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 that "hors d’oeuvre" has to do with a French hooker's reproductive system, you may be a goat-roper. Jan 4, 2004: Some of the greatest insights into our society appear in the letters sections of our newspapers. Anybody who reads this mess of mine regularly knows that I think that many executives are grossly overpaid and that the indulgences of the rich are often obscene and sources of class envy to those less fortunate. You may remember my letter to the WSJ in recent weeks praising the benefits of my $39 Casio watch, for example. Here are two letter to the WSJ for 1-4-05 that speak well to the feelings of perhaps a majority of the population: An Obscenity of Luxury and Vanity Your Dec. 14 page-one article "Making Waves: New Luxury Goods Set Super-Wealthy Apart From Pack" broadens the definition of obscenity. Let me see if I've got this right: almost half a million dollars for a Mercedes to keep up with the fellow in the McMansion next door; $200,000 to strap on a new Rolex watch; and a quarter-billion dollars to build a boat (OK, a yacht), which will then suck up $10 million a year to operate, including $12,000 each time it pulls up to the harbor gas pump? It's humbling to think of how many college tuitions, rescue mission meals or low-income apartments those extravagances could pay for. Someday, people will look at this folly and say the same thing my wife and I did last fall when we visited Versailles, that humble retreat for Louis XIV and his fellow royals. In trying to absorb all of the blinding gold, marble and crystal, all purchased or commissioned while many 17th century Parisians were starving, the only words my wife and I could muster were, "What vanity." Then again, perhaps people are already realizing that. (A later reader pointed out that all these expensive toys provided jobs for people to make them. The "trickle-down" theory. By the time the benefits from these extravagences of the rich trickle down to most of us, it is not enough to fill a shot glass.) Gee, and here I thought I was hot stuff, sitting in my living room looking out my new bay window that I saved three years to buy! I guess that Chardonnay I'm sipping from my Pier 1 wineglass isn't so great either. Thanks for bringing me down to earth and reminding me that I'm just a lowly 8-to-5 worker. Dec. 31, 2004: Several times, I have mentioned in glowing terms the EZ Antivirus program from Computer Associates. I needed another one for a second computer and went online to buy it and download the software. During the checkout process, I was given an opportunity to buy EZ Armor, which was both the EZ Antivirus and a Firewall, for only $10 more than the EZ Antivirus alone. Since I had removed all traces or Norton Internet Security from my computer, this seemed like a good idea. Once I paid for, downloaded, and installed EZ Armor, I was shocked to learn that it had an old version of the Antivirus, and an old version of Zone Alarm (with an EZ Armor logo). Back to the site. I paid for and downloaded version 7 of the EZ Antivirus, which I had been so happy with on my new Athlon computer. Also, I downloaded the current version of Zone Alarm. After uninstalling EZ Armor, I installed Zone Alarm and EZ Antivirus - and they work perfectly, just like on my other computer. The person responsible for trying to foist off an old version of EZ Antivirus, coupled with an old version of Zone Alarm, as a total security solution, ought to be fired. Both of these older programs have vulnerabilities and have been replaced by their respective vendors for good reason. On Monday, the new CEO of Computer Associates, John Swainson, is going to get a letter from me bitterly complaining about the "fraud" on the Web site - and noting this little boondoggle took up my entire afternoon, partly because I am on a dialup line in the country. Verdict: eTrust EZ Antivirus version 7 is great. Zone Alarm 5.5 (either free or the Pro version) is great. eTrust EZ Armor 2005 sucks and it basically a fraud because its real contents are not described on the CA Web page. Note to George Bodenheimer, President of ABC Sports and ESPN: Please tell you commentators that a coach who is about to be fired is in "imminent danger of losing his job," not "eminent danger." You might make a New Year's gift to your commentators of "The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage," which is now in paperback. On page 168 is an entry: "imminent, eminent; Imminent means impending. Eminent means prominent ...." And mention this to your fellow execs at CBS and others who broadcast sports. And tell commentators to stop saying, "I tell you what." Don't tell me what, just tell me - "you know." (I sent Mr. Bodenheimer a second letter within a week. If enough of you would stop watching "Wife Swap," et al., and write letters to the networks, some changes might happen. That is why there are all those keys on the computer keyboard. You can use them to type notes and letters. And you thought they were only good for instant messaging and writing e-mail. But please don't write letters like you write e-mails, with no caps, sentence fragments, and jargon, or we are doomed to garbage on TV forever. They will think we are all "trailer trash" and program accordingly. I lived in a mobile home for eight years, so I know there are varying degrees of inhabitants in trailers. Ross Perot once called me on the phone at my $7500 refurbished mobile home on some acreage here in the Outback. He would no doubt have