I have no particular opinion on today's decision in the Disney lawsuit involving Mike Ovitz's severance pay. But if you'd like to read the judge's decision, here it is. It's a PDF file, meaning you'll need some kind of Adobe software like their Reader.
Smokin' Hot Topic
Folks are sending me messages about smoking and about smoking among their friends and relatives. I can't run them all but I thought some of you might enjoy this one from my pal Shelly Goldstein, a fine writer and performer. I met her mother a few times and Shelly is right: Her female parent was an amazing lady.
For all it may be worth, I went through a bit of an emotional breakthrough yesterday.
Watching all of the Jennings-related news was sad because he seemed like a genuinely good guy, was assuredly a superb newsman (something we as a society can ill-afford to lose) and, most of all, because my Mother died of lung cancer.
She was diagnosed in 1983. She died in 2003. She lost her left lung in 1983 and was remarkably healthy until a new tumor was found on her remaining lung in late 2002. As she only had one lung left, surgery wasn't an option. They treated it with chemo, but it had metastisized and…well, that's the ball game.
I heard repeatedly yesterday that survival statistics for lung cancer victims are unbelievably low…Something like 85% of patients die within 5 years (the prognosis my Mother was given in 1984) and 90% die in 10 years.
That my Mother lived 19-1/2 years in not perfect, but remarkably good health put her in the absolute highest percentile of survivors. I always knew my Mother was remarkable — now I have medical stats to prove it.
This was a woman who began smoking — thanks to Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and other glam stars of the golden era — when she was 13. She smoked for just over 50 years. When I was growing up, she smoked something like 5 packs a day. She was always smoking. I adored my Mother and it drove me crazy as a child — especially when driving in the car during sub-sub zero Chicago winters with the windows closed. I have never smoked and, speaking as a very tolerant person, smoking drives me insane. I can't stand it. I can't even type the word of those things people smoke.
Remarkably, soon after my Father died in 1977 (a light smoker who had quit years before and died from a different cancer, melanoma) she quit. Just stopped. No patches, no programs, no hypnosis…just stopped one day. I'm not even sure why.
She told me once that not a day went by that she didn't miss smoking. But she never smoked again. Not even once. This was an amazing woman.
I do not wish anyone to live through experiencing, as a caretaker, the death of a loved one to lung cancer. I can't imagine the pain of actually having to live (and die) with the disease.
Of course we all do stupid things, thinking we can cheat death, or at least hold him off — even if it's "just this once." That's why people drink to excess, that's why people go for the fried foods over the veggies, that why people do drugs, that's why people smoke. The immediate gratification of the unhealthy high is addictive. And whereas the administrative aspect of society tells us, "these things bad!", the real influences (commercials, movies, etc.) tell us, "these things good". It's high school all over again and we know that everyone listens to the popular kids, not the principal.
That's why I find it darkly amusing that smoking has literally brought us all back to high school. Just like back in the day, all the smokers still huddle in doorways outside, while the rest of us are inside in Algebra.
And I am aware that tobacco companies have made their product the most addictive substance on the planet, or at least one of the top three.
Which brings up one of the many lies we, as a society, live. We say we care about our citizens. We say we care about health. There is not many a politician with a breath in his/her body — even if it's hooked up to a respiratory machine — who would dare take on the tobacco lobby and their money.
Profit matters much more than the health of our citizens.
That why there are Coke machines in every junior high in the land.
The societal health costs of smoking are staggering — we ALL pay for smoking-related death. But so what? It's a free country…It's just the smoking that isn't free.
We have come to worship profit in this country. We are a country of divergent religious views (thank God!!) but rather than worry about whether it's appropriate to print, "In God We Trust" on our money…Perhaps we should really be true to ourselves and print, "In Dollars We Trust" on our bibles.
But I digress. This began with my astoshiment yesterday that my glorious, wonderful, funny, remarkable, beautiful Mother had been so blessed by beating the odds of her disease for much longer than she might have. And it ended with my infinite gratitude as having lived a life so blessed by her company for so many years.
Will all this press on Jennings death inspire smokers to quit? Maybe. For a couple of days, at least. I hope so.
