Another pack rat caper.

Okay... let's get silly.

When most folks think "rat", they recoil in horror, disgust, or perhaps even fear. That came about because of city rats. City rats live in sewers, garbage dumps and other unsavory places.

Country rats are entirely different. I live on the Chihuahuan desert, a high desert in America's Southwest. Elevation in the valleys is around 4,300 feet. It soars a mile higher on mountain tops. Our average annual rainfall is about seven inches. You'd think no plants could live on that little water, but our desert supports a surprisingly large number of plants... and animals!

We have the usual lizards and snakes. And, larger mammals like elk and deer, plus coyotes, foxes, skunks, jack rabbits, cottontails, and little mammals like kangaroo mice, pack rats and many more.

Pack rats are clean little creatures who live on seeds, cactus fruit, roots, and other reasonable things. They love grain, grown and harvested by humans. Putting bird seed on the ground to attract quail is a dinner bell for pack rats.

If they invade your yard, you will rarely see them. What you will see is little piles of dirt where they have dug a tunnel entrance. Pack rats are tunnel experts. They dig a deep tunnel, then dig vertical shafts with pockets to provide a dry spot if it rains and water runs into the tunnel. If you see a burrow entrance on one side of the yard and another on the other side, it does not always mean two groups. It more than likely means two entrances to one extensive network of tunnels.

I have no particular animosity for pack rats, but I buy bird seed to attract quail, and I consider the rats thieves. So, I keep a live trap and when I catch a rat, I transport him to the edge of town, where he belongs, and set him free.

The other day I trapped a beautiful adult rat. I lured him into my live trap with pieces of apple. If he had been smart he would have realized there are no apple trees around and could have known something was amiss. But he was curious about the apple and got himself caught.

I asked my wife if she would like to ride along when I took him on his freedom ride and she agreed. I placed the caged rat in the back of my Jeep Cherokee and called to my wife to go. Before letting her in the Jeep, I first took a long look at the trap and told her I wanted to make certain the rat was still secure in the trap before I let her enter. Thus, I set her up to be wary.

As I started the drive, she kept glancing back at the trap to be sure it was still occupied. After a few blocks she regained confidence in the steel cage and relaxed. Even at 80 years of age, I still have a little country boy somewhere inside me. So, when she turned her eyes to the side window, I grabbed her by the shoulder.

It was beautiful. She jumped nearly out of her seat and let out a scream, but instantly knew what was up. Her scream turned to unaccustomed profanity and she began to pound me on the arm. I haven't laughed so hard in years.

We continued to the edge of town where our prisoner was pardoned and released.

This evening as she was cooking dinner I wandered through the kitchen. She said, "I will get you for the rat. Don't know when or where, but I will get you."

On a day when you have seen so much bad news in the media, when you realize you have lost half of your retirement in the so-called financial crisis, when everything looks so dark, nature cheers you up with a furry little critter called a pack rat.

I love it!

If you watched Fox News Channel today (and were not completely numbed by stiumlus package talk) you heard a lot about Mexico. I am mad as hell about that news. I live about 45 miles from Ciudad Juarez - the Mexican city named for the nation's first "Indian" (not Spanish, not French) president, Benito Pablo Juarez.

We used to visit Ciudad Juarez at least once a month. Lots of poverty in Juarez, but I loved the people there. Friendly, talented. Always welcoming. I used to buy all of my medicine in Juarez (the same stuff I could buy at my local Walgreens for two or three times the price.) And my Tequila! We went to Juarez to dine - all kinds of great food, really low prices. I have bought a lot of merchandise in Juarez. Very nice leather goods.

Ciudad Jaurez, Chihuahua, Mexico and El Paso, Texas, U.S.A., are essentially one city. Geographically, of course, but socially as well. Many families have members living on both sides. Merchants on both sides depend on shoppers from the other side.

Suddenly Juarez is off limits to us. The problem is a murdering rampage by drug cartels - 207 people have been murdered in Jaurez so far in 2009! That's just five weeks, friends.