been surprised at where I lived. He had read many articles I had written in the papers in Dallas over the years. He asked me to help him with his "gun crime" platform. So, don't write me about suggesting that you might be "trailer trash," or you probably are. An ABC TV senior producer once traveled from New York City to the little town of Lockhart, Texas, to talk to me about doing a segment with Sylvia Chase on government censorship (which never aired, but not because of me). I was living in the back of a factory owned by a friend, whom I was helping with some marketing for a few months. My "bedroom" was set apart by two bookcases. The producer seemed non plussed by my surroudings. It is who you are, what you have done, and how you present yourself that counts, whether you live in the back of a factory, in a mobile home, or a $5 million house. I used to play poker in the kitchen of a $5 million house in Dallas. Maybe the toilets worked better, and the refrigerator was huge, but if you are not basically happy with yourself, your family, and your work, a $10 million house or a Rolls Royce is not going to cure your problem. Or my favorite pet peeve, a $20,000 wrist watch. Over the years, I found that millionaries were in awe of anybody who had actually done something in life other than just make money. But I digress - usefully, I hope. Dec. 29, 2004: The Social Security cost-of-living adjustment for the checks starting in 2005 is 2.7%. But, the Medicare deduction has gone up by $11.60 a month. Because my SS payment was calculated on sporadic employment after I left the government service, and thus is rather small, I will get a net increase of $1 per month. Hell of a deal. If the government would attack Medicare fraud and abuse, there would be no need to increase monthly contributions. By the way, if you have CDs in banks paying about 1.5% (or less), you are losing ground to inflation. Granted, they are secured by the FDIC insurance. You tell me why President Bush's idea to put part of your SS into personal investments is not a good idea. Because if you rely on Social Security and CDs for your income, you had better not live too long - or you will be destitute and homeless. (I cut and pasted the above and sent it to the Prez. at www.whitehouse.gov. Try it, it's farily painless, and they even send you a return e-mail and ask if it is really you sending the message or someone using your good name.) Dec. 24, 2004: The alarm du jour is that a large asteroid has about a 1 in 300 chance of hitting Earth in 2029. (Later, the risk was upgraded to 1 in 45.) Not to worry. By 2029, our anti-missle rockets or lasers will be able to hit an asteroid and break it up in space if it comes anywhere close to Earth. Worry about how to pay your Christmas bills. Don't worry about big asteroids hitting Earth. After the Vioxx COX-2 withdrawal and other questions about COX-2 inhibitors in general, the FDA said that the government would undertake a thorough review of pain killers. In the WSJ for 12-24-04 was the following: Aspirin would be taken off the market? Are you serious, Doc? Would you care to elucidate on what the side effects are - other than possible gastrointestinal bleeding? That comment ought to endear you to the pharmaceutical companies who make prescription pain-killers. Is it possible that Dr. Ellman will be attending a conference in Hawaii soon - paid for by the pharmaceutical industry? I'm not accusing the good doctor of any bias or of being influenced by outside interests. Just asking. Dec. 23, 2004: A lady in Dallas named Julie had her dead cat cloned for $50,000. It is this kind of crap that will get Hillary Clinton elected president. Her platform will be a re-distribution of wealth from those who can afford to pay 50K to clone a dead kitty, when the world is awash in too many cats, to those who cannot even afford to feed a kitty. Julie, dear. My beloved Border Collie died after I raised her from a pup. She used to nestle on my chest during the winters here in the Outback. I grieved, and still grieve, for that wonderful companion. I have not replaced the dog, because a new one would probably outlive me, and I would not want to burden the dog with grieving for me (they do, you know). But, if you felt compelled to spend 50K to clone your cat, I suggest that some of the money could have been better spent in psychological counseling. I am fed up with people who have more money than sense. This is very cruel, but I hope your cat chokes on a fur ball and dies. Would you keep on cloning the kitty? If you have a husband, are you setting aside money to have him cloned? But wait. If you clone a person, don't they start at day one of their new life? That way, a lady could finally achieve the goal of every woman, "raising my husband the way I want him to be." If you have no husband, call me. Maybe I can provide something in your life that you are missing that you think a 50K cloned cat will give you. Dec. 21,2004: The free Adobe Acrobat Reader, Version 7.0, is available at www.adobe.com Dec. 18, 2004: On NBC's "Saturday Night Live," Tina Fey was part of a fake commercial for a robotic feminine-hygiene product. In one shot, she was stunning. She had "it." I will not be the only one to notice. Look for her to appear in real commercials in the not-too-distant future. This may have been the show where SNL did the disgusting takeoff on Rush Limbaugh as a puking drug addict (which I read about later). I watch only "Weekend Update" on my DVR. Tina Fey is the head writer at SNL. If