What's All This Then? |
|
|
commentary on the passing parade Agree? Disagree? Tell me
ARCHIVES
|
Saturday, November 29, 2003
MORE HEALTHCARE GOBBLEDYGOOK I've been off for a few days because of the holidays, so there's some catching up to do. I read the Chicago Tribune every morning and last Wednesday morning the Chicago Tribune agreed with me that there were a lot of things wrong with the Medicare bill that passed in the Senate on November 25th. But much of what the Tribune saw as wrong - that it costs too much and that "creating a huge new federal entitlement without injecting a massive dose of private competition into Medicare is no cause for celebration" - is symptomatic of the kind of thinking about healthcare that keeps everyone involved stumbling around in the same labyrinth year after year, finding new and ever more complicated paths, but all of them leading nowhere, except deeper into the labyrinth. Instead of saying that the basic concept embodied in the bill - that we can solve the healthcare needs of this country with one series of patchwork proposals after another - is the wrong way to go, we accept the premise that has been presented and try to discuss it and dissect it as though it was something other than a real life version of the Mad Hatter’s tea party. It reminds me of the story of the man on his hands and knees under a lamp post. A stranger passing by asks him what he’s doing. He says he’s looking for his front door key. The stranger asks where he dropped it . The man says "over there by my front door." "So why are you looking here" the stranger asks. To which the man replies, "because the light’s better over here." The Tribune accepts the better light premise somberly, but warns that there could be a power interruption down the road and that might make it even harder for the man to find his key - even though he’s looking where it can never be found. If explorers from an advanced planet were to visit earth for the sole purpose of examining how the world’s leading nation manages the healthcare of it’s citizens, their report would likely contain a warning to stay away from this crazy planet where they think they can solve their healthcare needs with a method that approximates calculating the value of Pi!! The approach to the healthcare problems of this nation needs to be through a single payer system that covers everyone for everything, including drugs. It’s called a NATIONAL HEALTHCARE PLAN - a phrase that most elected officials are as reluctant to use as they are to finish a speech without saying God bless America, or, heaven forbid (pun intended) saying that they (gasp) don’t believe in God. The Tribune bemoans the fact that the Medicare bill fails to inject a "massive dose of competition" into the plan, as though that would be the magic formula to bring costs down to an affordable level. We need to stop being hung up on the concept of the so called "free market" as being the solution to everything. There are some areas of national life where the free market just doesn’t work. Would you like to have private, competing armies vying for the job of fighting the nation’s wars? We have thousands of hospitals and specialty clinics, and hundreds of thousands of doctors, all vying for our healthcare business. Hospitals and clinics - and now even doctors, advertise in all media. But nowhere in any of the advertising designed to induce us to select a particular hospital or a particular doctor, is a price inducement mentioned. Where I live, there is almost no variation in the fees charged by general practitioners or specialists, and just about everything they do that is covered by insurance is paid at a rate determined by a code. A code for a brief office visit. A code for a longer visit. A code for sticking something in your ear or you nose. And so on. A pre-determined rate according to the assigned code. In some fields of endeavor, this would be called price fixing. Hospitals advertise how modern and up to date they are and how they have the best doctors, but none advertise that one reason to select their hospital for your major operation is that you will save thousands of dollars over the charges of other hospitals. Pharmaceutical companies pour millions of dollars into promotion of their products - to doctors and now to the general public with heavy advertising in all media. A lot of the drugs they push are "me too" drugs. That is, drugs for a particular ailment that are available, often with no important formula variation, from a number of companies. Does that competition bring down prices? Do any of the pharmaceutical companies compete for business by offering a better price for their products? Do they suggest that you’ll save more money with the "purple pill" than with some other colored nostrum? Competition to bring down the cost of healthcare? Give me a break. We’ll get to a sane healthcare plan eventually, but it’ll be a long and rocky road and I won’t get to see it in my lifetime. Maybe not in my children’s lifetime. I have faint hopes for my grandchildren. I have lots more to say about healthcare. Watch this space. Tuesday, November 25, 2003
FLIM FLAM MEDICARE LEGISLATION A few weeks ago, I was visiting the dealership where I bought my car for some "while you wait " service work, and while I was waiting, thought I would visit with the friendly sales executive who sold me the car two years ago. Let’s call him R.V. To my surprise, I learned he was no longer there. He had moved to Canada. But the big surprise was why he had moved to Canada. The person who gave me the news didn’t know all of the details, but the basic reason was because of the health of his daughter. Apparently, whatever those health problems were, and whatever family health insurance coverage he had, he couldn’t handle those problems living in the United States. What a sad statement about our health system, which is supposed to be the best in the world. That is unless you’re caught in no man’s land as a middle class citizen who can’t qualify for free services and with a family health problem that you can’t pay for or that can’t be covered. I thought about R.V. today as I heard what happened with the Medicare/Prescription coverage bill. I haven’t read this bill. I doubt that most of the senators who voted on it today have read it either. But from everything I have read and heard about the bill, it doesn’t take much studying to conclude that it is the most convoluted piece of gobbledygook to come out of congress in many a year. It’s as though they have decided that in order to "improve" Medicare, they need to model it after the original Topsy clone - the Internal Revenue Service. I think Ted Kennedy had it right. This may be the beginning of the end for Medicare as we’ve known it for nearly 40 years. What on earth is the matter with this country ? Every major western democracy has a national health care plan where the driving force is not profit. Despite the gloom and doom talk that we hear from those opposed to any such plan - who are also likely to believe that Medicare is some kind of communist idea - other countries are not going into bankruptcy because of their national health plans and neither is health care "rationed" to the extent that someone in need of care can’t get it. I know whereof I speak because I have a close relative living in England with multiple health problems, who has been hospitalized numerous times in recent years and has had a number of major operations. The cost to that person other than premiums paid into the system - at exactly the same premium rate that every working person pays or paid during their working years? Zero. Nada. Zilch. The bill here? It would have been well into six figures and perhaps even seven We are a country where huge profits are made off the ill health of our citizens Insurance companies. Pharmaceutical companies. Health organizations of all kinds. And hospitals. It is a profit driven industry. Yet millions of Americans are without any form of insurance to cover the astronomical cost of almost any kind of health care, and millions of others fall through the cracks - not so rich that the cost of health care isn’t a problem, not poor enough to qualify for free or subsidized care, yet unable to pay for the insurance they need. It’s a disgrace, as is this convoluted prescription drug "plan" that Mr. Bush has already begun gloating about as a "victory" for America’s seniors. It’s a victory all right, for all who will profit from this flim flam piece of legislation, not the least of which are the culprits in this whole masquerade - the pharmaceutical companies. Where is the legislation or any other kind of action to cut down on the astronomical cost of prescription and non prescription medications? At the rate at which the prices go up in leaps and bounds every year, by the time the prescription drug "benefit" kicks in in 2006, seniors who need to be on multiple medications to keep them alive or reasonably healthy, may have to pay a monthly amount for their share of the "plan" that could be close to the amount of their social security checks. That is, if our great leaders haven’t figured out a way to privatize social security by that time. It’s not an idea on the back burner folks. Still, there may be a saving grace to today’s vote. I don’t know where the information comes from, but I have heard that a huge majority of America’s seniors are against this legislation, and that members of AARP, the senior’s organization - and incidentally, the large and profitable business that endorsed the plan- were against it in a ratio of four to one!!!. This could be fodder for the Democrats next year. Seniors are like elephants. They’re not going to forget this - at least those of us - and yes, that includes me - who aren’t fooled by the enactment of this "benefit," and smart Democratic candidates will say to the non seniors in their districts - ask your parents or grandparents what they think about how this president and this congress is handling the unconscionable cost that the wealthy pharmaceutical companies are imposing on them every month, every week, every day of their golden years. I think it’ll play in Peoria. I don’t live that far from Peoria, and for sure it’s already playing in my house Friday, November 21, 2003
ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS - THE CRITICISM NEEDS TO BE BILATERAL It’s supposed to be a joke. Convicted of murdering his parents, the killer asks the court for mercy because he’s an orphan. One can have sympathy for the poor soul who has been so tragically orphaned, but of course the sympathy needs to be tempered by the knowledge of how the loss came about. He killed his parents, damn it!!! A growing number of Israeli voices are being raised in opposition to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, and many of those voices belong to prominent Israeli citizens. The most recent criticisms came from four former heads of Shin Bet, the Israeli security service. I tend to agree with much of what these four gentlemen and others have been saying. That the Palestinians are suffering. That restrictions on their lives and their movements breed hatred. That the settlements and the security fence are barriers to peace. Even that Israel’s behavior toward the Palestinians could be considered "disgraceful" - and that’s a quote from Avraham Shalom, who was head of Shin Bet in the eighties. The problem with these criticisms is that they suffer from the orphaned murderer syndrome. As with the murderer who asks for mercy because he has lost his parents, we have to ask about the admittedly untenable situation viz a viz the Palestinians How did we get here? The conditions that exist for the Palestinians did not come about because of proactive policies of successive Israeli administrations, but are rather the end result of reactions to a succession of Palestinianactions dating back to a time prior to 1967. Remember, there was no peace before 1967, when there were no settlements, no walls, no need for targeted killings, or destruction of Palestinian homes, or road blocks or checkpoints or any of the restrictive measures that the critics decry. Admittedly, Israel has made mistakes in dealing with the situation since 1967, probably foremost among them the establishment of settlements on the west bank and in Gaza. And admittedly, Israel’s current policies seem only to exacerbate the situation. But what the four former security chiefs are recommending - stop "brutalizing" the Palestinians, start negotiations and deal with Arafat - has been tried again and again without success. Just when the parties have seemed to be on the verge of an agreement that could have led to a final settlement, the Palestinians have backed away and brought everything back to square one. Surely these wise veterans of Israel’s battles, don’t believe that unilateral actions by Israel in the form of dismantling all settlements beyond the 1967 borders, the removal of the security fence and the withdrawal of all troops from the west bank and Gaza would bring peace? I can’t imagine that they believe that the psyche of the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world for that matter, has undergone some kind of metamorphosis, from thinking of the arrival of the Jewish state as the "Naqba - The Catastrophe," to wanting to live in peaceful harmony with Israel, if only Israel would cooperate with that desire. I think it’s a good thing that Israel’s policies are being challenged by some of its leading citizens, but I also think these citizens do a disservice to their country when they suggest that what is required to break the stalemate is a series of unilateral actions by Israel. A couple of peace plans have been suggested that could lead to a mutually beneficial end to the hostilities, including one offered on these pages. One unilateral action that Israel could take would be to endorse one of them and see what happens. But bold, bilateral moves in the form of action, not just words, are needed to break the stalemate. When the same sort of criticism of Palestinian policies is offered to the Palestinian leadership by Palestinians of comparable stature to the four Shin Bet ex chiefs, maybe there will actually be a possibility of rekindling that tunnel light that has been sitting in the off position for far too many years. THE JACKSON FIASCO If Michael Jackson is convicted of the criminal acts he is accused of committing, he will be punished with time in jail, where he is unlikely to survive. But where is the punishment for the disgusting behavior of the Santa Barbara District Attorney? Was there any need for a press conference to announce, with obvious glee, that an arrest warrant had been issued for Jackson? When he arrived peacefully in his private jet in response to the warrant, was there any need to handcuff him other than to humiliate him? What did they think he might have done with free hands on the trip from the airport to the police station- attacked the arresting officers? What was the purpose of compelling him to surrender his passport? Even if he left the country to perform or for a vacation, prior to being arraigned, was there really a chance that he would flee to some country that does not have an extradition treaty with the United States, and live out his life in isolation? For that matter, what was the purpose of a three million dollar bond? Was there any true belief that the potential loss of such a sum would be what would compel Jackson to appear on his scheduled arraignment date? And finally, what was the purpose of releasing a "mug shot" of Jackson? His is one of the most recognizable faces in the world. Obviously, the release of the mug shot was intended to humiliate. What all of these things did however, was humiliate the law enforcement authorities of Santa Barbara. That’s in California. Maybe it should have been expected. Thursday, November 20, 2003
ON BUSH IN LONDON I’m not sure exactly why President Bush is visiting England. It certainly can’t be to shore up Tony Blair’s image and popularity. Given the widespread opposition to the Iraq war in the United Kingdom, the Bush visit is likely to have the opposite effect. It certainly is having a negative effect on the citizens of London, whether they’re for or against the Iraq war or whether they are pro or anti Bush. The security on the streets - at least in the city and the West End, is unprecedented, and people trying to move around and conduct their ordinary, everyday affairs in those areas, are having a hard time I can’t recall any past event that called for the number of uniformed police now on patrol and controlling crowds in London, and I am pretty sure there’s never been a situation where large numbers of them were carrying guns. It’s just not the way security is normally enforced in England’s capital city. All of this is in addition to the President’s own traveling security detail and the advance contingent of unknown numbers that descended upon London , probably weeks in advance of his arrival, to set up their own security net. I find a particular irony in the juxtaposition of two events being reported out of London this week. The extraordinary security measures that were put in place to protect the leader of Britain’s closest ally - and the ease with which a reporter for the Daily Mirror was able to get a job at Buckingham Palace and report how easy it could have been for a terrorist to have done the same thing. I think the two items speak volumes about the two countries, perhaps even about the United States and the rest of the democratic industrialized world. No other freely elected leader of a democracy perceives the need for the kind of security that accompanies every move of an American President. The same is obviously true for Britain’s Royal family. The Daily Mirror reporter got inside the Palace by responding to a help wanted ad!!! Apparently, his references checked out and I guess he made a good personal impression, and he was hired! I don’t imagine that’s the way the White House hires it’s domestic help, but that demonstrates the difference between how the United States and other countries think about or worry about, possible physical attacks on its leaders. I am reasonably sure that when Tony Blair last visited these shores, there were not hundreds of British secret service agents fanning out across the country, weeks in advance of his arrival, examining every nook and cranny where he might