It angers me that people smoke. But it angers me more that we still parrot things like, "Just say no" to bad and unhealthy behaviors when it is clear that the profit they make — with a healthy cut to political coffers — is the ultimate word.
Crazy me. I care more about the needs of the coughers than the coffers.
Keith Olbermann's Anti-Smoking Message
The following transcript is from the MSNBC program, Countdown with Keith Olbermann…the edition of August 8, 2005. Much of that broadcast was devoted to remembering newsman Peter Jennings, who had died the previous day from lung cancer. Olbermann capped the hour with the following statement about smoking and what it had done to him…
OLBERMANN: We close where we began tonight, with the death of Peter Jennings. We've already talked about him. Now, in our number one story on the Countdown, we need to talk about you and cancer. The statistics are staggering. By the time this day is over, just in this country, 447 people will have died of lung cancer, 1,562 from all forms of cancer — today.
Nobody did a better job of remembering this part of this sadness that we're trying to forget than Tom Brokaw this morning on the Today show.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM BROKAW, FORMER "NBC NIGHTLY NEWS" ANCHOR: To go through this very difficult time seems particularly cruel to me, but I know Peter would want us to say this happens to families in America every day, and we can't forget them, either.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: To that point, the story now of somebody who quite probably should have been in Peter Jennings's shoes, except for dumb, undeserved luck. Me.
So, I thought as I was hunched over, spitting blood into the garbage can in my office half an hour before the newscast, this is it. This is cancer. It gets uglier, I understood that, so ugly that those who have survived it can't even describe how much uglier it gets.
Still, that imagery that I want to have stick in your mind is pretty good. They've just had to cut something out from inside your body because they think it's cancer, and because it doesn't heal up right away, every couple of hours, the coagulation breaks and your mouth fills up with blood, and all of a sudden, hunching over a garbage can spitting it out is the best available option.
I'm not doing some sort of bad taste "What if" on the passing of Peter Jennings. I have had a tumor removed from the roof of my mouth. It was benign. That makes all the difference in the world, of course, except for the part where it doesn't make any difference because I was in that position, spitting globs of myself into a garbage can in Seacaucus, New Jersey, entirely through my own doing, my own fault.
And maybe there is the chance that if the loss of Peter Jennings has not impacted you sufficiently, maybe if you listen to my story, you might get smart enough in a hurry or scared enough in a hurry so that you don't wind up spitting blood into the garbage can and spending five days, like me, thinking you had cancer or having it.
There are some things in life you don't have much control over — terrorism, lightning, even cancer, when it runs in your family or when you just get it. But that's not what this tumor was, the one that for five very long days had me convinced I had cancer. This was from me smoking pipes and cigars for 27 years. And if you work for a company that produces or sells pipes and cigars and you are recoiling defensively and saying, You don't know that, let me quote Robert Novak. Bull. I do, too, know that.
The place where this thing grew on the roof of my mouth was precisely above the spot where the end of the cigar or the tip of the pipe would sit nearly every time I've smoked. I've been smoking, with the first place the smoke connected with my tissue right in this one spot in my mouth, since Jimmy Carter was president. So yes, biologically speaking, smoking caused that tumor on the roof of my mouth. Behaviorally speaking, I caused that tumor, period.
It's not like that thing they cut out of me a week ago last Friday just appeared overnight, either. It was there no later than 1991, and a dentist told me then, Either quit smoking, stupid, or keep an eye this or both because that thing could be pre-cancerous. But no, until my current dentist, Bob Schwartz, said, "This thing's changed, go see an oral surgeon," I knew better. Both my grandfathers, I like to say, lived into their 80s. And in the last weeks of their lives, they both walked into town to get a haircut and some cigars. And that would be good enough for me.
Well, maybe that would have been good enough for me, except the point is this. They cut something out of your mouth. It's a benign fibrous tumor. They have to cauterize your mouth with a laser. You wind up spitting blood like Rocky Balboa in front of Burgess Meredith. You spend five days thinking about the radiation and the chemo to come. And by the way, ten days later, your mouth still hurts and it'll probably all be healed in six weeks, and that's if you're lucky, so lucky that you start jumping up and down and singing "Happy Days Are Here Again." Imagine if it were bad news. My oral surgeon, Andre Mark, admits now he feared the worst. And worse still, the last guy to see him before me, the last smoker with a tumor in his mouth — his was lymphoma B, cancer. No unexpected good luck for him.