she had anything to do with writing or approving the Limbaugh sketch, I will be forced by conscience to put SNL completely off limits. Too bad. Tina and Amy are by far the best News teams in a decade or two on SNL. With all the hand-wringing about the price of oil and dependence on foreign oil, has anybody calculated what it costs in terms of fuel to produce the electricity in high-rise office buildings at night? It seems that every shot of a night-time skyline you see, the office buildings are lit up like Christmas trees. Few people work late into the night in those buildings. The cleaning crews ought to have the mantra "Clean and Click." That is, clean the office and click the light switch on your way out. While helping a friend set up a new computer, I installed the Firefox 1.0 Internet browser. I explained about all the security problems there had been with Internet Explorer 6, and the fact that Firefox has tabs and other neat features. Then, I said that the only time you normally "have" to use IE6 is to obtain the Windows/IE6 updates and bug fixes. Or on a Web site that uses an ActiveX component, which happens to be one of the vehicles for spyware and other intrusions into your computer. So, you need to use IE6 only to fix problems with it and the Windows operating system, and to access ActiveX components on some Web sites - which may then cause you problems with your computer. What a sorry state of affairs. And Microsoft wonders why so many of us will use their products only as an absolute last resort. It is still a mystery to me why people think that it is a display of athletic skill for a person 6 feet 7 inches to 7-feet tall to dunk a basketball. The three-point shot was a good idea to bring some skill shooting back to the game. Now, I suggest that an arc be drawn about 8-feet from the basket. All shots from inside this 8-foot arc would count as only one (1) point. Except, a layup, jumper, or finger roll would count as 2-points if the player's hand was never above the rim during the execution of the shot. Infrared sensors would monitor the level of the rim to detect violations. And there will be no body-checking or shoving on the back of the opposing player to impede his progress to the basket. Also, people who clear an area by rolling into another player - or using an elbow to shove them out of the way - will be charged with an offensive foul. There will be no running from the foul line to the basket without dribbling the ball (formerly called "steps"). On a free throw, nobody will be allowed in the lane until the ball has cleared the hand of the shooter. That may currently be the rule, but you would never know it. Basketball was never intended to be a "contact sport." Return it to its roots of skill and grace. Thus, the 7-foot people, who shoot only 46% of their free throws, and think they are an offensive tackle, could then be better utilized by picking Oranges on tall trees. Somebody who read the piece below about late-night comedy commented about the lack of musical and variety shows on TV. What ever happened to shows like "The Andy Williams Show," "The Perry Como Show," "The Dean Martin Show," "The Dinah Shore Show," and comedy with Carol Burnett, Sid Caesar, and Milton Berle? I am not paying $50 per DVD to relive these old shows. Instead, we have shows where people eat worms, dysfunctional girls and guys who seek to find a soulmate - but almost never end up together after the show ends - people on islands scheming to screw the other team, and other assorted garbage. Let's not even bring up the subject of "Masterpiece Theater," whose producer I had the privelege of knowing. PBS variety and music shows often spend more time on pledge drives than on the actual content. Anybody who can watch two hours of that is a masochist. Bill Gates, please completely fund PBS, and end our pledge-drive suffering. It is nice to help Africa, but "charity begins at home." Dec. 13, 2004: Congratulations to President Bush for nominating Bernard Kerik for Homeland Security Secretary before his background check was completed. I wonder if Laura Bush ever said, "George, I get really get bad vibes from this fellow Kerik." Time will tell. As I suggested a couple of days ago (see below), the "nanny thing" was probably the least of his problems. Forget the possible mob ties and questionable financial dealings. What really hacks me off is his affair with publisher Judith Regan. For years, I have had a "thing" for Judith and probably communicated that to her in a letter or e-mail somewhere along the way. But, now that it is alleged that she had an affair with that creep Kerik, I am taking her off my list of fantasy partners. Not that she cares, but she could do a lot worse. And apparently did. Kerik deserves whatever pejoratives are heaped upon him for lying to the president's screeners about his past and not coming clean about things that were not even asked. He's a former chief of police of NYC. How stupid can you be to think that your past indiscretions and possible illegal dealings would not be uncovered? Bernard, you are a disgrace to police everywhere. Speaking of Laura Bush, back on Jan. 20, 2001, I wrote the following in the Outback: "My prediction is that Laura Bush will become the most respected and beloved first lady in our history. During the gloomy, rainy inauguration, it was as though she had somehow connected to the energy of the Sun and was casting a radiant glow over the entire proceeding. The light blue coat was the perfect choice for the event. It was hard to concentrate on President Bush. Laura was such a quiet, calming, yet powerful presence." Well, have you read the polls in 2004?