walk, ride or reside. And I am absolutely certain that the British government did not demand that concrete barriers be placed outside buildings where Blair might have stayed or visited, or that windows in those buildings be covered with some sort of protective material. And you can probably say the same thing of any chief executive of a democracy visiting this or any other country, including an Israeli prime minister. I know that in this time in history, when terrorist organizations are wreaking havoc world wide, it makes sense to err on the side of caution when it comes to the security of the President, but there is something unseemly about a visiting head of state arriving at Buckingham Palace in a helicopter instead of riding up The Mall with the Queen in an open carriage, which is the normal tradition. It almost says to the terrorists of the world - O.K. - you’ve got us good and scared and here’s a demonstration of just how scared we are. On the other hand, what’s going on in London right now - and I mean the security, not the protest demonstrations, - is, I think, reflective of what we are as a nation. We are a great democracy, but we are a violent people. Our murder statistics and other acts of violence are appalling compared to the rest of the western world. And we not only attack and murder each other at a rate that far exceeds that of other western nations, but we do it to our leaders at a rate that is similarly unmatched. We’ve just arrived at the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of JFK. In that forty year period, presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, President Gerald Ford was attacked, and President Ronald Reagan was shot. All of that, plus the post 9/11 mentality which has gripped the nation, perhaps explains the sorry site of thousands of bobbies and all of London’s armed metropolitan police units, filling the streets of the city to protect the life and limb of one man. I guess it says, if it can happen here, as indeed it has happened here, it can happen anywhere. An explanation, but a sad statement nonetheless. Tuesday, November 18, 2003
IS LIMBAUGH LOSING IT? I didn’t listen to Rush Limbaugh’s return to the airways yesterday, and unless I’m driving at the time he’s on the air and punching in different radio stations as I am wont to do, (I do the same thing with my television zapper which is why my wife and I often watch television in different rooms), I doubt that I will listen to him in the future. After all, how many times can you watch a one trick pony perform? There’s nothing illuminating about what he has to say. He has a single theme from which all else flows and there is never any deviation. All "liberals," as he categorizes anyone with whom he disagrees, are bad. All conservatives are good and everything they do is correct and good. It’s like watching someone trapped in a two dimensional world, knowing only forward and back and side to side but never up and down. I wasn’t surprised when the network newscasts and leading newspapers reported his return. He does have a large radio audience, so the revelation of his addiction to pain killers and his subsequent five weeks of re-hab, was a news item of sorts. Still, I was surprised when Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune, devoted a goodly portion of his blog yesterday to verbatim quotes from Limbaugh’s come back program, which I assume must be readily available in some form to the curious. I can’t imagine Zorn sitting at his computer and transcribing from a recording of the program. Zorn’s print column today was also about Limbaugh and some of what he said on yesterday’s broadcast, but with an appropriate put down at the bottom of the column. I’ve written about Limbaugh several times in the past at this site, but I had pretty much decided that it wasn’t worth devoting any more time or space to the man. What would be the point? But then I turned to an inside page of the Tribune where I found the (mercifully short) news report of Limbaugh’s return from re-hab. And there was a quote that Zorn didn’t put on his weblog or in his column. He should have, because we all need a good laugh nowadays and this one was a real laugher. Apparently, Limbaugh signed off with this line: " I have just one more thing to say. A memo to you liberals. The Party’s over. I’m back." Before he went away to rid himself of his drug addiction, I thought that Limbaugh was many things, but I never thought he was delusional. Now I’m not so sure. It’s possible I suppose, that the comment was strictly for the benefit of his ovine disciples, who might actually believe that anything he has to say, actually influences or worries or in any way affects "liberals." Incidentally, I use quotes for the word "liberal," only because in Limbaugh’s world, it’s simply a synonym for "the enemy." If Limbaugh disagrees with someone, particularly if it’s a Democratic elected official, he or she is automatically categorized as "liberal." It’s his battle cry. But I digress. If his closing comment on his come back show was not for the benefit of the faithful, if he truly believes that his daily blathering strikes fear into the hearts of "liberals" who aren’t even listening to what he says, then he may have a bigger problem than addiction to pain killers. I don’t think re-hab can help with something like this. Maybe shock treatment How about: Memo to Rush: While you were gone, that sneaky, overrated Donovan McNabb knew there was no one watching him, so he went behind your back and won five games in a row!! You think that’ll do it? Maybe I’ll send this to his web site. Maybe he’ll read it. Just think of the write ups I’ll get if I can actually cure Limbaugh. The New England Journal of Medicine. The Lancet. The Guinness Book of World Records!!! Oh my goodness. This started out to be a nasty piece and now I feel positively exhilarated Thank you Rush. Now go away and stop annoying me. Monday, November 17, 2003
WORLDS ON A STRING A long time ago, I read Steven Hawkins’ A Brief History of Time. I didn’t really understand it, but I was fascinated with the idea of theorizing about how and when "things" began, about a time before "time" and other such imponderables. All of the theories that have come along about how the universe began and where it’s going and how big it is and whether it’s expanding and whether it will end at some point in the future, are of course, just theories. All of the Nobel prizes awarded to Bell scientists and other scientific wunderkinds, can’t change that fact. No matter how many times some great cosmic discovery is announced or some theory "confirmed," something new is subsequently "discovered" that casts doubts on previous discoveries and theories. Which is how it should be. Science should be an endless search for truth, and if ever absolute "truth" is revealed, I think the cosmos and its inhabitants would be in serious trouble. Having said all that, I’m absolutely enthralled with the latest theory that everything in the cosmos, from the most distant stars to little insignificant homo sapiens, is made up of strings - tiny little wiggling forces of energy. As with Hawkins’ theories and explanations, I don’t understand any part of it, and maybe I’ve even stated it incorrectly, but of the parts that I don’t understand, my favorite has to be, that with strings comes the possibility of parallel worlds occupying the same space, and eleven - count ‘em - eleven dimensions!!! I can’t begin to picture eleven dimensions. I have a hard enough time accepting time as the fourth dimension after length, breadth and height, and not everyone agrees that time is the fourth dimension. Looking for opinion via Google, I came upon the view that if time was indeed a "dimension," we should be able to travel in time. Don’t ask me why. I just found an opinion on the Internet. There are lots of them. Take a look at this one for example. This stuff can boggle the mind. But if there are parallel worlds and multiple dimensions, a lot of things that have hitherto been mysteries, may be explained away. UFO’s for example, and their occupants, who, according to some folk, occasionally abduct earthlings and experiment with them. There are some pretty interesting arguments for and against UFO’s being from a parallel world and not from outer space. The major argument against the outer space theory for these alien critters would be distance. Unless they’ve come up with an Enterprise type warp drive, it would take too many years to get here from whatever inhabitable planet exists out there. The crew would start out as young folk and their great great grandchildren would be manning the vessel by the time they arrived. Unless they’re immortals. Then they could all be bachelors. It’s much easier to think of them traveling through their own skies in these weird looking aircraft they’ve built, and then suddenly, accidentally or deliberately, dropping through some kind of portal between their world and ours and zooming in for a landing. Of course, that wouldn’t fit with the abduction stories and the descriptions of little green men. If their world is really parallel, they should look like us, their aircraft should look like ours and they shouldn’t need to