The View From the Outback

• Thoughts While Staring at the Ceiling Fan
• What Is A "Real" Job?
• Misc. Medical & Health Updates
• Laos - The Forgotten Communist Country
• Suggested Reading From Past Columns

Last week I skipped writing an Outback, as I was absorbed with working on a scrapbook of letters and memorabilia to pass on to my sons and grandchildren. Each document is scanned and the original goes into plastic separators in a 3-ring binder. I was saddened this week by the death of Katharine Graham, the former chairman and CEO of The Washington Post. Only a few days before, I had scanned her personal letter to me in 1983 concerning my friend William Broyles, who was then Editor of NEWSWEEK (owned by Wash. Post). Then there are the letters from Sen. Barry Goldwater. In one he says, "It's one of the most interesting letters I've received in many years...." And in a letter from Sen. Jesse Helms, "Anyhow, my friend, you have brightened my day, for which I am most grateful." Personal notes from Sen. Bob Dole, from the White House, from Linda Gray of the "Dallas" TV show, from Jimmy Carter's personal secretary Susan, and on and on. When it is finished, it will be a wonderful legacy for the grandkids, who never quite understood what grandpa was up to all those years overseas - or since for that matter. It turns out that the completion of the scrapbook will take months. Then, there will be the CD version of all the scanned images. What fun. What memories in those folders in the closet.

If you are a WordPerfect fan, as I am, do not buy the upgrade to WordPerfect Office 2002 (WordPerfect 10). It is an abomination. It is incredibly slow and buggy, and over a two-week period it completely locked up my machine many times. I am not alone. People all over are deleting it from their hard drive and reinstalling WordPerfect Office 2000 (WordPerfect 9). I just spent several hours doing that, what with the address book, customizing, moving about 300 fonts off the "installed" list, and so on. Maybe I will try again in about 6 months, when a couple of bug-fix updates have been released. This is their worst ever upgrade. Loyal WP fans will not forget this turkey. We paid more than $150 for a pile of worms.

Like most, I fear the worst for Chandra Levy. It struck me that the two "intern scandals" involved attractive Jewish girls from California, Lewinsky and Levy. And the fathers of both young ladies are medical doctors! In the future, Californians might consider sending to DC as interns only ugly Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian, or African-American girls - of blue-collar families. You know, someone no Congressman, Senator, or high official would even consider hitting on. Of the 20 million words spoken about Condit, one comment stands out. "He looks like a game-show host." To the Levy family, I mean no disrespect. I too cry when I see you on TV hoping for your daughter's safe return. I just was so struck by the similarity of backgrounds of Monica and Chandra.

Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston are suing the maker of their wedding rings for $50 million! Their claim is that he violated an agreement never to duplicate the rings. Good grief. Those two have more money than they can spend. Why don't the two babies get a warm cup of milk and sit in the corner and suck their thumbs? Let's check back in a couple of years and see how "the dream marriage" is doing. We may find the wedding rings for sale on E-bay. Hollywood! The largest collection of neurotics, narcissists, egomaniacs, drunks, drug addicts, and misfits ever assembled in the history of mankind.

Tommy Lasorda was coaching at third base during the July 10, 2001 All-Star baseball game. A broken bat flew down the basepath and struck him on the left hip, sending him tumbling backward. He rolled over like a giant beach ball, got up and appeared to be okay. What caught my eye was how fat he was. Do you remember his highly-promoted commercials for SlimFast? Let that be a lesson to you. You can only lose weight and keep it off by reducing your intake of calories, while eating the same kind of well-balanced diet you will eat after the weight loss. (I'm struggling with it again.) The next time you reach for a six-pack of SlimFast, or other "diet" shakes, think about Tommy Lasodra rolling on the ground like a giant Panda Bear. Sorry, Tommy. Nobody need ever be a failure. They can always serve as a bad example.

The Fox News Channel bills itself as "fair and balanced." A Liberal watchdog group tracked guests on the various news shows and claims there is a serious tilting toward Conservative guests. Big deal. Who cares? That is one reason why so many people are watching Fox. It has overtaken CNN, for example. Except for the Blue (Gore) areas on the recent election map, such as California, the East and Northeast, Americans have conservative political values. Do you think Rush Limbaugh would have gotten the biggest contract in the history of radio if America was hungering for more Liberal news coverage and discussion? FYI: In the interests of balance, Roger Ailes, the founder of Fox News, is the same guy who promoted Rush Limbaugh into a mega-star.