Also on Fox News today we heard a lot of people talking about Michael Phelps. Charles Krauthammer and Juan Williams, among others, talked about the published photos of Michael using marijuana. Those two opined that he was just a kid and should be punished no more.

Let me tell you something, people. A little dry cannabis wasn't the only thing fueled by that contraption Michael was sucking. All those deaths in Juarez - Mexicans and Americans - are the direct result of America's insatiable appetite for illegal drugs.

Using drugs is not funny! It is damned serious. It is the root cause of thousands of killings - brutal, bloody killings.

Today I learned that marijuana is not the only substance being trafficked by the Mexican drug cartels. Today, officials reported confiscating vials of a drug used in breeding horses. It is being sold on U.S. streets as a date-rape drug. How would you like your daughter to accept a coke from a date, only to end up completely helpless as some creep helps himself to her body. The drug cartels can afford to peddle this stuff because their operations are supported by the sale of marijuana.

Don't ever smile at me and say "You didn't inhale." If you spent 10¢ on marijuiana, you directly participated in the deaths of people - many of them innocent of any participation in the drug trade.

And you may well be to blame for the coming invasion of U.S. soil by thousands of frightened Mexicans, running for their lives.

Tell me you smoke a little marijuana and you may well think you have walked into an 80-year-old buzz saw with a serious chip on his shoulder.

Professional Help For Cheaters!

The couple in the commercial smiles at the camera as the woman croons, "We owed the IRS $150,000 and settled for $17,000."

The matronly woman in the expensive electric propelled chair folds her laundry as she brags "I got my power chair and it didn't cost me a penny out of pocket."

The on-camera spokesman advises, "If you owe $10,000, $20,000 or more in credit card debt, we'll show you how to settle for a fraction of what you owe."

Or words to that effect. Am I the only one who gets mad at these things?

We pay a very competent CPA to compute our taxes. Often he advises of some provision in the law that can save us money. But always we pay what he says we owe... in full and on time. A couple of times we have gotten ourselve in a bind. We asked the IRS for the opportunity to pay in installments. They granted that request and we paid the total amount due on the agreed timetable... plus interest.

We use credit cards. Sure beats carrying around a pocketful of cash and is a great way to account for your purchases. When our credit card bills come in the mail, we pay them. If we feel we can get a better deal from a different bank, we may negotiate. But when we get the bills, we pay them.

We drive old cars. We use old technology. But we pay our own way. It is what we have been taught is the right thing to do.

When we see someone bragging that they got out of paying taxes or that they screwed the credit card companies, or they got Medicare to buy goodies for them, it seems that maybe we carried some of their tax burden for them, or that we, along with the banks and Medicare, are the ones getting screwed.

When we see someone making their living helping those cheats, we just get mad.

How about you?

We Piddle Around.

If you recognize that term, you must be as old as I am. That was what the average man on the street called President Roosevelts "Works Projects Administration" - the W.P.A. - throughout the 1930s.

Part of the New Deal solution to the depression, the W.P.A. was supposed to put people to work, get money into the economy AND, improve the infastructure!

Even today you can occasionally find an old shelter house at a national park, or perhaps a foot bridge somewhere, that bears the logo of the W.P.A.! So, yes, the effort did do something toward rebuilding the infrastructure. You may also argue that it made welfare recipients work for their handout. But you will be hard pressed to find anyone who will say the W.P.A. stimulated the economy.

What everyone who remembers the 1930s can tell you is that everything the W.P.A. did was done in slow motion. They piddled around.

Now Congress is again talking about stimulating the economy by pouring billions into "shovel ready" projects to improve the infrastructure. I suspect the only thing those shovels are ready for is being leaned on.

Ho hum.

The politicians also learn slowly.

Get Out of Jail FREE!

I have to vent. Thirty nine years ago, in 1970, I applied for a job. At the time I was 41 years old with an impressive record of success in public relations. I applied for a PR job. A then friend of mine, U.S. Senator Bob Dole, recommended me for the job. The folks doing the hiring, looked at my academic background and rejected me out-of-hand. Lacking the desired college degrees, I was not to be considered. Fair enough. Their decision. They decided. End of story.