Maybe if you're still sitting there smoking right now, this will make you think. And even if you sense there's already something wrong, don't wait. Oral cancers are survivable at a rate of 80 to 90 percent. Get your dentist to give you a simple screening. Even lung cancer you can do something about, if you do something about it.
Since that lovely evening I spent hunched over my garbage can, I have changed in a couple of ways, but most notably in this way. When I see somebody smoking, I want to smack the cigarette or the cigar or the pipe out of their mouth. And then I want to smack them. I understand about the addiction and how they hook you and all of that. I'm a smoker, remember?
But consider something I had to consider last week. It would be terrible enough to have cancer, but on top of it, you'd have cancer and you'd have to stop smoking at the same time. Guess what? It's easier to stop smoking when you do not have cancer. Ever thought of that before?
Anyway, we are all sad about Peter Jennings. Me, I feel sad and guilty. But if his death has saddened you and you smoke and you want to do something about it, something for him, stop smoking. Or get somebody else to stop smoking. Break the pipe or throw away the chaw or flush the butts or leave the cigar in the cigar store. Buy the gum, buy the patch, get them to tie your arms behind your back until you stop smoking. Do whatever you have to do to stop smoking. Now. While it's easier. So you don't have to stop smoking while you have cancer. Or while you are sitting there spitting into a garbage can, praying that you do not.
Lighting Up
Several people have written me to address my stated view that people have a right to kill themselves, even with cigarettes, if they so choose. Here's one from Ruben Arellano…
I have to disagree when you state a smoker can "decide it's an acceptable trade-off of pleasure versus death and doctor bills, that's their choice". I think the terms "pleasure" and "choice" are misleading here. I can't see that there is any pleasure in smoking, and the choice is mostly removed with the intense addiction that drives most people to continue their "habit." When I see people struggling to light their smokes up in a stinking back alley in the dead of winter, in the rain, I really can't see that is their little pleasure time.
It's just easy for people to do the easy thing, that is continue what their addiction drives them to do. Not many people have the werewithal to make major life changes like that, never mind one that is driven by chemical addiction.
I would go so far as to say it should be entirely illegal for companies to sell tobacco, as they are basically poisoning society for no good benefit except financial gain. I can't think of any other industry that is allowed to do that in such an obvious way. But big tobacco is too much a part of our economies to let that happen.
(sorry, didn't mean for that to turn into a soapbox rant).
To stay on topic about your posting, I think it is fantastic that Olbermann stated what he did, and I find it appalling that more public figures don't do the same.
I'm not the best person to argue that smoking gives some people pleasure. As I said, I've never smoked. It never looked to me like anything that could possibly be pleasant. But other human beings do a lot of things I could say that about. They have parts of their bodies pierced. They ride roller coasters. They bungee-jump. Some people even — and I know this is hard to believe but it's apparently true — pay good money to see The Dukes of Hazzard.
I agree with you that people shouldn't smoke, but I think there's a limit as to how far government should go to protect them from doing what we think they shouldn't do. As inconceivable as it may be to some of us, there are people who enjoy smoking…people who, if you tell them it may shave X years off their lives, will decide that's an acceptable risk. I don't think they should be allowed to do this in a room where their smoke will affect me. I don't think my health costs should go up because of their choice. But I do think they own their bodies and have the right to pollute them. I hope they don't, and I do what I can to dissuade friends from electing that option, but I think it's ultimately an individual choice. I will say that when I encounter a real-life example, such as the one provided us by Mr. Olbermann, I feel less militant about that position. You may yet get me over to your side on this one.
An Internet Warning
Whatever you do, if you know what's good for you, don't click on this link. Especially if you don't like llamas.
A Remarkable Moment on Television
I enjoy watching MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, which I think offers the smartest, most candid news coverage on TV. Lately, I've been disappointed at the number of days that Mr. Olbermann has been "on vacation."