experiment on us to see what makes us tick. In fact, my understanding of parallel worlds - strictly from science fiction mind you - is that for every one of us, there’s one of them. Parallel Doppelgangers. That’s the problem with all of these theories about space and time and big bangs and what existed before big bangs. They tend to contradict each other. But parallel worlds and eleven dimensions would certainly be a possible explanation for GHOSTS. One can imagine that there are indeed portals between multiple worlds and dimensions that no one in any of the worlds is truly aware of, except when there is some sort of portal disruption and people from parallel worlds can suddenly see dim outlines of each other. Disruptive portals could also be the explanation for what we think of as strange events - unexplained noises and movements of objects and things that go bump in the night. It could be something as simple as putting on a kettle and making ourselves a cup of tea . But if we’re doing it at or near a portal, someone in another world would be scared out of his or her wits as they hear the rattling of crockery and perhaps see a cup or a saucer move without being touched by human hands. Where would we find such portals? I’m really not sure, but some of the drafty old castles dotting the English countryside might be a good place to start. But the most intriguing possibility of all is that the existence of parallel worlds and multiple dimensions could explain the basis of some mythological tales and characters and perhaps even how our religious beliefs were formed. When Moses went up to the mountains, he spoke with or listened to or was aware of - what? God, as understood by theists of various religions, or some humanoid occupying the same space but in another dimension and whose ordinary utterances and appearance became distorted into God like commandments and visions by a fluctuating portal between dimensions? Some scientists have said that string theory is more philosophy than science, because, at the moment at least, there doesn’t seem to be a way to prove the theory. Maybe that’s a good thing. If there’s no way to prove a theory, there’s less likelihood that some new theory will come along to disprove it. I kind of like the string theory. I don’t understand the mathematics of it any more than I understood the late Carl Sagan’s explanation that we and everything around us are made up of "star stuff." But of all the "theories of everything" that I don’t understand, this is the one that I hope sticks around and isn’t too quickly displaced by a new theory of everything. At least not until I’ve had a chance to meet some of my other selves living in those parallel universes. Hey, maybe one of us won the lottery!!! Friday, November 14, 2003
STILL PLAYING - THE MIDDLE EAST TRAGICOMEDY - NOW IN IT’S 55TH YEAR Well, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan - here we go again. You almost need a playbill to watch the latest performance of the continuous act play that is the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Or at least a list of the leading characters. Let me see: Arch Villain 1 - Yasser Arafat National Hero 1 - Yasser Arafat (dual role) Arch Villain 2 - Ariel Sharon National Hero 2 - Ariel Sharon (dual role) First clown, (for the current production only) - Ahmed Qureia - Palestinian prime minister Second clown - Ahmed Yassin - Hamas Leader The Palestinians have a new government and a new prime minister and Sharon says he will meet with him - then, wait a minute, it’s too early. First there needs to be some groundwork. Then we’ll meet. Maybe. Yasser Arafat, who has faded into obscurity time after time, only to be revived by Israeli policies and pronouncements, made another of his calls for "peace." Israel is entitled to live in peace he said!!! The man is astonishing. He makes such a disingenuous announcement after a lifetime of rejecting every possibility of peace ever presented to him, and at a moment when the CBS program, Sixty Minutes, broadcasts a profile of his financial dealings as head of the PLO, revealing the millions of dollars he controls in banks around the world, and how he pays his minions with handfuls of cash, like a Sheik or a Sultan handing out largesse to pleading tribal members. Meanwhile, the new prime minister, who will last as long as the master manipulator Arafat allows him to last, speaks of "negotiating" a "cease fire" with groups such as Hamas, while Sheik Ahmed Yassin says Hamas isn’t about to stop attacking Israelis, and Israel says it’s not interested in cease fires, only in the dismantling of the terrorist groups, which Ahmed Qureia says he won’t or can’t do. At the same time, the official Israeli position on the unofficial peace proposals that are floating around - the Geneva Peace Plan and The People’s Voice plan, are that they are non starters. There will probably be no end to this tragicomedy until there is a new cast of characters, but surely in the meantime, somebody needs to leap onto the stage, stop the performance and tell the audience that the plot needs to be changed, or no one will ever be able to leave the theater. There is no viability to the two state solution proposed in the roadmap. There IS the possibility of viability for the kind of two state solution I outlined on this blog, albeit tongue-in-cheek, on October 10, 2003. But what originated as a tongue-in-cheek exercise looks more and more like the only solution that has any chance of succeeding. At least in principle. Sure, I left out any discussion of how religious sites should be handled, so I’ll add that now. With respect by both sides. Management of major sites that are not in dispute will be managed by whichever side considers them holy. Management of sites in dispute will be managed jointly - by both sides, with the aforementioned mutual respect. Now that sticky problem has been solved, so what should be the next step? Someone from the Israeli side needs to say to the Palestinians - and maybe someone from the Palestinian side needs to say to the Israelis - "Look, we’re never going to resolve our conflicting claims on the basis of somebody being a winner and somebody being a loser. We’re not going to give in to you. You’re not going to give in to us. Neither side can really defeat the other. We both have claims to the land we live on, so let’s find a practical way to share it that will make us both winners." The formula for that win/win solution is on this blog site, posted on October 10, 2003. Let’s call it the "What’s All This Then Middle East Peace Plan" - a WATTMEPP instead of a ROADMAP. Maybe we should try sending it to the word’s leaders and see how they react. I think I may do just that - and if I get any response, I’ll post it right here. Thursday, November 13, 2003
CASUALTIES OF WAR I’m not sure who it was who first said "the first casualty of war is truth." You can take your pick from, among others, Hiram Johnson (R-Cal), who served in the US Senate from 1917 until his death in 1945, and Samuel Johnson, writing in The Idler magazine in 1758.. I suppose one could interpret the observation as meaning that propaganda is often a necessary tool of war, to be used to mold public opinion, to rally support for military adventures, to hide news of setbacks, and sometimes to present a totally fictional scenario to an eager public audience. Some of the Arab reporting of stunning victories during losing wars with Israel comes to mind. But in these days of modern communication, it becomes difficult to tell outright lies and get away with it. It was amusing to watch and listen to Baghdad Bob tell the world’s press how American forces were being dealt severe blows and were nowhere near Baghdad, when you could almost hear the tanks and the humvees rumbling up the road toward him. But the cameras were focused on him and his lies and on the actual military advance at the same time, so there was not that much in the way of difficulty separating truth from fiction. Would that it were so with the strange cases of Private Jessica Lynch and Staff Sgt. Georg-Andreas Pogany. When the news first broke that a female soldier who had been taken prisoner by the Iraqis had been rescued in a daring, commando type operation, carried out under the cover of darkness, with the crucial moments captured on film, it was, to say the least, uplifting. At that time, the "major military action" as President Bush has referred to it, was far from over. Americans had been taken prisoner and were being displayed in humiliating fashion on Iraqi television. The Lynch rescue was a welcome, balancing respite. But, as we now know, the truth about what happened to her, regarding her injuries, her capture, her captivity and her rescue, has been obscured by multiple fictional versions of the events, twisted and turned to serve a variety of agendas. Instead of a straightforward "good news" story in the midst of the necessarily bad news of death and injury that are the handmaidens of warfare, we were presented with the creation of a mythical war hero, and the ensuing media hype and the rush to cash in with interviews, news stories and articles, made for television movies, a book and Lord knows what else. It was and is to