additional HiDef channels, including HDNET, HBOHD, DiscoveryHD, two from ESPN, and several from VOOM, etc. Also, DishNetwork has a Vip622 HD DVR that will record two satellite programs and one over-the-air program at the same time - and record channels encoded in the new MPEG4 compression scheme. Finally, the time is right for those in the Outback to consider HiDef TV. If you have HiDef and a HiDef DVR (digital video recorder), you will never want to visit friends or relatives who are still watching analog or Standard Definition digital TV. It would be like watching TV in black and white. DirecTV also has considerable HiDef programming, but as of this writing their HiDef DVR does not appear to be capable of decoding the new channels that are using MPEG4 compression, which is the new standard for satellite TV HD.Olympic MusingsThe Olympic marathon has begun. Not the marathon race, just the marathon TV coverage by NBC. There ought to be a law against females playing beach volley ball in bikinis. I am having a hard enough time controlling my blood pressure. Of course, I record all the women's beach volley-ball games - and take an extra pill. The beach volley ball gals set one world record - for hugging and patting each other on the fanny. I try to watch all the women's Team USA softball games. I started watching when Dr. Dot Richardson was on the team several Olympics back. The left fielder for the Japanese team had her hair cut perfectly, with her black locks cascading over her visor and flopping as she ran. Cute as a speckled pup. She must have a doll in her image in Japan. Yes, I watch a few men's events, such as swimming. It is hard for me to watch gymnastics, as I feel so badly for anyone who makes a serious error, such as the poor American kid who lost his grip on the high bar and fell on his back. And when Carly Patterson landed out of bounds after a vault. All those years of work. Soccer is just too boring. Hours of running up and down, with usually little to show for the effort. Apologies to those who think it is the greatest sport in the world. I fast forward until I see the score change and then back up to see who made the goal. My Digital Video Recorder on my satellite TV has allowed me to record all of the major events, many of the minor events, and then select events and portions of events to watch. In a prelim swimming event, say a 400-meter event, I fast forward to the last lap. I have sampled everything from trap shooting to sabre fencing. Terrific. Thinking about the pain of watching people fall or come up lame and lose years of work and practice in an instant, it seems to me that swimming is about the most predictable and the least prone to disaster. Many times a swimmer would have only a one-length lead in a rather long race. The announcer would say something like "so and so in lane 3 might turn it on and snatch the Gold." To which the color commentator, a former swimmer, would often replay. "No way. No way is so and so going to catch the leader." And sure enough, even a half-length lead at the halfway point was often enough for victory. The cumulative record of times and distances in swimming events seems to lessen surprises, although there were a few. Running, diving, hurdling, cycling, long-jumping, gymnastics all seemed more like a crap shoot. You held your breath and waited for somebody to hit a hurdle, fall off a bike, pull a hamstring, or whatever. The moral of the story. If you want your kid in the Olympics and don't want ulcers, toss them in the pool at about age two and see if they sink or swim. If they swim, hire a coach. Tourism to Greece is bound to increase after the Olympics. The TV shots in and around Athens, especially when viewed in HDTV, are breathtaking. One image stands out. It is the grouping of buildings with the red-tile roofs that stands on top of a sheer-sided shaft of rock. Oh, I thought, what a great view, what a great place to receive TV signals, and what a great place to erect a ham-radio tower and antenna. One problem. It is a monastery, and I am not willing to become a monk to live at that most spectacular of all places in the area. Given that some of the most virulent anti-American sentiments exist in Greece, Americans would be smart to find other countries to visit - if there are any left where we are welcome. When I see the shoreline views around Athens, I am reminded of my only trip to Athens. I was flying on Olympia Airlines from Beirut to Athens. In Beirut, I had purchased a Hohner mouth-organ-type keyboard. It was called a "Melodica." It had at least two octaves of keys and a bent mountpiece that allowed you to blow into the instrument and play the piano-like keys. As we dipped for our descent in Athens, I was overcome with the grandeur of the site below. I reached under my seat, pulled out my Meolodica, and began to play "Never On Sunday" (this was a long time ago when that movie theme was still fresh in people's minds). The young Greek girl next to me, and several other passengers applauded. A rather uncharacteristic thing for an undercover CIA agent to do, but I will never forget it. It was actually probably pretty good for my cover. Just another goofy American, they probably thought. Sadly, I loaned the instrument to a friend in Dallas and never went back to claim it. Now, I can't find her address or phone number. The good news. Hohner's Web site shows a new version of the Melodica, with 32 keys spanning two and one-half octaves. I have this minute ordered a new on the Web. Now, where is my sheet music to "Never On Sunday"? Gosh, I am glad I dredged up this memory - again. Folks in the Outback are very happy with the showing at the Olympics of two young ladies, who live not far from the Outback - which is N.E. of Dallas. Carly Patterson, earned the individual Gold in gymnastics - at age 16. She lives in Allen, which is about 70 miles from here. She trains at a gym in Plano, Texas. When we first moved to this area after leaving the government, we moved to Plano, which is now a large Northern suburb of Dallas. I am not much taken by celebrities, but if Carly