I am right much more than I am wrong in matters of the law and public policy. But I guessed wrong on Scott Peterson. The jury, based solely on circumstantial evidence, has recommended the death sentence. Apparently one of the deciding factors for the jury was Scott's seeming lack of sorrow for his wife's death. Terrific! Now California has established three new tests for the death penalty, "the defendant appeared to have a bad attitude, was an adulterer, and he was not truthful in his marriage." But, as I pointed out earlier, there is little chance he will ever be executed. This adds to my contempt for the "fruits and nuts" in California. They could not convict O.J. Simpson of murder with his blood all over. Yet, they sentence to death Scott Peterson based solely on circumstantial evidence - and his attitude in court. Go figure. The last time I visited California was about 20 years ago. And that will probably be my last visit. God forbid that I would commit a crime there. A jury trial is like a lottery, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is a legal zoo. Even many of the 9th Circuit judges are begging for the circuit to be broken up into more manageable units. Bernard Kerik has withdrawn his nomination to head Homeland Security. He cites a problem with a nanny as a major reason. Nanny problems usually mean that they are either illegal aliens or the employer has problems with non-payment of payroll taxes. An official said Bernard Kerik still had not filled out all his ethics filings — which would detail his sources of income and financial liabilities — and said the FBI background investigation of Kerik was still incomplete. As a former Federal agent and intelligence agent, it is inconceivable to me that people are nominated for Cabinet posts, especially one as critical as Homeland Security, without being completely vetted. Bernard Kerik may have "nanny problems," but as the loyal opposition digs (or would have dug) deeper, that is probably the least of his problems. The guy never looked right to me. Just a gut feeling. Continuing on the theme of lack of vetting, my novel "Serpent on the Hill," was based on the premise that a Russian KGB illegal could come into this country (probably via Canada), assimilate himself by using the name of a real U.S. citizen who died overseas, marry into a well-known family, run for public office and be elected, and eventually run for President of the United States. Why? Because there is no vetting of political candidates, other than the dirt the media and the opposition can dig up. One Congressman, who gave me a quote for my dust jacket, said to me one day as we sat by the pool, "I used to look around at the hundreds of people on the House floor and say to myself, who the hell are all these people?" Sen. Barry Goldwater gave me a dust-jacket quote, which was for the 3-rd edition that never got printed. He agreed with me that my premise about the spy becoming president was plausible. As did many others in high positions. President Carter's personal secretary, Susan Clough, read the book - as did some in the Reagan White House. A friend of mine in the White House Press Office passed a copy personally to President Reagan, but I don't know if he read it. None of those people ever challenged my premise. Just in case you are feeling sorry for former Sen. Tom Daschle because he lost his Senate seat by "only" 4,500 votes, you should recall that he first got elected the the House of Representatives in 1978 by 139 votes! And that was after a statewide recount. An enterprising young investigative journalist might find an interesting story if he or she dug deeply into that 1978 election. President Bush has a comrade in the mangled words department. James Towey, White House Faith Based Community Initiatives Director, said on C-SPAN "...and President Bush is committed to working on a bipartisan basement ..." If you work in a bipartisan basement, does that mean that the conclusions will never see the light of day?" Bill Moyers is retiring from TV. "I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee," said Moyers. "We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people." Help me off the floor. We have a "right-wing media" in this country? Tell that to CBS, NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, ad infinitum, Bill. They will put their hands over their mouths to keep you from seeing them giggling. DSL broadband Internet access has come to the Outback, but you have to be no more than about three miles from the telephone central in town for it to work. I miss the cutoff, as I am 5.9 miles out of town. Foiled again. I called DELL computers to place an order for a friend. The lady said they were having trouble with their computer. That was a confidence builder. After about 20 minutes of fits and starts and being on hold, she asked if she could call back. By the next day, no call had come. We called, and they could find no trace of the order. But, we now had answers to a few earlier questions, so we went online and placed the order. We can only hope that the computer that took the order was made by HP or somebody other than DELL. Another reason I build my own computers. To be fair, the DELL we ordered is actually a little better equipped than the one I just built, and they threw in a 17-inch LCD monitor for about the price I paid to build my AMD Athlon 64 machine, using