It turns out, Keith has been away having a tumor removed from the roof of his mouth. His show today is mainly about the late Peter Jennings and it's really a remarkable, compassionate report on his deceased colleague. But the most startling moment — one of the most powerful things I've seen on TV in years — comes in the last seven minutes of the show. In it, Olbermann reveals what he's been going through as a result of his own smoking, relates it to the death of Peter Jennings due (largely) to smoking…and tells viewers, basically, what idiots they are for continuing to smoke.
I don't smoke and never have, and I am of two minds about it. On the one hand, I believe it kills people and has killed a number of people close to me. On the other hand, I believe people have a right to kill themselves if they're sane and decide that's what they want. So I guess my position is that they should be warned, lectured and berated — at least a little — about it…and then if they decide it's an acceptable trade-off of pleasure versus death and doctor bills, that's their choice.
This episode of Countdown airs again, beginning a little more than two hours from now across much of the country. If you read this message before it does, you might want to set the TiVo or, at least, catch the last seven minutes. If you know someone who needs an anti-smoking warning, you might want to get them to watch. And if anyone out there notices anywhere on the Internet where this video is posted, please let me know so I can link to it.
Eating Semi-Healthy
Has anyone else noticed that the "healthier" fast food is going away? A few years ago, we had an outburst of stands where you could get real, non-fried food with the ease of a McDonald's and at a price not far above Wendy's. We're talking about rotisserie chicken or actual carved turkey plus real, fresh side dishes. There are times when I'm hurrying from meeting to meeting and I have to grab a fast lunch. As I have a long list of food allergies and intolerances, I don't like to experiment. I like to know what I'm going to get, and it often helps me to know of the location of (or to stumble across) a Koo Koo Roo, a Kenny Rogers Roasters or a Boston Market. It's especially beneficial when I'm on unfamiliar turf. Coming across one of those businesses can be a lifesaver.
But the trend is away from them. All six of the Kenny Rogers Roasters restaurants I used to frequent (five in Southern California, one in Las Vegas) have closed. In fact, if I read their website correctly, there's only one left in the continental United States, and it's in Maryland. Many of them have turned into outlets of the Wienerschnitzel chain, which is a perfect example of the kind of place I'm trying to avoid.
Koo Koo Roo, which is a West Coast chain, has downsized considerably, shrinking from more than forty outlets to a mere eighteen. Late in 2003, they were purchased out of bankruptcy by the Fuddrucker's chain, which added burgers and fries to the menus in those stores where the kitchen was large enough to accomodate the extra equipment. Koo Koo Roo was once founded on the principle of avoiding burgers and fries, and now that cuisine seems to be effecting a hostile takeover. Many Koo Koo Roo outlets that once served me well are gone and I fear that more will close or just turn into Fuddrucker's. Some of them are already halfway there.
Another takeover by a burger magnate has occurred with the Boston Market chain, which was acquired by McDonald's a few years ago. Boston Market has been especially useful when I've been on trips to other cities. On my recent visit to Scottsdale, for instance, Carolyn and I were driving to the airport, searching for a place en route that would serve up a quick, edible lunch that wasn't Happy Meal fare. I didn't want a Burger King and I didn't want to gamble on an unknown establishment. When we came across a Boston Market, that was it. Their roast turkey is a pretty good option when one needs to eat and their "sweet garlic rotisserie chicken" is better than it sounds.
So why do I have the feeling Boston Market is not long for this world? Because this probably wasn't a restaurant deal. It was more likely a real estate deal. The success of McDonald's was only in part because of its development of fast, easy ways to prep burgers, fries and McNuggets. A lot of it was due to shrewd real estate acquisitions, anticipating property trends and securing key parcels of land for low prices. Boston Market, to the extent it had any success at all, operated the same way, skillfully figuring out where a fast food place might do well amidst new area development and securing a prime location before someone else could. McDonald's didn't acquire the failing Boston Market business to keep things the same way. They're probably going to use most or all of those valuable locales for the other, new wave chains that McDonald's is nurturing, like Donato's Pizza and the Chipotle Mexican Grills. I can't and don't want to eat at either of those.
Not all that long ago, rotisserie chicken and fresh vegetables was the coming thing in fast food. Now, all the chains that offer that are in trouble and the big success stories are things like Carl's Jr's Six Dollar Western Bacon Cheeseburger, which contains a lovely 1,080 calories, half of them from fat. (My usual entree at Koo Koo Roo — two chicken breasts, original style — contains about a third of that.) We keep reading stories about how overweight and out of shape America is getting. There's as good a benchmark as anything.