me, a sad affirmation of either Senator or Samuel Johnson’s observation about what can happen to truth in times of war, though I doubt that either of them would have thought of it in terms of the truth about a single individual engaged in war being distorted for the purposes of political propaganda or financial gain. Hundreds of American troops have died in the Iraqi conflict, and many more have been wounded. Yet the one individual story that fills our television and computer screens, our newspapers and magazines and our radio broadcast discussions, is dressed up with a Hollywood script treatment. A war casualty in more ways than one. And then there is Sergeant Pogany. Described in news reports as "an interrogator," attached to a Green Beret unit, Pogany sought counseling after seeing an Iraqi severed in half by American fire. It obviously gave him the willies. I’m sure it would have given me the willies too. He had trouble sleeping. He had what he thought were panic attacks. He was examined by a psychologist and the diagnosis was that he had normal combat stress reaction and should be given a brief rest before returning to duty. Instead, he was sent home to Fort Carson in mid-October and charged with "cowardly conduct as a result of fear!!!" That’s a charge that could result in a death penalty, and there is no minimum sentence for a cowardice conviction. At some point, cooler heads prevailed and the cowardice charge was dropped, but he is still, as of this writing, being charged with "dereliction of duty" for insomnia, vomiting and being fearful of being killed. I would hope that there is no "agenda" at work here, but the contrast between the treatment that these two soldiers is difficult to understand. In both cases, whatever truth applied to their situations was abandoned for a version of truth that suited whoever was writing the script. Jessica Lynch, by her own admission, was terrified at the situation in which she found herself, but is now the poster girl for military pride and valor. Georg-Andreas Pogany became emotionally distraught at the site of a severed body, but didn’t turn and run from battle. Yet for a while, he was in danger of suffering the fate that befell Pvte Eddie Slovik 58 years ago. A portrait of two casualties of war, both, in different ways, victims of the first casualty of war. Tuesday, November 11, 2003
MEMORIES OF KUP This seems to be a week of unanticipated events getting in the way of a list of topics I had planned to tackle. Yesterday was one of those events - a sad one. The passing of a Chicago icon, Irv Kupcinet. Thousands of words will be written about Kup, by people who knew him and by people who may not have known him but whose job it is to write obituaries about well known people. I didn’t really know Kup, but I have some thoughts and memories anyway. In the days when I used to read a morning and evening Chicago newspaper - the Sun Times and the long defunct Daily News, I would usually scan Kup’s column, mostly to see if there was any mention of someone I knew. I wasn’t too interested in the comings and goings of celebrities. But I really became a Kupcinet aficionado one Saturday night in 1958 when I sat down in front of my black and white television, the brand and size of which I have totally forgotten - to begin watching a new kind of program called AT RANDOM. Today, the program format that was introduced on that night - a disparate group of people sitting around in a comfortable setting, talking about a variety of topics - is commonplace. But to this day, the original AT RANDOM concept and presentation, remains as the unmatched gold standard of the television talk show genre. What was unique about At Random and remains so to this day, was that it was open ended!! It could run a couple of hours or four hours, depending on whether or not Kup felt the conversation was holding his and the viewers’ interest. And frequently, there would be a turn over of guests during the program. One or more persons would need to leave - or Kup would graciously dismiss them - and new guests would wander onto the set, join the group and plunge into the ongoing conversation or introduce a new topic. That first night, I sat there, transfixed for hours. I was so intrigued by the concept that I actually tried to get myself invited onto the show. But Kup wasn’t ready for anything that unique - inviting a total unknown to sit in with a group of celebrities. A few years later, I was working in broadcasting, earning a salary at ABC, channel 7 in Chicago, and doing a couple of other things for pleasure. One of those things was a small radio show, broadcast from a Chicago restaurant, now called Lawry’s, but in those days called the Kungsholm, a magnificent former mansion, famous for its Swedish Smorgasbord and its puppet opera shows. Originally, I was the producer of the show and the host was Bob Lewandowski, a television personality on ABC and the host of a successful Polish language radio show. The Kungsholm was his first venture into English language radio but it didn’t work out too well and he quit after 13 weeks. The station had nothing planned for the slot, so when I suggested that maybe I could take over as host, they said O.K. and thus began my brief career as an unpaid radio broadcaster. Actually, I was paid in a way by the Kungsholm. I had a free lunch every day at their magnificent Smorgasbord. The format of the show was music and guest interviews - the music being played between guests or when I didn’t have any guests and got tired doing a monologue - and I did everything - engineering, selection of the music and finding and booking guests. It wasn’t easy scheduling guests. The station was small, with a limited signal, and anyone in town to plug a movie or a book would spend their time visiting the major stations. I remember one occasion when I got stuck for two hours with someone who manufactured road building equipment. I managed to get through the show, but Chinese water torture would have been preferable. But then, one day in 1963, sitting behind my microphone in the Kungsholm version of the Pump Room’s Booth One, in walked Irv Kupcinet. I don’t remember what he was doing there. He surely hadn’t been booked as a guest on my tiny little show. I think he was just there to have lunch. But he saw me and saw what I was doing and I gestured to him and he walked over to say hello, and the next thing I knew, Kup was sitting at my table being interviewed on the air by me . It was 40 years ago and I don’t remember what we talked about, but I do remember how gracious he was to someone he had never met before. He stayed for quite a while - at least 30 minutes, and by the time he left, we were chin wagging like a couple of life long friends. I never made it into Kup’s column, but Kup was aware of some of my activities and on March 18, 1964, he gave mention to one of those activities. I had created and was producing another unique talk program for public television called THE BRAINS TRUST and I was having some argument with the station about program content. It had created a bit of a stir in the press and a number of the local columnists of the day - Paul Molloy, Terry Turner, Maggie Daly, Francis Coughlin and others, wrote about it. But Kup stayed away from the brouhaha - mentioning it only once, on a night when the argument was at it’s height and the program got pre-empted. Kup noted: "WTTW"s The Brains Trust, pre-empted Wednesday night, will convene regardless. The panel members will gather in the Pump Room as guests of Nathan Schwartz and perform for their own amusement." I’ve tried to reproduce Kup’s layout style of putting names and other selected words in bold type. I still have the faded column. Among the items being reported that day was "Cassius (call me "Mohammed Ali") Clay bowed off the Jack Paar show April 3," and "NOBODY IN WASHINGTON is taking the latest proposal by Sen. Richard Russell(D-Ga.) to relocate Negroes around the nation seriously." Kup’s column was many things, not the least of which was a reflection of the times. Collectively, his columns add up to a history of the City he loved and the times he lived in. We only met in person once, but I always thought of him as someone I knew and liked and I’ll miss his being around, filling his role as Mr. Chicago. Monday, November 10, 2003