At the All-Star baseball game, flashbulbs were popping from the remotest reaches of the stands. Don't people ever read the manual? A flashbulb, now actually a strobe light on modern cameras, will only help illuminate an object up to about 20 feet or so from the camera. If you are sitting in the stands and take a picture of the second-baseman in the field, you might as well light a candle as pop a "flash." My all-time favorite was a lady in Hawaii who took a photo of the sunset. You guessed it. She used a "flash" camera. And without a very powerful telephoto lens, your pictures of the players on the diamond will look like an ant farm. Buy the team program and leave the camera at home. (I took the first published photo of the 1949 - first postwar - Ford. For many years, I was involved in clandestine photography with all manner of cameras and lenses on behalf of our government.)

What Is A "Real" Job?

In the preamble to this column, I noted that few in the media and politics have ever had a "real" job. Just what does that mean? Take journalists, for example. Before Watergate, many, if not most, young people went into journalism to be involved in reporting the news and to be an active participant in history. After Watergate, the trend was to become an investigative journalist, which in most cases simply meant digging up dirt on people - often irrelevant dirt. The other new goal was to save the world by promoting a liberal philosophy wherever possible. There is a real "liberal media bias," no matter how much anyone protests.

Peter Jennings, the ABC News anchor, was recently quoted as saying: "For those of us who went into journalism in the 50's or 60's, it was sort of a liberal thing to do. Save the world." As a result, he continued, "conservative voices in the U.S. have not been as present as they might have been and should have been in the media." So, you have thousands of people who got out of college and went to work on newspapers, at magazines, or on TV - and have never done anything else. What do they know of being in the Marines? Of trying to support your family while in the Marines? Or fighting in the jungles or in a desert? Or, punching a clock in a factory? Or, making a payroll? Or as a small business owner being bogged down with piles of government forms? Or what it means to try to farm today?

(Farmers are cut off from water in the Klamath Basin, so the Sucker Fish will not suffer. Journalists tend to take the side of the liberal environmentalists. These snot-noses in the media ought to try to make a living on a farm. And they ought to ponder why the ugly Sucker Fish needs saving in the first place. I don't ever recall dining in any fine restaurants around the world that featured Sucker Fish on its menu. This save every creature at any cost is madness.)

What do they know of working in a supermarket, a retail store, an office where people must actually produce something other than 750 words a day of typewritten copy? They miss such life tests and lessons as, "Young man, why are these tomatoes so soft?" "Because, madam, people like you squeeze them all day." Or what do they know of being on welfare? (They ranted and raved for years that we were "leaving people behind," while the government created generations of welfare-dependent families who simply lost hope. All these sniveling journalists had to do was get off their asses and investigate the welfare system and those on welfare. They could have speeded up welfare reform by decades.)

What do they know of how many trees there are now as compared to 20 years ago? They don't go into forests to see. They gobble up press releases of lies from environmental groups. An expert was on TV the other day saying that we had a lot more trees than X years ago, but nobody believes it. Nobody wants to listen to the truth, he said. Whatever fits in with the liberal agenda they brought with them from college gets printed - no questions asked. What do they know of what it is like to respond to a "man with gun" call at 3 a.m. in the toughest part of town? Yet, cops are usually "guilty until proven innocent" in most of the media.

Don Hewitt, the producer of "60 Minutes," was on with Tim Russert on CNBC the other night. There was a great film clip of Mike Wallace, who had just come back from Colombia or El- Salvador (I think it was). He was yelling at the production staff about "you people who sit up here on the 7th floor all day are trying to tell me what I heard and saw down there?" Exactly. They spend their days among peers, lunch at The Four Seasons, and dawdle on the way back to the office poking among the baubles at Saks or Bloomingdale's. Have they ever been in a Wal*Mart? These are the people who shape your news.

Once I thought I was close to a movie deal on a novel and went shopping for a Mercedes in Dallas. The bright, young, and articulate salesman and I eventually got around to talking about my book and some of the newspaper columns I had written. He said that he had a journalism degree. "Oh," I said, "How come you are selling luxury cars." "I am a good writer," he replied, "but I realized I had nothing to say." He was out there working at a real job and getting some "life experience" under his belt. There is a lesson for many in this story.

Once I taught a course in Small Business Management at a local junior college. In looking over the textbook, I discovered that I had personally experienced everything in the Table of Contents. So, I taught solely from personal experiences, and the class loved it! Another person teaching the same course had a college degree in business and had never done anything but teach. Which person would you rather learn from?