From the E-Mailbag…
Here's a message from Ryan Matney, a reader of this site…
Love your blog as always. I was wondering if you have any interest in seeing the new movie, The Aristocrats by Penn Jillette? More to the point, since you are very knowledgable about comics, performers, and writers, I was wondering if you have any stories or experiences with this joke or know anything of it's history that you care to share? It was new to me when I read about the film. Did you ever hear, say, Paul Winchell or Red Skelton tell it?
There is an internet rumor going around that the film is a hoax and the joke is not in fact a comedian's inside secret but a prank put on film by Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza.
I haven't seen the film but I'd like to. And I'd like to see it with a packed audience, so I guess I'd better hustle out soon. I've just been so swamped lately…
The joke in question is an old joke that has been around for years. It's possible that Mssrs. Jillette and Provenza are exaggerating the extent to which it's infamous among comedians. Like I said, I haven't seen the movie so I'm not sure exactly what is being claimed here. But I have heard the joke a few times over the last few decades…though not from anyone with the status of a Winchell or Skelton. There are actually a number of these "improvisational" jokes where the teller is free to fiddle a lot with the center section and it was probably a brilliant idea to get so many comedians to do their versions of one of them.
Today's Political Rant
New York Times reporter Judy Miller is still behind bars for refusing to divulge sources in the Plame/CIA/maybe Rove matter. Some people, of course, have always felt she should be jailed because the enforcement of various espionage-related laws is of greater importance than whatever principle of the Free Press she is protecting. Others, who believe no reporter should ever be incarcerated for protecting a source, have come to her defense. But as I read various members of the media who hold that latter position, I sure get the feeling that sentiment is moving away from that point-of-view; that they're starting to think they should be arguing that Ms. Miller is not fighting for any worthwhile tenet of journalism.
I guess I feel about her the way I feel about Robert Novak. I am amazed that she still had a career — at the New York friggin' Times, of all places — after writing so many Iraq-related stories that turned out to be sheer, untrue administration propaganda. I dunno why so many pro-Bush people hate the Times after all the front page stories they obligingly published, most of them written by one Judith Miller, telling us that Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction ready to use on the U.S., and was on the verge of getting more. The stories were dead wrong and the Times has since done much (though not enough) to correct the record…
…but no one fired Judy Miller.
No one got fired in the Bush-Cheney administration for being wrong about that, either — including Bush and Cheney. There seems to be an odd sentiment in America today that if you screw up royally — even if it gets people killed — that's okay, just so long as you didn't engage in deliberate deception. If someone lies, that's bad. But if they're just inept, that's okay…and how dare anyone accuse them of lying?
I think we need to carry this principle into other areas of life. For instance, let's say your doctor tells you that your right leg has to be amputated and that's done. Then you find out later that you just had bad Athlete's Foot, and a good dose of Lamisil would have fixed everything. I think in this case, you should say, "That's all right. The doctor didn't lie to me. He actually did think my right leg had to come off so he was acting in good faith. I think I'll let him examine the other leg."
Or let's say an air traffic controller makes an honest mistake…or how about an auto manufacturer whose cars explode? I think we can all come up with examples. Being wrong doesn't usually make you a bad person but it also doesn't mean you should still be in that job.
All the polls are telling us that Americans are drifting to the view that George W. Bush is not a very good president. Acccording to this one, which isn't even the worst, only 42% think he's doing a good job as president and only 38% think he's handling Iraq the right way. His numbers for "honesty and integrity" are a bit higher but they're also headed to historic lows. I think those are the numbers to watch. Because a certain portion of this country doesn't care if you botch things up so long as they feel your heart's in the right place.
Happy Freberg Day!
Happy birthday to the man who is (I think) America's greatest satirist and a major architect of comedy for an entire generation. I sure hope he doesn't try to blow out the proper number of candles because it could be dangerous, and we need to keep him safe and sound.
Fortunately, Stan Freberg has a new and wonderful wife protecting him. Her name is Hunter and I think she also arranged to donate Stan's old hair-do to Phil Spector. Hope they both have a joyous Freberg Day.