ON RANTINGS OF RIGHT WING WRITERS My notebook has a growing list of topics that I want to discuss and I had planned to pick one of them for today’s comments, The CBS cave-in to pressure about the Reagan docu-drama is too juicy a subject to ignore and was high on my list. The String Theory and the thought of eleven dimensions and multiple universes is as intriguing a concept as I’ve heard in many a day…. There’s stupid commercials and medical practices that I think are close to fraudulent and the soldier who became upset at the sight of a severed body and was almost charged with cowardice, and the state of the insurance industry and some laws that need enacting and on and on. But then, as so often happens, I open my morning newspaper and find some unbelievable comments by one or more right wing columnists and I just have to comment while the outrage is fresh in my mind. I identify these people as right wing as opposed to conservative, because I think there is a distinct difference between those who are obviously conservative, but reasoned and thoughtful in their analyses, and those whose partisanship gets in the way of common sense. Typical of the latter was a piece by a Chicago based writer who I won’t name because he isn’t read nationally. Here’s just a couple of things he says in a single column. Television network news anchors - and he names one in particular, for a change not Peter Jennings - are biased against Bush and their news presentations prove it. He’s not too happy about the story selections in newspapers either and he cites the "frenzy" with which the New York Times "hurled" a story about the Iraqi offer to avoid war which I wrote about on November 7. More on that in a minute. I suppose one could make an argument in support of network news bias. It’s all in the eye and ear of the beholder. I don’t detect an anti-Bush bias in news reporting, though the news writers do occasionally editorialize in a mild fashion while reporting an item For example, a lead in to a report of casualties in Iraq might say "more bad news from Iraq today" and that can be interpreted by a rabid Bush supporter as being anti-Bush . Personally, I think it’s a matter of style, mixing a certain amount of interpretation with reports of actual events. Not all news outfits can be the BBC. I don’t know how it is today, but in years past, in order to be hired by the BBC as a news reader - yes, that’s what they called them - you had to be able to pronounce unpronounceable words, and read copy in a totally neutral tone, without any inflection that could be interpreted as commentary. You can certainly see it - or rather hear it, in the voices of BBC field reporters today, almost all of whom speak in a sing-song fashion with the "non-concluding" sound of the last syllable of each sentence. Give a close listen the next time you’re watching or listening to a BBC newscast and you’ll spot what I mean if you haven’t in the past. But the really silly comment that was made by this columnist today was about the report of an Iraqi attempt to ward off war by offering to allow several thousand Americans to come to look for the so called weapons of mass destruction. Here I have to quote the guy verbatim: Right on schedule, some media outlets produced a story about how the Bush administration supposedly bungled a "last-minute, back-channel deal" from Iraq to avert war. The unspoken message is that Bush could not be deterred from wanting to kill all those people, including Americans for some slimy purpose. Of course the premise of the story is absurd. Sure, some guy may have tried to backroom a deal, but if Saddam Hussein truly wanted to avert war, he could have just picked up the phone. He didn’t!!Emphasis added. The whole paragraph is symptomatic of a sickness born of intractable partisanship, but if there’s ever been a more ridiculous statement published in an op-ed piece in a major newspaper than the line I emphasized - that all Saddam Hussein had to do to avert war was "pick up the phone," I don’t know what it is. Can you imagine George Bush even accepting a phone call from Saddam Hussein? This is the same Saddam Hussein who suggested having a televised debate with President Bush to try to resolve the issues between the two countries while he was being interviewed by Dan Rather in February of this year. The suggestion was a little silly and not unexpectedly, was dismissed out of hand by the Bush administration. But there was no counter suggestion of any meeting between senior US officials and Hussein or his senior aides. Just an outright dismissal and "he knows what he has to do" Pick up the phone maybe? "Hello George. This is Saddam. I don’t have any weapons of mass destruction. How can I prove it to you so you won’t invade my country?" Give me a break!! Back in 1997, there was an attempt by Saddam Hussein to have a discussion with the US. about sanctions and whether or not he possessed any disallowed weapons. Different President. Same disdainful response. The suggestion by this columnist that there is an unspoken message in the news reports of the alleged "backroom" effort to avoid the Iraq invasion, that President Bush "could not be deterred from wanting to kill all those people," is not just irresponsible, it’s downright sick. And someone this sickened by an advanced case of terminal partisanship, will never be able to accept what has become evident and becomes more so with each passing day. That there was nothing - absolutely nothing that Saddam Hussein could have done to forestall the invasion of Iraq. Whether the invasion was a good or bad decision is a question that will be left to history to decide. But no amount of rabid partisanship can change fact into fantasy. All he had to do was pick up a phone? "Hello George. I’ve got those weapons you wanted to see. How do you want them shipped? Fed Ex or UPS? And you promise you won’t invade now, O.K.? That’s our deal. Right?" Give me a break!! Friday, November 07, 2003
WAS THE IRAQI WAR AVOIDABLE? I don’t think too many people, even the most avid of my handful of readers, go into the archives of this blog to re-read my past words of wisdom. With that thought in mind, I am taking the liberty of quoting myself as a preamble to today’s commentary. On July 9 of this year, I wrote the following: I am no politician so I’m not involved in the eggshell walking contest. Neither am I privy to any confidential information about the inner workings of the White House or 10 Downing Street. Now we have the revelation that at least one effort was made by the Iraqis to avoid being invaded by offering to let a few thousand Americans come to look for the alleged weapons of mass destruction - and of course the offer was spurned. I wouldn’t be surprised if, down the road, we learn that there were other such efforts to satisfy American demands and stave off an invasion that were similarly spurned. As I said on July 9 and on other occasions, I am convinced that the decision to invade Iraq was cast in stone and all of the warnings and debates leading up to the invasion were pure theater. And of course, the theater continues with both the White House and Donald Rumsfeld saying that Saddam Hussein had "ample opportunity to avert military action." They don’t say what he could have done to avoid being invaded, but I would imagine that among the things he could have done would be to have led Hans Blix and his team to weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist. The posturing of the administration is that ridiculous. What surprises me is that none of the Democratic presidential hopefuls have challenged Mr. Bush to explain just what Saddam Hussein could have done that would have persuaded him to call off the invasion. There is no credible answer to the question. That’s been obvious for a long time. But the opposition candidates, even Howard Dean, who isn’t in the least bit shy about saying how strongly he was opposed to the war, are careful not to say what Ted Kennedy said recently - that the President lied to the American people. For whatever reason, they have decided - as I put it on July 7 - to "walk on eggshells" and not say what has to be on the minds of at least some of them - that George W Bush, surrounded by a group of super hawkish advisors, has a messianic vision of America’s duty to pacify and democratize the world, and that has more to do with why we invaded Iraq than as a response to 9/11 or to enforce UN resolutions, and is why the administration puts out hints of further preemptive military action against other countries that are perceived to be a threat to world peace. I know that it’s difficult to be too critical of a president in a time of war and when soldiers are being killed every day in a far off country. It could backfire politically. People get swept up in a wave of patriotism whenever our young people in uniform are in harm’s way, even when the reasons for them being in harm’s way is highly suspect. And now that we are deeply embroiled in Iraq, we can’t leave until there’s some semblance or order, so it isn’t helpful to call for the president to bring our troops home before that’s been accomplished. But if we can put the country through years of agony because of one president’s extra-marital sexual adventures, we can surely keep putting this president’s feet to the fire as more and more evidence is uncovered to show that the war that he said Saddam Hussein could have avoided, indeed could have been avoided. We impeached a president for lying about a sex scandal. If incontrovertible proof is unearthed that President Bush could have achieved what he and the UN demanded without going to war and opted for war anyway, how does congress and the American people respond to that? Thursday, November 06, 2003