I see young law professors pontificating on TV about privacy, the Microsoft case, police abuse, abortion, stem-cell research, or whatever, and I cringe. What life experiences have these kids ever had? How can they "teach" us and make moral and legal judgements about a world in which they have participated very little? Even many of the gray-haired professors never had a real job. Many years ago, I asked my Philosophy professor in college what one did with a degree in Philosophy. With his chessboard tucked under his arm as we walked, he quickly replied, "Teach other philosophers."

No person ought to be allowed to be a professor until he or she spends at least 10 years in the "real" world. Never going to happen, especially with the dearth of people going into education as a career. George and Laura Bush are promoting a program to get retired military and other retirees to get a teaching certificate and become teachers. A very smart idea. You actually might learn something from someone who has "been there - done that."

It fascinated me how the FBI and Treasury differed in training their agents when I was in the biz. You went to the "FBI Academy" at Quantico, Virginia. (As a young Marine at Quantico, I inadvertently got to participate in an FBI arrest exercise as I was taking a stroll in the woods.) You graduated and they gave you a badge, credentials and gun and sent you out to fight crime. When I became a Treasury agent back in the early 60's, you went into the field and worked under close supervision of older and experienced agents. Then, after about a year, as I recall, they sent you to Washington, D.C. to Treasury Law Enforcement School. I submit that this delayed training was more meaningful. When you were lectured about "search and seizure," you had already done that in the middle of the night with older agents leading you through the drill. When you learned about writing case reports for trial, you had already seen some of the pitfalls thrown up by clever (and often unscrupulous) defense attorneys. And so it went. Just like a bricklayer, you had served an apprenticeship.

When I was attending law school, I worked summers on the outside cable crew for Bell Telephone. I climbed poles and went into cable vaults underground to work on cables. I was told that even if I wanted to be a lawyer or manager at Bell Telephone, I would have to put in my time climbing poles, installing phones, and dealing with customers. You had to learn the business before you could tell anybody how to run the business! Every business and profession ought to have that kind of apprenticeship. Brick layers and plumbers do. How absurd that you can be a professor of law and never held a real job - not even as a practicing lawyer.

Now to politicians. As noted in the Outback preamble, only about 40 Senators out of the 100 have ever had a real job, unless you count being a lawyer. We are governed by a group of people whose main job all their lives has been governing. What is wrong with this picture? The one issue that I have followed the most closely has been gun control. Congress is completely out of touch with the real problems with guns and the enforcement of gun laws. For example, they passed the Brady law about background checks and then prosecuted only a handful of felons who applied to buy a gun. There is a raging debate as to how many criminals have been denied access to guns by Brady. But Brady was a symbolic victory - and in the end, that was all that counted. Even Sarah Brady once called the passage of the bill "symbolic."

The big thing in Congress is "to appear to address the concerns of the public and appear to have crafted legislation that will meet those concerns." As one of hundreds of examples, if you would take the time to follow the evolution of the Endangered Species Act (with 700 + on the list) and its enforcement, it would make you cry - and not for those on the endangered species list. But for those whose lives and incomes have been devastated by the letter-of-the-law enforcement of the ESA.

Most politicians have never worked in a Union Shop and had their dues used to promote a candidate whether they wanted to support that candidate or not. But, the Congress gets huge donations from the labor leaders. So, during the campaign-finance reform debate when the subject came up about not spending union dues against the wishes of members who donated them, it ought to have been a slam dunk. Not so. The union position prevailed.

Most politicians have never run a small family business and been faced with their kids having to sell the business to pay the estate taxes upon their death. I have been working with a friend for ten years on how to shelter this blow to her children when they inherit the family business. She has spent tens of thousands of dollar on lawyers, accountants, and estate planners. Yet, when the subject came up in Congress, the liberals cried that this was a gift to the rich. What do they care? They have their fat congressional pensions? Work all your life to build a business and then lose it all to taxes? Most of them have no idea what that means. Oh, they hear about it at a "town meeting" once in a while. Or, a staffer tallies the e-mail and letters. Simply for and against a position. That is how they "keep in touch." Finally, with Republicans in charge for a short time, the "death tax" issue got some very belated needed attention.

During the debate on the Patient's Bill or Rights, I was impressed with the cogent presentations by Sen. Bill Frist. Man, I thought, "This guy is incredible with his depth of understanding." So, I looked him up in the C-SPAN Congressional Guide. Sen. Bill Frist graduated from Harvard Medical School and is a surgeon. Damn. A guy who once had a real job. A medical man talking about a bill concerning medical matters. No wonder he made such good sense. What a rarity. Somebody in Congress making sense.