The Meanest Man on Radio
The other day, I made an outta-left-field reference here to Joe Pyne. This brought the following e-mail from Brad Kohler…
I realize that you did not really give him a favorable mention, but it amazes me that, even though he has been dead for over 30 years, just the mention of that man's name raises my blood pressure. To me, he was a venomous snake who, among his many sins, laid the foundation for today's hate radio.
I think that was the idea, Brad. Joe Pyne inspired a couple of generations of TV and especially radio personalities who learned that getting people pissed off was good for the ratings. I never met Mr. Pyne but the guy who used to cut my hair used to cut his, and you tend to trust your barber. He said that Pyne was, indeed, an angry, one-legged man who was always yelling about everything, but that the guy clearly laid it on thick and deliberately for his broadcasts. Like a lot of folks in radio, he found an act that worked for him and he worked that act for all it was worth.
Pyne was big on TV and radio in Los Angeles in the sixties, and I could never understand why some people went on his show or called in. He was generally Conservative but his overwhelming concern seemed to be contempt for his guests, no matter what they said. To the extent he had a political philosophy, it seemed to be mostly anti-freeloader. He was pro-police, pro-military, pro-gun ownership, etc., but he was also pro-union, at least when the union was actually representing the interests of working men and women. I don't think anything enraged him more than the concept of welfare…and not just for the poor or minorities. Unlike a lot of people who loathe welfare, he was also against various government subsidy programs that he thought functioned as welfare for the wealthy, and quite willing to rip even Republican leaders who were responsible for that kind of thing.
For a time when my father was dropping me off at school on his way to work, we used to listen to Pyne on the car radio. Even though I was pretty Conservative in those days, I thought Pyne was a jerk on many fronts, seeing Commies where they weren't any and presuming that if you were under the age of 21, you were almost certainly a worthless, dope-smoking hippie. It amused me that he was always railing against people (especially young people) who allegedly shunned honest work…this, while he was making a small fortune via what struck me as very easy, dishonest work. Pyne then did his A.M. radio show from a little studio in his bedroom at home. Often, he was lying in bed in his jammies, yammering insults and telling people to go out and get a real job. My father did not see the irony or amusement. Pyne simply enraged him…but he listened, and I guess that was the point.
The best thing about Pyne's TV shows was a local businessman named Ozzie Whiffletree. That, obviously, was not his real name. It was an identity he adopted because he was afraid of reprisals against his family and/or business. He began showing up in Pyne's "dock," where audience members could get up and debate him. Mr. Whiffletree, whom I recall looking like Gavin MacLeod on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, was a Liberal and a good arguer, and he put Pyne in his place a few times, playing Joseph Welch to the host's Joe McCarthy-like rants. Pyne and/or his producers apparently realized it was good television because they made Ozzie a regular on the show, promising to maintain his anonymity. I suspect Pyne came to regret that decision because he was sometimes reduced to stammering insults, and it began to seem like he was trying to make the show run long so there'd be no time for the bald guy. When Pyne's show finally went off the air, I don't think very many people missed him. But a lot of us missed Ozzie Whiffletree.
Must See TeeVee
Still the funniest, cleverest thing on my TV: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. If you didn't catch last night, they had a wonderful segment about Mr. Novak's outburst on CNN, and followed it with a piece about the news coverage of that Toronto airport accident. You can view a video with one bit after another here. (If that link doesn't work — and it might not — go the Comedy Central website and look for a video entitled "It's a Miracle.")
For some reason, they bleeped Novak's expletive in the online video even though it ran unmarred on the show.
Take a Hike!
Bloggers are making way too big a deal about the incident today on CNN when Robert Novak uttered an obscenity and walked out. (If you didn't see it, the video's all over the 'net. Here's a good place to view it.) Since the rhetoric preceding his little outburst was pretty much the norm for years on Crossfire, everyone wants to know why he stormed off the set. A better question would be why this man was ever allowed on the set in the first place.
He's a dreadful reporter and always has been. Back when he was teamed with Rowland Evans, people called them "Errors and No Facts," and the surviving member of that partnership has kept their record intact. No one expects reporters to get everything right or for all a pundit's predictions to be on target but there's such a thing as being so consistently wrong that you just shouldn't have the job. A week or two ago, Novak was proclaiming he had inside info that the retirement of Chief Justice Rehnquist would come in a day or two. It didn't, and I'm afraid that's pretty typical.