is signing autographs at a Burger King in Plano or Allen, I might drive in. She has the million-dollar smile that will be showing up on all kinds of boxes and on TV commercials for a long time to come. Dana Vollmer, who lives in Granbury, Texas (which is on the other side of Ft. Worth from here) won a Gold in the 200 meter freestyle relay, with the team setting a world record, and breaking a long-standing record. Dana Vollmer has a heart condition and must have a defibrillator nearby when she swims or exercises. Sometimes her heart just stops. Simply amazing. That makes some of our infirmities seem rather insignificant in comparison. We are so proud of Carly and Dana. Pass the Kleenex Mildred. The Olympics has an interesting sidelight. It points out how important makeup is to a female's appearance. There are many examples of ladies who got all gussied up for interviews and that I did not recognize until their names were spoken. But, the most startling was Natalie Coughlin. At pool side, or in the pool, Natalie is an attractive woman. After she swam her final event, she was interviewed by Bob Costas. I had no idea who she was until Costas introduced her. Her hair and makeup were perfect. She had on a short skirt and a top with a plunging neckline. She was heading to a party. She was stunning! Incredibly lovely. It has been a couple of days, and I cannot shake her image from my mind. The performance of the U.S.A. men's basketball team has made a point that I have been making for years. They are grossly overpaid. It was nice to see a glowing editorial in the WSJ on 8-23-04 about Team USA, the women's softball team. It took the WSJ a while to catch on to what most of us already knew. The softball team is one of the most gifted set of athletes assembled in any sport. I never missed one of their Olympic games, even if I had to start recording at five in the morning. Congrats to a great bunch of ladies. Jennie Finch, who draws a crowd anytime she plays, appeared in only two games, and the camera was sparing about shooting her in the dugout. It was truly a team effort. I played softball and baseball for about 25 years. I am simply in awe of Team USA. In politics, we constantly hear about - and debate - the ethnicity of incumbents and challengers. In nominations for Federal judgeships, ethnicity or religion has played a major part in the blocking of candidates. Contrast that to the U.S women's Olympic softball team, which is ethnically diverse. You never hear a commentator say that Natasha Watley is the "only black woman" on the team. What they say is that she is so fast that she has beat out several bunts and infield hits. You don't hear Lisa Fernandez or Crystl Bustos being referred to as "Hispanics" (which they are). Just great athletes. Ethnicity did come up when discussing how an American might qualify for a Greek or other foreign Olympic team. It has to do with tracing you ancestry back to the country you want to play for. Lovieanne "Lovie" Jung on the Team USA is a great player and an adorable young lady. She might be thought of as possibly "Asian-American" if one were to try to label her based on her looks and the last name of Jung. It was pointed out that if she chose not to play for Team USA, she has several other choices. Lovie's mother is Philippine, Spanish, and Hawaiian. Her dad is Chinese and Lithuanian. So much for stereotypes and labels. In sports all that counts is performance. Not relevant, but interesting. Leah O'Brien Amico is the only mother on the team, although she is not the only one who is married. I have never ordered a sports-related DVD. But, if they ever produce a DVD of the women's beach volley-ball games, I will buy it. What a show those ladies, from all the countries, put on for us. Congratulations to Misty May and Kerri Walsh for their Gold Medals. In fact, the ladies have been the class of the Olympics for the U.S. - in soccer, softball, basketball, beach volley ball, swimming, gymnastics and more. Not to take away from Phelps and his amazing performances in the swimming events. Apparently, about 10,000 people did not read the manual for the cameras they took to the Olympic venues. You can see thousands of flashes coming from the stands. Once again folks, the strobe in your camera will help illuminate a subject only about 12-15 feet from the camera. And you wonder why your batteries run down so fast? The vast array of sports played at the Olympics has caused me to rethink my own athletic participation. I always tell people that I played six sports. After watching some of the rather obscure events at the Olympics, I am now changing my comment to "I participated in 26 sports": baseball, basketball, softball, football, cycling (did not have a car until I was 23), swimming (often over a mile in the ocean or pool), track (discus), tennis, boxing, hockey, badminton, volley ball, weight lifting, table tennis, running (over 5000 miles during one period in my 40's), bowling, body-surfing/boogie-boarding in Hawaii when I lived there, water skiing, canoeing (roamed the N. Minnesota woods by myself in a canoe as a teen - and paddled down the Mississippi, including a trip through a lock), rifle target shooting (as far back as my high-school team and the Marines), archery, racquetball, handball, skiing in Minnesota and in the Bavarian Alps, snow sledding and tobogganing, and rowing (rowed a small boat many a mile on the lakes of Minnesota). I think I will cut the label from a sack of Gold Medal flour and pin it to a T shirt. I deserve some kind of a Gold Medal. Don't Rush Into XP SP2Why install Windows XP SP2 now? If your computer works well, if you do not use Internet Explorer to surf, do not use Outlook for mail, and use a good firewall - such as Norton or ZoneAlarm, and use a good anti-virus software, there seems to be little reason to jump on the SP2 bandwagon early. There are at least 50 popular programs that have conflicts with SP2, for example. I intend to wait for at least two-three months until more of the kinks are ironed out. If your XP is set for "automatic updates," SP2 will try to