my existing monitors. But, do they have three blue panel lights, a brushed aluminum case, a whisper-quiet machine, and a 64-bit CPU? No. A prison inmate has been accused of stabbing another prisoner with a sharpened pork-chop bone. TSA are you listening? No T-bone steaks for airline meals and only butterfly pork chops. Not to worry. There are no T-bones in those bags of peanuts. On JEOPARDY! one question (on a program which aired here on Dec. 8) was about the name of the 13-word book title written by Dr. David Reuben. This is the first time that I recall a friend of mine being the subject of a question on JEOPARDY!. The book, "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask," was written more than 30 years ago. Since then, David has written many books. Long after I read the "Sex" book, I ran into a guy named Dave in Costa Rica on the ham-radio bands. He said that he did "some writing." Eventually, I discovered who he really was. We continued our radio conversations when I lived in Hawaii. On a trip to Costa Rica, where I was staying with a doctor, who later became Minister of Health, I asked if he had the phone number for Dr. Reuben. As I recall, there were no phone books. He gave me the number, I called, and David and I met for lunch. We continued to keep in touch via ham radio, but due to the worsening cycle for long-distance ham-radio (the 11-year sunspot cycle), I have not talked to him in a long time. Ken Jennings ruined JEOPARDY!, perhaps forever. Watching the show since he left is like being a life-long Yankee fan and then being forced to watch only pick-up softball games in Central Park. The contestants are mostly very dull and act like robots. Even I know many of the answers that some of the new crop of contestants seem baffled by. And like Sgt. Schultz of "Hogan's Heroes," I know nothing. On the outside envelope of a solicitation for the "Harvard Health Letter," was this comment: "ZOCOR, LIPITOR and other statin medicines help those with high cholesterol - but do you know the wonderful things these drugs do for people with normal cholesterol?" You read the alleged claims versus the potential side effects and see how "wonderful" you think the statins are. Harvard medical ought to be ashamed. That statement alone was enough for me to trash the offering, although I once subscribed and found that all of the health newsletters were fighting over the same "news" and became redundant. Especially with the advent of more and more health information on the Web being drawn from medical journals and papers at conferences. (See, for example, www.statinalert.org and www.thincs.org) Sadly, there is also a statinalert.com, which is a shill and shopping site for statins. You want to read the STATINALERT.ORG site, if you or anyone you care about is taking a statin. Martha Stewart is going to have a new TV show when she gets out of the slammer. Let's hope that she does not use it as an incessant platform for judicial and prison reform. We can read all about that in the book, Martha. Young men are being warned that sitting a laptop computer in their lap may heat up the family jewels and could lead to a low sperm count. The study did not go so far as to say "Get a lap dance, not a laptop." A friend (former?) sent me an e-mail the other day in which I was listed as one of about 15 CC: addressees that all recipients could read. Now, all of us know who his friends are and have their e-mail addresses. The real problem is that now each person's In-Box will show all those e-mail addresses. If even one of them gets a virus or worm that sends virus e-mails to every e-mail address found on that computer, a vicious chain is started. Use BCC: (blind carbon copy) for multiple addressees. I keep adding to my computer moat. I use the Zone Alarm Pro firewall, eTrust EZ Antivirus (which updates automatically every day). I also run periodic checks with Ad-Aware SE (a newer version of the free software, and you can download updated definitions frequently), and Spybot Search & Destroy. The latest addition is Pest Patrol (Computer Associates), a paid program, which works in the background to intercept spyware and even cookies that might be "phoning home." I never accept a cookie from any site unless I have a "account" there, such as Amazon, about three online newspapers, Yahoo, etc. If I do a one-time order online, I delete all the associated cookies after the transaction is concluded. Naturally, I am using the Firefox 1.0 browser. I do not allow Firefox (or Windows) to save passwords, only my logon name at a few sites, or allow data for "forms" to be saved. I back up all my changed data once or more a day to an external USB hard drive, and periodically burn all my data (docs, pics, scans, database, Quicken, etc.) to a DVD. Keeping a Windows computer free from intruders is a costly and very time-consuming job. My next computer may be an Apple or run Linux. More and more, I find myself reading a book during the time I used to devote to watching Leno or Letterman. Maybe Conan O'Brien can be said to do "skits," but I can't stand to watch his show. Carson did do a bunch of skits, which remain classics. There was the "Tea Time Movies," with Art Fern, where he always got caught hugging a bosomy model as the "movie" went to commercial. And the great maps of how to get to one of his faux advertisers, with the "Fork in the Road," (a graphic of a fork) and so on. Then, there was his Aunt Blabby - in old-lady drag. And "Floyd R. Turbo, American," in which he dressed in a hunter's outfit with a dopey red hat with drooping ear flaps - and carried a rifle or shotgun. It was a great takeoff on Joe six-pack and the American tradition of hunting. And the one that Letterman has stolen, "Carnac The Magnificent" (I think he called himself the Great Carsoni when he did magic), where he would divine the answer to the question posed in a sealed envelope, "which has been kept sealed in a mason jar on Funk & Wagnalls porch since noon today" (as I recall the bit). This is all from memory, folks.