And so it goes. In journalism, academia, and in politics - it is largely the blind leading the blind. They say that you can only appreciate and understand life if you have suffered hunger, deprivation and need. Too many in the media, in politics, and in academia have not suffered these indignities - and it shows in their elitist, out-of-touch approach.

(The real jobs I have had, some were part-time: Newspaper route; stocker in a Woolworth 5 & Dime; bagboy, stocker, produce clerk, meat-counter clerk in several supermarkets; busboy in a restaurant; U.S. Marine; private-police patrolman; BATF agent; CIA agent; Bell Telephone cable crew; manager of a wholesale supplier; assistant to the president of a manufacturing company; general manager of a small manufacturing plant; marketing director in a division of Fortune 500 company; manufacturer's rep for 11 companies and traveling four states; factory worker; delivered telephone books; firearms dealer; security consultant; national director of burglar-alarm company; publisher of books and later of software manuals; freelance editor; computer consultant to law firms and others. I'm exhausted. Time for a nap!)

Misc. Medical & Health Updates

In an earlier column, I said that I had finally started buying Flaxseed and grinding it up to put on salads and on cereal - or whatever. There has recently been a flood of information about the benefits of Flaxseed. It is a good source of fiber, Omega-3 fatty acids (heart healthy fatty acids which also have shown some indication that it slows Cancer growth). It contains a fiber compound called lignan that may slow prostate Cancer growth (a preliminary judgement, at best). There are some well-documented studies that indicate Flaxseed can lower the level of Cholesterol substantially. The World Health Organization and the National Cancer Institute recognize Flaxseed as a "super food." I am just sorry I did not get the "message" earlier. One story quoted remarks from the farmer in S. Dakota who grows and distributes a well-known variety of Flaxseed, "Dakota Flax Gold," and from whom I bought my first 10-lb bag, a 3-month supply. His business is booming! (see: www.heintzmanfarms.com)

A consumer group, Families USA, claims that major drug makers spend nearly twice as much to advertise as they do on research to develop new drugs. They also claimed that drug makers sometimes spend three times as much on ads and executive compensation than on research and development (with figures to back up the claims). There are now more drug ads on TV than any other single category of products, as far as I can tell. This madness has to stop somewhere.

The prescription drug VASOTEC, an ACE inhibitor used primarily to treat high-blood pressure, has gone off patent. A generic version of the drug is now available at a fraction of the cost of the original VASOTEC. If you are taking an ACE inhibitor that is still "on patent," that is, you are taking the original high-priced version, you might talk with your doctor about the possibility of switching to the VASOTEC generic, Enalapril Maleate. One can make an argument from the available literature that all ACE inhibitors provide about the same benefits and results. Only your doctor can make an informed judgment for you. I know, I sound like one of those ads on TV. The truth is that VASOTEC is the only prescription drug I have consistently taken for years. I could not wait for those money-grubber's patent to expire. It was grossly overpriced. That day is here. The downtrodden and poor can rejoice - and buy the generic.

In my column of June 29, 2001, in "The AMA Is Losing Its Way," I mentioned that the new head of the American Medical Association spent most of his inaugural speech talking about gun violence. I suggested that there were a large number of pressing medical problems that the AMA could better spend their time focusing on. Recently, there is yet another statistic that points to the fact the AMA has enough "medical problems" to address without becoming part of the "gun police." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 2.4 million hospitalized patients contract an infection every year and that half could be prevented by proper hand washing. These infections cause or contribute to 100,000 deaths each year. Dear Dr. Corlin, maybe this is another area where the AMA might spend some of its money and energies - and let criminologists, police, and legislatures work on the gun problem.

Laos - The Forgotten Communist Country

We are constantly bombarded about the evils of life in China, North Korea, and Cuba under Communism. But, you never hear about the tiny, land-locked, country of Laos.

My family and I lived in Vientiane, Laos in the late 60's, during the height of the war in Vietnam and Laos. There was actually a Pathet Lao (Communist) barracks in town and you would sometimes run into the PL soldiers at the Morning Market. One of my sons got a PL guard with an AK-47 to pose for a picture in front of the PL barracks. Never was there an act of terrorist violence in town while we lived there - or a robbery - not that I recall.

Lately, I wondered what Laos was like today, since we handed the keys over to the Communists many decades ago. The official web site makes it look like an idyllic place to visit. But, the U.S. State Department travel advisory notes that since March of 2000 several small bombs have exploded in Vientiane and elsewhere, in markets, at transportation facilities, and so on. You are also advised about robberies and assaults at the caves on the Nam Song River. At night, people are subject to being stopped, searched, and detained by officials if they cannot provide suitable identification.

