For many years Ben Stein has written a biweekly column called "Monday Night At Morton's." (Morton's is a famous chain of Steakhouses known to be frequented by movie stars and famous people from around the globe.) Now, Ben is terminating the column to move on to other things in his life. Reading his final column is worth a few minutes of your time.
Ben Stein's Last Column...
============================================
How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today's World?
As I begin to write this, I "slug" it, as we writers say, which means I put a heading on top of the document to identify it. This heading is "eonlineFINAL," and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started. I loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end.
It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the world's change have overtaken it. On a small scale, Morton's, while better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to. It still brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars. I saw Samuel L. Jackson there a few days ago, and we had a nice visit, and right before that, I saw and had a splendid talk with Warren Beatty in an elevator, in which we agreed that Splendor in the Grass was a super movie. But Morton's is not the star galaxy it once was, though it probably will be again.
Beyond that, a bigger change has happened. I no longer think Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant, friendly people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be treated. But a man or woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining star we should all look up to.
How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today's world, if by a "star" we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model? Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or getting trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese girls do their nails.
They can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any longer. A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq. He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world.
A real star is the U.S.soldier who was sent to disarm a bomb next to a road north of Baghdad. He approached it, and the bomb went off and killed him.
A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day, is the U.S. soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with a piece of unexploded ordnance on a street near where he was guarding a station. He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad.
The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosul even after two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.
We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers of our magazines. The noncoms and officers who barely scrape by on military pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and die.
I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton's is a big subject.
There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament...the policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no idea if they will return alive; the orderlies and paramedics who bring in people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery; the teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children; the kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards.
Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse. Now you have my idea of a real hero.
I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters. This is my highest and best use as a human. I can put it another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin...or Martin Mull or Fred Willard--or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman or as good a writer as Fitzgerald. Or even remotely close to any of them.
But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came to be my main task in life. I did it moderately well with my son, pretty well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister's help). I cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years. I stayed with my father as he got sick, went into extremis and then into a coma and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms.
This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York. I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human.
Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.
By Ben Stein
Monday, May 29, 2006
Sunday, May 28, 2006
What happened?
Pathetic, really pathetic.
Just think how we are controlled. What all rules the world? Marketing and advertising control a lot of it. Just think of what we actually watch and listen to. Trash. TV is trash, all advertising generated. TV shows are just an excuse to have commercials. It''s getting close to 50/50 now. Just think about it. The shows are stupid, no substance to them, so that when the commercials come on, you pay attention. YOUR life is driven by commercials. They tell you what to buy, and teamed up with marketing, they control. Look at all the products in the store. Look at cereal.
One whole aisle, both sides, 216 different breakfast products alone. And, few of them are good for you. Look at yogurt, yogurt is yogurt, yet, look at all the different varieties. And then, some genius came up with the idea of turning it into a drinkable liquid ... the smoothy. What next?
How, what force, can possibly convince anyone, that poker is fun to watch. Now they are going to do blackjack. That harvesting crabs is exciting. Just think of some of the subjects that are now fodder for TV shows. Nothing is exempt from TV cameras.
I suppose I am too old, but .... well .... music... well not really music, because it is not. Singers, well not really. Melody, none, lyrics, questionable. What is it then. Noise, it is noise ... .noise with a questionable beat to it and of lot of ... well ..... abdominal contractions and undulations ... with attire that stems the tide from little to none ... to .... oversized ... draped .... laden with gold. The industry has been a blessing for some though. Because, it takes NO talent, just guts, and the ability to yell. I think I could do an album, and go GOLD, or even platinum .. by putting recording equipment ... in a delivery room at any hospital on a full moon night. No video.
Just think how we are controlled. What all rules the world? Marketing and advertising control a lot of it. Just think of what we actually watch and listen to. Trash. TV is trash, all advertising generated. TV shows are just an excuse to have commercials. It''s getting close to 50/50 now. Just think about it. The shows are stupid, no substance to them, so that when the commercials come on, you pay attention. YOUR life is driven by commercials. They tell you what to buy, and teamed up with marketing, they control. Look at all the products in the store. Look at cereal.
One whole aisle, both sides, 216 different breakfast products alone. And, few of them are good for you. Look at yogurt, yogurt is yogurt, yet, look at all the different varieties. And then, some genius came up with the idea of turning it into a drinkable liquid ... the smoothy. What next?
How, what force, can possibly convince anyone, that poker is fun to watch. Now they are going to do blackjack. That harvesting crabs is exciting. Just think of some of the subjects that are now fodder for TV shows. Nothing is exempt from TV cameras.
I suppose I am too old, but .... well .... music... well not really music, because it is not. Singers, well not really. Melody, none, lyrics, questionable. What is it then. Noise, it is noise ... .noise with a questionable beat to it and of lot of ... well ..... abdominal contractions and undulations ... with attire that stems the tide from little to none ... to .... oversized ... draped .... laden with gold. The industry has been a blessing for some though. Because, it takes NO talent, just guts, and the ability to yell. I think I could do an album, and go GOLD, or even platinum .. by putting recording equipment ... in a delivery room at any hospital on a full moon night. No video.