Johnny's then producer, Fred de Cordova, was giving some thought to having me on the show at about the time they cut back from 90 minutes to 60 minutes - and that pretty much ended the author gigs. My friend Ray Johnson, the former Folsom-prison inmate, whom Johnny Carson took a liking to, probably appeared on the show more than nearly anybody but the most famous of movie stars. Ray Johnson and I became friends when we were both working on security projects for 7-ELEVEN. He had been a burglar, who served a lot of time in prison. We hit it off because I pointed out our similarities, "Ray, you went to prison for it. I got paid for it by the CIA." He loved it, and a close friendship developed. For a while Leno did "Iron Jay" - the fat-headed weight lifter and fitness guru who answered questions from the audience. And there was "Beyondo," where his disembodied head would answer questions from who knows where. Both had their moments. And some others I probably have forgotten. I miss Iron Jay. Letterman has "Stupid Pet Tricks," and "Stupid Human Tricks," but I don't ever remember him taking on a persona to do a full-blown and recurring skit. David, in my opinion is the best interviewer on TV. Short, simple questions, and he lets the guest talk about as long as he or she cares to. I have quit watching him largely due to his endless Cheney heart attack jokes and comments about Cheney's lesbian daughter - and overly cruel jokes about President Bush, especially during the campaign. Dave, see a shrink and find out where all that anger is coming from. The country will survive Cheney and another Republican administration, just as we survived Nixon, the mostly inept Jimmy Carter, and the infamous Bill Clinton. Conan O'Brien has been tapped to replace Jay Leno in a few years. Conan is a strange choice in my opinion, but who else is there? He looks like a cartoon on the cover of MAD Magazine, his voice is too strident for my taste, and he seems very juvenile at times. But, my biggest beef is that he slaps his hands together, constantly, during his monologue, which is picked up loudly by the mike. One of the first thing any entertainer usually learns is not to rub on your clothing near where the mike is clipped and not to slap your hands or slap on the desk, etc. As an old spook, I am very sensitive to extraneous noises on audio feeds. So, I watch Conan for five minutes or so now and then, just to make sure my complaints are all still there. No change. By the time he takes over "Tonight," there will be enough HDTV to find "Polar Bears of the Arctic" or "Bikini Destinations" so as not to ever be tempted to watch him. I was amazed that Jimmy Kimmel got a late-night show on a major network, and still am. I watched the tasteless "Man Show" on Comedy Central about three times when he was the host. He got by on Boob jokes and other salacious material - and often downright gross and disgusting material. Once in a while, I will check five minutes or so of his current show, but what I see is either so bland or so idiotic, that I move on. It is a generation gap thing, I suppose. In my case, it is a several-generation gap. Nightline is the late-night competition. By that time of the night, I don't want to have to think, and Koppel's imperious style wore thin for me after a few years. I once was an audience participant in a live show he did on censorship from the ABC station in Dallas. I had gotten up, when audience comments were solicited, and castigated the CIA for the "horrendous procedure" to get my novel cleared for publication. The panel was anxious to talk to me afterwards. I was pretty surprised at the attention. I met Ted Koppel, along with several well-known journalists and the renowned First-Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams (NY Times "Pentagon Papers," et al.). Floyd gave me his biz card and asked me to keep in touch, which we did for a couple of years. It was a night I will never forget. In one of those, please don't tell us Grandpa how you had to walk two miles to school in knee-deep snow and 20 below (I did), I long for the old days of late night. Steve Allen was a multi-faceted genius. Jack Paar was truly bright and gifted. And Johnny Carson set the bar so high that every pretender since has fouled out and fallen onto the pole-vault mat on their back - in comparison. What we are left with is an endless parade of celebrity air-heads who come on and plug their movies, talk about how cute their cat is, how the dog ate the drapes, how long it has taken to remodel their $8 million mansion, and other assorted drivel. Thank God for the Digital Video Recorder and the 300X fast-forward function - and the OFF button. The most recent guidelines for lowering cholesterol and for lowering blood pressure came about via procedures that violated all the rules for promulgating and announcing such guidelines. As a result of these two guidelines, about 36 million Americans will be considered candidates for statin cholesterol-lowering drugs, and many additional