For years, he's been touted as a major Conservative commentator but you rarely see any true Conservatives quote the man, and many seem to be embarrassed that he has so many forums to so badly represent their views. Actually, his conservatism seems to start and stop with one issue: That wealthy people should make more money and pay less tax. One suspects that given the choice of outlawing abortion, achieving victory in Iraq and having ten bucks shaved off his I.R.S. bill, he'd instantly go for the third option. It is in no way surprising that Novak loves the Bush administration and has been willing to shill for it and repeat any damn thing they told him to report, including the identity of someone who may have been a covert C.I.A. operative. The Bush administration has lowered his taxes.
There are all sorts of theories for his little outburst today: He knew questions were coming about his involvement in the CIA/Plame story and was looking for a way to get out before them. He knew CNN was ready to can him and wanted it to seem to be for a reason other than controversy and the fact that every show he's done for them lately has been cancelled. He's under stress because he knows the case is about to blow wide open and he's in the middle with some embarrassing (and perhaps, criminal) revelations looming. Some or all of these may be true…but I don't think it's outrageous that he walked off CNN. I think the outrage is that he was there in the first place.
Odds and Ends
Let's play Catch-Up on items posted here lately…
- No, I do not know of any firm plans for memorial services for Pat McCormick, Danny Simon or Gary Belkin, though I am told there will be public events at least for Pat and Gary. If you knew these gents and want to be kept informed, drop me a note. Or if you hear about plans before I do, inform me.
- I am told by several of you that Theodore Geisel once pronounced his middle name as "soice" but that, in at least one bio of him, it says he gave up and went for the more common pronounciation of Dr. Seuss. Okay. But my point is that if even he was pronouncing it that way by 1958, there was nothing wrong with us pronouncing it that way in the sixties and later. Also, of course, just because your middle name is pronounced one way doesn't mean you have to pronounce your similarly-spelled pen name the same way. Especially when you're making a lot of money off folks who pronounce it "soose."
- Apparently, I did proofread that interview that ran in Back Issue before publication and corrected all the errors. The problem was that the wrong draft was sent to the publisher. Oh, well.
- I am receiving a lot of volunteers for my Kirby Book Research Project, some of whom apparently think they're signing up to proofread the book. No…what I need is folks who can dig up old issue numbers and data for me. Proofreading will come much later.
- Lots of messages about your own experiences with telemarketers and phone survey takers. Yes, I did sign up for the National Do Not Call Registry. Yes, I still get a lot of unwanted telemarketing calls.
I'm way behind again in answering e-mail. Please forgive. And if you can't forgive, at least try to forget.
Today's Political Rant
Some old wise man — I think it was Joe Pyne — once said that the real scandal in government wasn't about what laws were being broken but what you can get away with without breaking any laws. As this article in the Washington Post notes, there's an awful lot that lobbyists can do to bestow presents and perks on our legislators without violating a single statute.
I suspect everyone reading this would agree that it's possible for something to be immoral or unethical but technically legal. Some would say that performing abortions is immoral even though it's legal. Others would say that a C.E.O. draining his employees' pension fund is unethical even though it's legal. And yet, in the partisan bickering that's getting worse and worse, this principle is largely being trampled into oblivion. A lot of Karl Rove's defenders are contending that no law was broken…so, end of argument. Champions of the Clintons have trod the same ground in the past: No one was indicted; ergo, the actions were honorable. Well…maybe, maybe not.
I don't even believe that not being indicted or convicted means that no law was broken. A very small percentage of all murders are ever prosecuted in this country. That doesn't mean no one should have gone to prison for them. The case just couldn't be proved. A lot of white collar and political crimes aren't prosecuted due to which party controls the office of the prosecutor at any given moment. We might well be in the midst of impeachment-related hearings right now if all the same things had transpired in Washington the last few years except that the Democrats had control of Congress.
Read the Post article. A lot of those things aren't illegal but should be. That's where our outrage should begin…not when the law is violated but, at times, when it isn't. And by the way, I was just kidding about Joe Pyne being wise.