Friday, May 26, 2006
The Sneeze
THE SNEEZE
They walked in tandem, each of the ninety-two students filing into the already crowded auditorium with rich maroon gowns flowing and the traditional caps, they looked almost as grown up as they felt. Dads swallowed hard behind broad smiles, and Moms freely brushed away tears.This class would not pray during the commencements----not by choice, but because of a recent court ruling prohibiting it. The principal and several students were careful to stay within the guidelines allowed by the ruling. They gave inspirational and challenging speeches, but no one mentioned divine guidance and no one asked for blessings on the graduates or their families. The speeches were nice, but they were routine.....until the final speech received a standing ovation. A solitary student walked proudly to the microphone. He stood still and silent for just a moment, and then, it happened. All 92 students, every single one of them, suddenly SNEEZED!! !!The student on stage simply looked at the audience and said, " GOD BLESS YOU, each and everyone of you!" And he walked off stage...The audience exploded into applause. The graduating class found a unique way to invoke God's blessing on their future with or without the court's approval. Isn't this a wonderful story? Pass it on to all your friends.........and GOD BLESS YOU!!!!
In God We Trust, United We Stand.This is a true story; happened at the University of Maryland.
They walked in tandem, each of the ninety-two students filing into the already crowded auditorium with rich maroon gowns flowing and the traditional caps, they looked almost as grown up as they felt. Dads swallowed hard behind broad smiles, and Moms freely brushed away tears.This class would not pray during the commencements----not by choice, but because of a recent court ruling prohibiting it. The principal and several students were careful to stay within the guidelines allowed by the ruling. They gave inspirational and challenging speeches, but no one mentioned divine guidance and no one asked for blessings on the graduates or their families. The speeches were nice, but they were routine.....until the final speech received a standing ovation. A solitary student walked proudly to the microphone. He stood still and silent for just a moment, and then, it happened. All 92 students, every single one of them, suddenly SNEEZED!! !!The student on stage simply looked at the audience and said, " GOD BLESS YOU, each and everyone of you!" And he walked off stage...The audience exploded into applause. The graduating class found a unique way to invoke God's blessing on their future with or without the court's approval. Isn't this a wonderful story? Pass it on to all your friends.........and GOD BLESS YOU!!!!
In God We Trust, United We Stand.This is a true story; happened at the University of Maryland.
Something to think about
TAKE A MOMENT TO READ THIS !!
Subject: Thoughts on Immigration from a Teacher's Husband
Passing on as received.
Something You Won't Read About In the Papers During the
Immigration Debate.
As you all listen to the news about the student protests over illegal
immigration there are some things that you should be aware of.
My wife is in charge of the English-as-a-second-language department at
large southern California high school which is designated a Title 1
school, meaning that its students average lower socio-economic and
income levels. Most of the schools you are hearing about South Gate
High, Bell Gardens, Huntington Park etc., where these students are
protesting are also Title 1 schools.
My wife tells me that 100% of the students in her school and other Title
1 schools are on the free breakfast, free lunch program. When I say free
breakfast I'm not talking a glass of milk and roll... but a full
breakfast and cereal bar with fruits and juices that would make a
Marriott proud. The waste of this food is monumental, with trays and
trays of it being dumped in the trash uneaten. She estimates that well
over 50% of these students are obese or at least moderately overweight.
About 75% or more DO have cell phones.
The school also provides day care centers for the unwed teenage pregnant
girls (some as young as 13) so they can attend class without the
inconvenience of having to arrange for baby-sitters or having family
watch their kids.
She was ordered to spend $700,000 on her department or risk losing
funding for the upcoming year even though there was little need for
anything; her budget was already substantial. She ended up buying new
computers for their computer learning center. Half of which, one month
later, have been carved with graffiti by the appreciative students who
obviously feel humbled and grateful to have a free education in America.
She has had to intervene several times for young and substitute teachers
whose classes consist of many illegal immigrant students here in the
country less then 3 months who raised so much hell with the female
teachers, calling them "Putas"--whores--and throwing things that the
teachers were in tears.
Free medical, free education, free food, day care etc.. etc.. etc.. Is
it any wonder they feel entitled to not only be in this country but to
demand rights, privileges and entitlements?
To my bleeding-heart liberal friends who want to point out how much
these illegal immigrants contribute to our society because they LIKE
their gardener and housekeeper and they like to pay less f or tomatoes:
spend some time in the real world of illegal immigration and see the
TRUE costs. Higher insurance, Medical facilities closing, higher medical
costs, more crime, lower standards of education in our schools,
overcrowding, new diseases etc.. etc.. etc.. For me--- I'll pay more
for tomatoes.
We need to wake up. The guest worker program will be a disaster because
we won't have the guts to enforce it. Does anyone in their right mind
really think they will leave and return voluntarily?
There are many hardworking Hispanic/American citizens that contribute to our country and many that I consider my true friends. We should
encourage and accept those Hispanics who have done it the right and
legal way. It does, however, have everything to do with culture. A
third-world culture that does not value education, that accepts children
getting pregnant and dropping out of school by 15 and that refuses to
assimilate... and an American culture that has become so weak and
politically correct that we don't have the will to do anything about it.