MOVIE LINES AND MUTUAL FUNDS It’s been years since I last went to a theater to see a movie. Nowadays I just rent them and watch them in the comfort of my den. I suppose if I could put the picture on the big screen on pause any time I wanted to go to the bathroom or make myself a cup of tea or answer my phone (cell phone if I’m in a movie house), I might be persuaded to watch movies the way I used to. But that’s not going to happen, so I’ll probably keep watching at home. None of this has anything to do with the subject of today’s comments, except that current events often remind me of great lines from old movies. If there was a quiz show with a category of "memorable movie lines." I could probably do pretty well, at least get past the $64 level. A couple of my favorites: Barbara Stanwyck in GOLDEN BOY. A scene with Adolph Menjou and Joseph Calleia. Calleia as mobster Eddie Fuseli is discussing business with Adolph Menjou and Stanwyck has the gall to interrupt. Calleia says to Menjou "this your girl?" And Stanwyck , her voice dripping with disdain, says "I’m my mother’s girl." Paul Muni as James Allen in I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG. Wrongly convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, Allen is sentenced to ten years on a Georgia chain gang. He escapes, builds a new life in Chicago but gets caught and is sent back to jail. He escapes again and in the movie’s final scene, he has risked seeing his girlfriend one last time, but his life is now a life on the lam and he has to leave. As he walks away his girlfriend cries after him.. "how do you live?" And Muni responds, as he disappears into the night… "I steal." But my all time favorite, because it has so many applications, year after year, has to be Claud Raines as the corrupt Police Chief in CASABLANCA, announcing that he is closing down Rick’s "Cafe Americain." When Bogart asks him why, he says - just before a croupier hands him his gambling winnings - "I am shocked, shocked,. to discover that gambling is going on here." There’s certainly an application of that famous line in the unfolding mutual fund scandal. On April 8 of this year, just a few days after this blog began, I wrote of "market flim flam," the P.R. put out by the investment industry about why the market does whatever it does on a day to day basis. I mentioned the work of Richard Ney, the one time actor turned author and market guru who for years maintained that stock market specialists manipulated the market for their own benefit - and no specialist ever took him to court. Had they done so, there might have been the sort of revelations that are emerging from the mutual fund investigations now under way It was almost comical to read and hear statements from investment industry experts who were shocked, shocked, to discover that insiders were being allowed to make money from mutual funds that came out of the pockets of unsuspecting investors of those funds. It reminded me a little of the tobacco company CEO’s when they were testifying before congress and parroting the same words, one after the other. No, they didn’t believe that cigarette smoking was addictive. I’m sure they too were shocked, shocked, when they suddenly discovered that cigarette smoking was addictive!! This stuff has been going on forever folks and with all due respect to New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, it’s likely to continue to go on in one form or another when the current brouhaha dies down and a few heads have rolled. There are manipulators and insiders who will continue to use whatever advantages are available to them that are not available to the average investor. Here’s a relatively simple test you can use to determine the merits of that prediction. Keep a watch on three things. Mergers, stock prices and stock option prices. When a merger is announced and the stock of the company being acquired soars and its stock is traded on the options market, see what happens to the trading volume and price of the stock and call options on that stock in the days before the merger is announced. It won’t always be revealing. Sometimes the action takes place quietly, over a longer period of time. But quite often, the action is laid out like a story in a book. Some people who knew about the deal in advance, used that knowledge to make money illegally and immorally. Sometimes they get caught and have to give the money back. And sometimes they get prosecuted Some even have to serve jail time. But it doesn’t stop the flim flam. Nothing does. The lure of money is just too strong and the insiders can’t resist the temptation. I hope that you’re not shocked, shocked to learn that I think this way. Just chalk it up to the influence of memorable movie lines. Wednesday, November 05, 2003
FUNNY MONEY FUNNY Every once in a while, I feel the need to take a rest from posting serious or quasi serious daily commentary to this blog site, and this is one of those times. But, just as nature abhors a vacuum, the whatsallthisthen site abhors a break in continuity. Thus, submitted for your amusement and amazement, a recent exchange of e-mails concerning that which really makes the world go round………… FROM: THE DESK OF THE PROMOTIONS MANAGER, INTERNATIONAL PROMOTIONS/PRIZE AWARD DEPARTMENT DEAR SIR/MADAM, FINAL NOTICE OF AWARD NOTIFICATIONa We are pleased to inform you of the announcement today, OCTOBER 2003, of winners of the E-BUSINESS LOTTO SOUTH AFRICA /INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS, held on 17TH OCTOBER 2003 as part of our promotional draws. Participants were selected through a computer ballot system drawn from 2,500,000 email addresses of individuals and companies from Africa, America, Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, Middle East, and New Zealand as part of our electronic business Promotions Program. You qualified for the draw as a result of you visiting Various websites we are running the e-business promotions for. You/Your Company, attached to ticket number 100-309-7482, with serial number 513-10 drew the lucky numbers 5, 9, 12, 29, 40, 59, 76, and consequently won in the Second Category. You have therefore been approved for a lump sum pay out of US$1,950,000.00 in cash, which is the winning payout for Second category winners. This is from the total prize money of US$13,650,000.00 shared among the Seven international winners in the Second category. CONGRATULATIONS! Your fund is now deposited with the Solid Rock Finance and Security Company insured in your name. Due to the mix up of some numbers and names, we ask that you keep this award strictly from public notice until your claim has been processed and your money remitted to your account. We hope with a part of your prize, you will participate in our mid year (2003) high stakes US$1.3 billion International Lottery. To begin your claim, please contact your claim agent immediately; MR. JOHN WADADA, FOREIGN SERVICE MANAGER, SOLID ROCK FINANCE & SECURITY LTD, JOHANNESBURG, S.A TEL: +27 7- 2650- 5710 FAX: +27 8- 2961- 2018 EMAIL: johnwadada@solidrockfin.net For due processing and remittance of your prize money to a designated account of your choice. Remember, you must contact your claim agent not later than 26TH OCTOBER 2003. After this date, all funds will be returned as unclaimed. NOTE: In order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications, please remember to quote your reference and batch numbers provided below in every one of your correspondences with your claims agent. REFERENCE NUMBER: FLS-ZR39-825P-4 BATCH NUMBER: 74-263-BBN Congratulations once again from all our staff and thank you for being part of our promotions program. Sincerely, THE PROMOTIONS MANAGER, E-BUSINESS LOTTO SOUTH AFRICA. 115 NORDIX AVE. BRYANSTON, 1762 JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA. TEL/ FAX: +27 836208599 N.B. Any breach of confidentiality on the part of the winners will result to disqualification. Please do not reply to this mail. Contact your claims agent. From: Jeff Smith To: johnwadada@solidrockfin.net Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 2:54 PM Subject: A Thousand Thanks Dear John Wadada: Are you by some chance related to Rosanna Rosannadanna? But I digress. I write to thank you for your wonderful offer outlined below and it is with deep and sincere sadness that I must tell you that I am forced to decline the offer for reasons that I am sure you will understand. I consider myself a humanitarian and a citizen of the world, and my heart bleeds for the millions of people who struggle to live without the bountiful benefits that have been heaped upon me from fellow world citizens in far off lands. You are, I'm sure, familiar with Dr. Daniel Johnson and Kester Owo of Nigeria, since you are all in the same business. Their separate gift offers to me was 20% of $21,320,000 - or 40% of $42,640,0000!! Both Chief Thambo Koker and Chief Iser Mbeki of the South Africa Department of Minerals and Energy are awaiting my acceptance of 25% of $26,500,000. I guess that amounts to 50% of $53,000,000. And these are but the tip of the iceberg of international beneficence. Many, many more generous benefactors are awaiting my acceptance of countless millions. My bank can hardly keep up with the influx. In recent months, they have had to expand their "acceptance of foreign largesse" department by 50%!!! But as grateful as I am for the largesse of these wonderfully generous people from the African continent, there comes a point in time when I have to stop and wonder if I am accepting money that could perhaps help some of the less fortunate people of Nigeria and South Africa. With your offer of winnings from the South African E-BUSINESS LOTTO, that point has been reached. My concern for the less fortunate citizens of your nation forces me to say that I cannot accept the prize which I know is legitimately mine. How could it not be with all of those ticket and serial numbers? Instead, please donate my $1,950,000 to the Johannesburg Foundation for Destitute Hackers and Hookers, 212b South East West Sucker Street, Johannesburg, S.A., with my compliments and best wishes for all of their future endeavors. Your Friend and Mine... Carnegie Mellon Rockefeller the 10th And a happy Guy Fawkes Day to one and all. Tuesday, November 04, 2003