install itself - which at around 70MB is a big chore for a dialup connection - even though it appears it will work in increments - taking up where you last left off in a download of SP2. To disable the update, go to Control Panel, click on System, and under Automatic Updates, uncheck the box: "Keep my computer up to date...." Or leave the box checked and under Settings, check "Notify me before downloading and updates ..." The second choice will allow you to be aware of other XP updates, but you can choose not to install SP2 when you go to the Windows Update site. Noted on Aug. 30, 2004: When you click on Windows Update, you may get a message that new Windows Update software is available. This is NOT the Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2). It is only the new version of the software that manages Windows Update. Click on Yes and it will download and install. You now will have two choices on the main update screen; Express Install and Custom Install. It is not clear whether Express install, which finds updates, downloads them and installs them, will automatically download XP SP2. On a dialup connection XP SP2 may take up to 10 hours to download! If you start the SP2 download and you abort or your dialup connection is broken, SP2 will resume the next time you connect to Windows Update. Still, you will be faced with nearly 10 hours of torture, possibly drop by drop. I would choose Custom Install for now. Once the scan is complete, you will be given a choice to download SP2, which you can ignore, and below that is a choice that will scan for the "other" downloads that are available. Then, you can pick and choose among the other (other than SP2) downloads that are available. Remember that you can still go into Control Panel, Automatic Updates and check a box to: enable automatic updates, disable automatic updates, or check a box that will only notify you that Windows Updates are available (the one I use). You can also order a free CD with XP SP2. Although I could not find it today, there eventually should be a download of the XP SP2 file that you can download from a broadband connection in a library or at work, etc., and copy to a CD for later installation and to share with friends. There is a download for IT professionals already available at www.microsoft.com "downloads." The next question is: When will Win XP Home be available in stores and from online vendors with SP2 as part of the files loaded during the install process? I have the itch to build a new computer. Update: Since this was written, I upgraded a WinXP Home computer to SP2. I used a burned copy of the free Microsoft SP2 disk that a friend of mine ordered. Also, I used this same second-generation SP2 CD-ROM to upgrade my grandson's computer, without a hitch. Later, I built a new Athlon 64 computer and installed an OEM copy of WinXP Home with SP2. All the computers work fine. The only problem was that I had to upgrade a firewall and one other small program to work with SP2. Otherwise, all is well. The US a Democracy? Well ... More or LessTo most of us, who are not historians or political scientists, being a Democracy seems to mean that the people have an equal voice in how we are governed. Sometimes, the letters-to-the-editor in The Wall Street Journal show more insight than that possessed by all the self-righteous and pompous columnists and editorial writers. A fellow wrote a letter saying that Texas is underrepresented in the Senate, due to its large population. He suggested that Texas has a right to divide itself into five different states. Each Texas state would rate two Senators. Another wit responded by saying that we already have too many legislators. He suggested that several of the tiny states in the Northeast, with small populations, be joined into one voting entity, with only two Senators for the lot. Now, there's an idea with merit. While there was a lot of tongue-in-cheek in the two letters in the Journal, they raised a fundamental issue. If we are such a "representative government," why does Wyoming have but one Congressman, yet has two Senators? The argument is made that having two Senators per state ensures that even small states have an equal voice in legislation, since nothing is made law without the Senate voting on it. What happened to "the majority rules"? We find that the liberal East coast, with its several small states, has a disproportionate influence in our policies. You can look at the red and blue states all you want. But, those blue states in the Northeast, along with California, control much of the agenda in the country - no matter which party is in power. The Constitution does not mandate that we have political parties. But we increasingly find Democrats and Republicans refusing to do what it right for the country, instead choosing to do what the party dictates. This is true in the selection of judges, in our stalled energy bill, in the area of Social Security, tort reform, and a host of issues. Think about this. If you took 100 "normal" people (who are not in the Senate) and asked them to work out an energy agenda for the country, it is probable that there would be more agreement than disagreement. A bill could be crafted in short order - if all were Independents, if there were no lobbyists, and nobody was allowed to contribute money to a political candidate. Now, when the energy bill comes to the floor, each side calls the other liars and captives of special interests, and ignorant of the facts regarding environmental impact, and so on. It is a Mexican standoff. We may be wrong, but we are sticking to our position, seems to be the norm. The hell with what is good for America. This past few years has been the most politically divisive of my lifetime. Now, the campaigns are obsessed with how Sen. Kerry won his medals or how many days President Bush showed up for Air National Guard training. Who are the political geniuses who think that what happened over 30 years ago is the most important issue of the campaign? What if nobody voted? Wouldn't that be a hoot? 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 |