Subject: Thoughts on Immigration from a Teacher's Husband
Passing on as received.
Something You Won't Read About In the Papers During the
Immigration Debate.
As you all listen to the news about the student protests over illegal
immigration there are some things that you should be aware of.
My wife is in charge of the English-as-a-second-language department at
large southern California high school which is designated a Title 1
school, meaning that its students average lower socio-economic and
income levels. Most of the schools you are hearing about South Gate
High, Bell Gardens, Huntington Park etc., where these students are
protesting are also Title 1 schools.
My wife tells me that 100% of the students in her school and other Title
1 schools are on the free breakfast, free lunch program. When I say free
breakfast I'm not talking a glass of milk and roll... but a full
breakfast and cereal bar with fruits and juices that would make a
Marriott proud. The waste of this food is monumental, with trays and
trays of it being dumped in the trash uneaten. She estimates that well
over 50% of these students are obese or at least moderately overweight.
About 75% or more DO have cell phones.
The school also provides day care centers for the unwed teenage pregnant
girls (some as young as 13) so they can attend class without the
inconvenience of having to arrange for baby-sitters or having family
watch their kids.
She was ordered to spend $700,000 on her department or risk losing
funding for the upcoming year even though there was little need for
anything; her budget was already substantial. She ended up buying new
computers for their computer learning center. Half of which, one month
later, have been carved with graffiti by the appreciative students who
obviously feel humbled and grateful to have a free education in America.
She has had to intervene several times for young and substitute teachers
whose classes consist of many illegal immigrant students here in the
country less then 3 months who raised so much hell with the female
teachers, calling them "Putas"--whores--and throwing things that the
teachers were in tears.
Free medical, free education, free food, day care etc.. etc.. etc.. Is
it any wonder they feel entitled to not only be in this country but to
demand rights, privileges and entitlements?
To my bleeding-heart liberal friends who want to point out how much
these illegal immigrants contribute to our society because they LIKE
their gardener and housekeeper and they like to pay less f or tomatoes:
spend some time in the real world of illegal immigration and see the
TRUE costs. Higher insurance, Medical facilities closing, higher medical
costs, more crime, lower standards of education in our schools,
overcrowding, new diseases etc.. etc.. etc.. For me--- I'll pay more
for tomatoes.
We need to wake up. The guest worker program will be a disaster because
we won't have the guts to enforce it. Does anyone in their right mind
really think they will leave and return voluntarily?
There are many hardworking Hispanic/American citizens that contribute to our country and many that I consider my true friends. We should
encourage and accept those Hispanics who have done it the right and
legal way. It does, however, have everything to do with culture. A
third-world culture that does not value education, that accepts children
getting pregnant and dropping out of school by 15 and that refuses to
assimilate... and an American culture that has become so weak and
politically correct that we don't have the will to do anything about it.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
There is NO 50/50 Anymore
Where has all the 50/50 gone. The older I get, the more the odds change.
Example: Electrical plug. When I go to plug something in, about 85% of the time, the plug is wrong. I have to turn it around. And, if I have to reach, or it is in a difficult area ..... 98% of the time ... backwards.
Traffic Lights: 87.6% of the time, I get a YELLOW or a RED light. The RED is not so bad, but I hate that YELLOW ... that means you have to sit the MAXIMUM time, and some intersections, that is a long time.
I knew today was not going to be a good day. I got up, slipped on my hooded West Point sweatshirt, and it was backwards. Throws off the whole day. At first, you think you haave gone blind, and then you realize that you have to start the whole day over .... pull it off, turn it around. Not a good way to start.
Celebs, why, why are people so obsessed with them. I suppose TV has had a lot to do with that. Years ago, it was the movies, but not everyone went to the movies ... now TV, everyone watches TV. Just think who we are making millionaires, and more importantly, WHY? Just look at who we are holding up in high esteem. It is frightening. Roll Models for our kids. We are in deep trouble.
Example: Electrical plug. When I go to plug something in, about 85% of the time, the plug is wrong. I have to turn it around. And, if I have to reach, or it is in a difficult area ..... 98% of the time ... backwards.
Traffic Lights: 87.6% of the time, I get a YELLOW or a RED light. The RED is not so bad, but I hate that YELLOW ... that means you have to sit the MAXIMUM time, and some intersections, that is a long time.
I knew today was not going to be a good day. I got up, slipped on my hooded West Point sweatshirt, and it was backwards. Throws off the whole day. At first, you think you haave gone blind, and then you realize that you have to start the whole day over .... pull it off, turn it around. Not a good way to start.
Celebs, why, why are people so obsessed with them. I suppose TV has had a lot to do with that. Years ago, it was the movies, but not everyone went to the movies ... now TV, everyone watches TV. Just think who we are making millionaires, and more importantly, WHY? Just look at who we are holding up in high esteem. It is frightening. Roll Models for our kids. We are in deep trouble.
Back at It
Been off for a while, gotten some EMails expressing concern, thanks to all who wrote. Actually, just in a dry spell for writing. Been busy working has had something to do with it .... and ... getting old.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