Then, there are 500,000 tons of unexploded ordnance left over from the war, and the mine fields along several routes. I find it interesting that we were safer in the middle of the war than people are today in Laos - under the Communist rule. Could it be that in those times we all had guns and today only the government has guns? I dunno. I tend to compare it to the relative lack of violent crime in rural areas of Texas compared to the big cities. Out here in the Outback, virtually everybody has a gun- and violent crime is very low. Perhaps an armed society is a polite society. That is, unless you have violently-clashing political or religious cultures, as is so prevalent in the world today.

The CIA recently presented a Unit Citation to the veterans of Air America, 25 years after the organization was disbanded. Air American and Continental flew support missions in Laos and elsewhere during the Vietnam war. They were very active in Laos, and one of those pilots taught me to fly. They were perhaps the greatest bunch of pilots ever assembled. It takes a special plane and pilot to land in a 600 foot clearing in the jungle. A total of 242 pilots either died or were missing in action.

Once I got my private license in Laos, I was offered a "deal" by the CIA chief of Air Ops. If I would go back to the States and get my commercial license, he would assign me as a co-pilot on one of the larger cargo planes in Laos. It was very tempting, but I had a wife and two kids - and I had lost a few friends who flew in "The Secret War in Laos." For once, I opted for the sensible thing to do and turned down the offer. Many years later in Dallas, I would hear people say that they were flying to Austin, for example, for their student solo cross-country required flight. When asked where I flew my cross-country, I replied, "From Vientiane Laos to Savannakhet down the Mekong river during the Vietnam War. Huh? Where? Did what? (See: Flying in Laos During the Vietnam War, www.home.earthlink.net/~rickhgtx/flying.html)

I think I will pass on a nostalgic return visit to see the beautiful temples and two houses in which we lived. Only those of us who were there can appreciate the suffering, death, and enormous expenditures - all in a failing cause. Vietnam got, and gets, most of the press - and with good reason. Laos is a forgotten country. But not to those of us who were there.

Suggested Reading From Past Columns

Global warming and environmental debate:

"John Stossel And ABC's 'Tampering With Nature,'" June 29, 2001
"The Kyoto Protocol & Global Warming - A Monumental Scam?" June 16, 2001
"Environmentalism For Dummies," April 7, 2001
"Environmentalism For Dummies - Part II," April 21, 2001
"Public Interest Groups With Sometimes Very Little Public Interest," May 12, 2001

Prescription drugs being advertised on TV - abuses in the pharmaceutical industry - supplements:

"The New Cholesterol Guidelines - Everybody Gets A Pill," July 7, 2001
"Bitter Pills To Swallow," June 2, 2001
"The Drug Companies Continue Their Assault On Your Pocketbook," May 19, 2001
"Herbal Remedies, Supplements, And Alternative Therapies," September 18, 2000
"Prescription for Disaster," September 11, 2000

A case history of horrendous abuse by Federal law enforcement:

"FBI Sniper At Ruby Ridge My Be Tried For Manslaughter," June 9, 2001.

Late Night TV Cruel Humor, et al.:

"David Letterman Grovels For The Colombians," May 19, 2001
"Are Leno And Letterman Using The Same CD-ROM For Constructing Jokes?" May 12, 2001
"Late Night Comedians Struggle To Lampoon Bush," May 5, 2001
"Late-Night TV Sick Humor," August 28, 2000
"Late-Night TV Political Comedy," August 14, 2000

Crime, guns, gun-control:

"The AMA Is Losing Its Way," June 29 2001

Politics:

"President Bush's Excellent Adventure," June 29, 2001
"The Bush Budget - Fighting Over 4% Growth Versus 8% Growth Is Nonsense," April 21, 2001
"Campaign Finance Reform - A Senatorial Catharsis - And National Snow Job," March 31, 2001
"Florida Secretary Of State Literally Begged Networks Not To Call Election Early," March 24, 2001
"The Ever-Expanding First Amendment," January 26, 2001
"Bush Administration Needs To Review The Mission Of Federal Law Enforcement," January 26, 2001
"New York, What Were You Thinking?" November 13, 2000
"Lessons Learned In Election 2000?" November 13, 2000
"How The Federal Government Corrupts The Constitution To Intrude Into Your Life," October 30, 2000

Telemarketing:

"Rid Yourself of Telemarketers," October 23, 2000

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COPYRIGHT 2001 Richard C. Rhodes

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