millions more for blood pressure medications. This is good news for pharmaceutical companies. But, many doctors say that the guidelines have taken millions of normal people and turned them into "sick" people on paper. The Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC 7) is referred to in the excerpts cited below. The following excerpts are from an article by: Originally published in the Health and Stress newsletter of The American Institute of Stress. "The law requires that all important federal rules, including guidelines that affect the public, must be written and promulgated according to the Government Code. This code mandates formal selection of a committee, pre-announcement of all meetings, open meetings that encourage testimony from all interested parties as well as written records, all of which must be preserved in a special docket. Everything is then reviewed in order to provide a written discussion of all the relevant evidence leading to the final rules or guidelines that must be published in the Federal Register. In addition, if the published guidelines are not consonant with a logical review of the evidence presented, the recommendations may be overturned by legal action. Since the new JNC-7 guidelines seemed to fall under these rules I accessed the Federal Register but was unable to find anything relevant. When I contacted the Government Printing Office to inquire about this I received a reply confirming they had no JNC records and was referred to a NIH web site. This was remarkably reminiscent of how the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) for the detection and treatment of high cholesterol had operated. The first NCEP report issued in 1988 was timed to coincide with the introduction of Mevacor, Merck's new cholesterol lowering drug. In an unprecedented action it was released directly to the public, weeks before doctors could read the scientific information on which it was based. The last set of revised guidelines in 2001, which tripled the number of Americans advised to take statins, was also publicized prematurely. In both instances, the guidelines were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association but not the Federal Register. There was no public notice of any meetings, the meetings were not open to the public, public input was not solicited, and detailed records and testimony of committee meetings were not kept. The Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC) has followed the same format in order to bypass Government rules and regulations. When NIH officials were questioned about this they explained that the cholesterol and hypertension guidelines were written by a non-government committee of experts that they had selected and were therefore not subject to the Federal Register regulations. This despite the fact that they are presented by government spokespersons at government press conferences and are promoted in the media here and abroad as the latest government guidelines. The new JNC-7 report made its debut at a special session of the American Society of Hypertension Annual meeting in New York. This took place on the same day in May as the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Press Conference was held in Washington and coincided with appearance of the JNC 'Express Report' on the Journal of The American Medical Association web site. My personal suspicion is that powerful pharmaceutical interests were behind much of this, as well as making May National Hypertension Month. Although JNC-7 reverted to the previous advice that inexpensive diuretics were the first choice it also emphasized that 'Most patients with hypertension will require two or more antihypertensive medications to achieve goal pressure.' The recommendation for diuretics as first line therapy were largely based on the Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT) study conclusions that many disagreed with. ALLHAT results were also reported early in the JAMA Express and some feel that anything dealing with statins receives this preferential treatment. This holds true for other respected peer reviewed publications such as Lancet, which has also expedited statin studies despite the fact that they show nothing new or significant. Conversely, it is very hard to get anything negative about statins published, even when the data is solid. Perhaps this has something to do with the enormous revenues publications derive from statin advertisements. John Laragh, director of the Cardiovascular Center at the New York Presbyterian Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, founded the American Society of Hypertension, is editor-in-chief of its journal, and past president of the International Society of Hypertension. He is one of the world's leading authorities on hypertension because of his delineation of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, which landed him on the cover of Time magazine. I grew up with John, we have been personal and professional friends for well over 50 years, and he was a founding Trustee of The American Institute of Stress. I was tempted to ask him about his opinion of the new guidelines, but didn't have to. His objections to this and the ALLHAT study were vividly detailed at a press conference and were summed up by his colleague, Larry Resnick, as essentially 'garbage.' Up until a few weeks ago, if you asked anyone, including doctors what they considered a normal or desirable adult blood pressure to be, 120/80 would have been the most frequent response. Not any