BURRELL AND SMART. ANTONYMS FOR DIGNITY I suppose you could find excuses for what the parents of Elizabeth Smart are doing. Maybe the media interest arose independently and they were swept along with the tide. After all, if there is no tradition of reticence, no strong sense of noblesse oblige, it’s probably hard to resist Katie Couric, Oprah Winfrey, CBS, NBC, ABC, national newspaper reporters, book publishers, movie producers and who knows how many others trying to cash in in some way on the story of Elizabeth’s kidnapping and eventual rescue. I’ve been aware of the story only peripherally and before today, hadn’t given any thought to comment on it in this blog. But somehow the name popped into my head - maybe I heard something on the news or read a squib in the paper - and I did what I often do on such an occasion. I typed in the name on Google. 629,000 hits!!! And two ads for "Ed and Lois Smart’s Book." Now I’m sure that there is more than one Elizabeth Smart whose name might appear on different web sites that are visited by Google, but in this case, I have a feeling that most of the hits are about the Elizabeth Smart whose story has been and continues to be all over the news. I clicked on page 17 of the Google find, the last page it showed, and it was still full of her story. But at the bottom of page 17, Google put up this message: In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 748 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included. In other words, 629,000 variations on the same theme. One would think that the last thing the parents of this child would want, would be to have her horrendous experience talked about and written about, day after day after day, and to have the events read about in a book and portrayed in a movie for millions to see. Why would they do such a thing? Is there some "noble" purpose that it serves? Is there any way the hyping of the story will help anyone, other than the parents who reportedly were paid a large amount for the movie rights and presumably will make serious money from the book and from other related sources? Frankly, the whole unseemly affair turns my stomach, but as I’ve already said, I suppose we can find excuses for them. Money and even fleeting fame are hard for mere mortals to resist. But Paul Burrell is another story. There are no excuses for what he’s doing. Anglophiles of the world have long accepted the demise of the British Empire. There isn’t anything left of those lands on which the sun never used to set. We have accepted with reluctance - and in some cases horror - the alienizing of London’s population - although the cab drivers are still mostly English and ALL English speaking. We shuddered when we saw Bobbies with turbans patrolling the streets of Westminster. We shook our heads in disbelief when English crowds jeered and tormented David Blaine as he tried to complete his admittedly stupid stunt above the Thames. (Maybe it was mostly those aliens living there). We wondered how low our British cousins could sink. But we never thought they could sink this low. A butler - the upper class English equivalent of a priestly confessor - revealing the secrets of his former employer? And a butler to royalty yet!!! He vowed that he would never sell his "story" and now he says he’s written the book to defend the princess. But he’s also quick to say, with a sly little smile, that there’s lots of juicy stuff that he didn’t reveal in the book, hinting that there may be more to come. Maybe if he feels that Diana needs a little more defending. Shame on this betrayer of everything noble about the British and their lovely little island. Can you imagine Jeeves writing a tell-all about Bertie Wooster? P.G. Wodehouse must be turning in his grave. Monday, November 03, 2003
GDP GROWTH. GOOD NEWS OR JUST A NUMBER? I have no expertise in economics, so I have to rely on common sense, rational thinking and some moseying around the Internet for today’s comments. I guess the announcement that the US gross domestic product grew at a 7.2% rate during the third quarter of the year must be good news, because President Bush was salivating when he was talking about it the other day. It was all because of his tax cuts he said. The announcement came from the folks whose job it is to come up with these figures. I don’t know how they do it or what the numbers really mean and I’m not sure anyone else does either, though economists are quick to chime in with a variety of explanations and opinions. It’s not an exact science, so I guess one man’s interpretation is as good as another. It’s complicated, as I discovered trying to wade through the elements that make up the GDP, and an explanation of how it’s calculated. Predictably perhaps, the Democratic view is that the announcement, which was front page news all over the country, was "meaningless!" My view is that first of all, I’m confused as all get out about this obsession with "growth," particularly when it’s in reference to a three month period of time. I can understand the need for an economy to "grow" to accommodate a growing population. As the number of people of working age increases, the economy has to expand to create those needed jobs. But other kinds of growth are not that easy to understand. 30 plus years ago, I bought my house for something in the low thirties. Today, it’s worth ten times that much. But my current income is nowhere near ten times what it was thirty years ago, and I would have a hard time buying that same house today. In fact, I know that I’d be better off today if prices and income had stayed at the same level for the last thirty years, and that applies to housing, cars, appliances, food and taxes. I’d be willing to bet that when millions of people got up on October 30, 2003 and heard on the radio or read in the morning paper, that we had just enjoyed a 7.2% growth in GDP, their reaction was "that’s nice, but it doesn’t make my life any different." Of course that wouldn’t apply to dyed-in-the wool, rock-ribbed, stiff upper lip Republicans, whose thinking is in lock step with their philosophical leader. And the President said it was good news, that the economy was on the road to recovery and that it was all because of his tax cuts. So those loyal followers of the Dubya school of economic philosophy had reason to celebrate and celebrate they did. The right wing pundits were calling the news a nightmare for Democrats.. But the GDP is just a number. Yes, it represent the calculated total of the nation’s goods and services, but it’s still a number, subject to interpretation and without any measurable, real time, real meaning to the people of this nation. In my view, it’s not unlike the numbers that accountants develop to show whether a company is making profits or losses and how much it’s worth. Those numbers can be stated and interpreted in different ways and so the question of how much a company is worth and whether it’s winning or losing can depend on how those numbers are presented. I’ll cite just one example. Enron. There is no unanimity of opinion about what the GDP numbers mean among the nation’s economists. But I think all of them get embroiled in the complications of their own expertise. I don’t know that I can agree with the assessment of some Democrats that the numbers are "meaningless." There may be just a hint of politics in that opinion. But I do think we can take a much simpler and more honest view of the state of the nation’s economy by asking ourselves some simple and honest questions. Does this news mean that American companies have stopped closing down, filing bankruptcy. laying off workers and moving overseas? Does it mean that there are jobs for all who need to work? Does this mean when a new hotel opens and there’s a need to fill a couple of hundred menial jobs, there won’t be a line out into the street and around the block of thousands waiting to apply? Does it mean that people will now stop losing their homes and their life’s savings because they have been unable to find work and all of their benefits have run out? Does this mean that everyone now has access to affordable healthcare and affordable drugs and that no one has to choose between life sustaining medications and food? I could go on and on with the questions that have real meaning for real people, but I think just asking these few puts the good GDP news in a more realistic perspective. When they can all be answered with a resounding YES, that will be the time for everyone to celebrate, and for sure it won’t be anyone’s nightmare. |