more. According to the new JNC-7 guidelines, 120/80 puts you in a new disease category called 'prehypertension' and at increased risk for heart attack, stroke, or kidney disease. Whatever happened to the good old days when a normal systolic pressure was 100 plus your age? Not everyone agrees with this and the upper limit is now usually considered to be 140/90, even for people over 70. Some senior citizens will consistently complain of weakness and dizziness if their blood pressures are lower than the 120/80 value that is now recommended. This is particularly true for women, who normally tend to have higher blood pressures than men in this age group." (End of excerpts from Dr. Paul J. Rosch, who is a member of THINCS.Org. You can find a number of his published and unpublished materials at: www.thincs.org.) In many years of research, I have found precious little in the mainstream media or medical journals that challenges the basic "medical wisdom" that, for example, cholesterol casues heart disease, the lower your cholesterol and blood pressure the better off you will be - and that statins not only lower cholesterol but prevent heart attacks and strokes, among many other statin claims. One of the interesting facets of THINCS.ORG is the number of highly-specialized doctors, researchers, biochemists, et al., who cannot get a letter published anywhere that flies in the face of conventional medical wisdom. Here are just a couple (of hundreds you can find) of unpublished letters that give you a flavor for how the loyal medical opposition is ignored and thwarted: (from www.thincs.org) Letter to the editor of JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) New guidelines for converting healthy people into patients. With their new guidelines the National Cholesterol Education Program’s (NCEP) expert panel exaggerates the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) and the relevance of high cholesterol and ignores a wealth of contradictory evidence. A few examples. To claim that 20% of patients with coronary heart disease have a new heart attack after ten years the panel has included minor symptoms without clinical significance. Most people survive even a major heart attack, many with few or no symptoms after recovery. What matters is how many die and this is much less than 20%. The predictive power of a high cholesterol is overrated. In the 30 year follow-up of the Framingham cohort for instance, high cholesterol was not predictive after the age of forty-seven. It is not a strong predictor for women, Canadian men and patients with established CHD either. In Russia, low cholesterol is a predictor of CHD, and individuals with familial hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol) may live just as long and have a risk of CHD just as low as that of normal people. No doubt the statins lower coronary mortality, but the size of the effect is unimpressive. In the CARE trial for instance, the odds of escaping death from a heart attack in five years for a patient with CHD was 94.3%, which improved to 95.4% with statin treatment. For healthy people with high cholesterol the effect is even smaller; in the WOSCOPS trial, the figures were 98.4% and 98.8%, respectively. These figures do not take into account possible side effects which usually appear more often. In animal experiments the statins have proven carcinogenic. In the CARE trial statin treatment was followed by more breast cancer. In the EXCEL trial, total mortality after just one year was much higher in those receiving statins. Unfortunately the trial was stopped before further observations could be made. We need more experience before introducing mass-prevention with potentially carcinogenic drugs. The panel ignores that a systematic review of relevant epidemiological and experimental studies found no evidence that dietary fat has effect on atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease. Most important, coronary and total mortality were unchanged in meta-analyses of the dietary trials. Instead of preventing cardiovascular disease, the new guidelines may transform healthy individuals into unhappy hypochondriacs obsessed with the chemical composition of their food and their blood, destroy the art of cuisine and the joy of eating, and divert health care money from the sick and the poor to the rich and the healthy. Aug 22, 2003 As indicated, "Why Low Cholesterol May Not Protect You" (August 19), there is a push to prescribe statins for people with normal cholesterol and LDL values, including all diabetics and hypertension. But how will dosage and duration of treatment be determined? There is abundant evidence that the cardioprotective effects of statins are related to their anti-inflammatory activities rather than any effects on lipids. Therefore, the current goal of lowering LDL to an arbitrary level that the vast majority of patients are unable to achieve is not only inappropriate but dangerous. Contrary to pharmaceutical company propaganda, statins are not as safe as generally believed and since adverse side effects are related to dosage and duration of therapy, their incidence will surely increase if current guidelines are followed. Like aspirin, the anti-inflammatory effects of statins may be attained at dosages much lower than for other indications. Measuring markers of inflammation such as CRP might be a much safer way to monitor statin therapy. Return to: Cholesterol, Statins, Coenzyme Q10, et al. on my main Web page 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 |