Fast forward to the new century. Numerous academecians have written that today's college students have no interst in learning. They spend lecture periods text messaging or goofing around with Facebook or My Space or some other social networking service on their laptops, completely ignoring the lecturer. When they get their possibly failing grade, they meet with and plead to their professior for an exception.

Eventually they pass the course, and eventually they get their degree. They have learned little more than how to manipulate the system. Many then go into their father's business and spend a life of luxury screwing off as they did in their college classroom.

Still, as I have always advised young persons... the academic credentials are the key that will open the door. Once it opens, you have the opportunity to make it big.

Today the United States Senate gave America's youth another important reason to stay in school and stay in school and stay in school and stay in school. Keep building up those degrees.

When you have a long, long string of academic credentials, doors will pop open for you everywhere you go. You won't even have to knock... if they see you coming, the doors will pop open, like the automatic doors on retail stores. You do not have to do a good job at anything you do. The old adage "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit" really kicks in.

Now, a new chapter has been written. With the Senate confirmation of Timothy Geithner as U.S. Secretary of The Treasury, we are shown that academic credentials are a "Get Out Of Jail FREE" card. He flat-out broke the law as regards paying personal taxes. Even after his employer (the I.M.F.) specifically advised him that the taxes were due and, as I understand, gave him a check with which to make the payments. Never mind. Republicans like Utah Senator Oren Hatch say his credentials are such that he must be approved.

Geithner is described by some as part of the problem that got us into the current financial crisis. Accomplishments??? Everyone admits he has broken the law. Never mind... his qualifications are too great to consider any of this.

So, kids, no need to study or learn or work hard. Just learn to manipulate the system. Learn the "baffle them" lesson. forget about breaking the law. You will be above it.

Inauguration Day, 2009

It's been a big day in America. "We inaugurated our first African-American president". And how I hope I never hear that stupid statement again.

In the first place, it is not what millions of Americans have celebrated today. What they have celebrated is the color of the new president's skin, and his age. My neighbor, Jeremy, a chemistry professor at New Mexico State University, is an African-American. Born and raised in South Africa, Jeremy has real African heritage, which Barack Obama does not. But, Jeremy's skin is as white as mine, naturally. No one sees Jeremy as a "African-American", which he truly is.

Africa has no monoply on people with dark skin and not all Africans have dark skin. All around the earth, in the tropical zone, people have dark skin. On the Asian sub-continent, in parts of South America, in New Guinea. It is a product of the relentless sun on human skin. Has nothing to do with anything else.

Back before broad-brimmed hats, long sleeved shirts and SPF-15 sun screen and before we learned about nutrition, dark-skinned people who moved to northern, or far southern latitudes, no longer needed built-in protection from the sun. Children born with dark skin in these colder climates, were deprived of the beneficial effects of the sun's rays. Those odd ball kids born with lighter colored skin lived longer and thus re-produced more. Gradually the skin of the population lightened. White races of African-Swedens, or African-Norwegians were created.

Scientists believe modern humans originated in Africa and spread throughout the world. We are all African-something-or-other.

The first African-American president? Give me a break.

Americans, thanks to advertising, movies, magazines, and a love of athleticism, worship youth. Old folks are just not popular with Americans - at least until you become one. So, every generation gets excited about persons of authority who are closer to their own age.

George W. Bush ascended to the presidency in a close contest, which many Americans believe was not legitimate. He was disliked by many from the day of his own first inauguration. He came to Washington as a "Uniter, not a Divider", and did everything he could to unite. He joined with the liberal Senator Ted Kennedy on some legislative matters, and was rewarded by Kennedy standing up in the U.S. Senate to declare that "Bush lied, lied, lied..."

But, clear-thinking Americans saw the real George Bush and re-elected him for a second term. His opponents were now enraged beyond all reason.

For the 2008 election cycle, there were a number of credible candidates of both parties. But Barack Obama seemed to represent the farthest possible thing from George Bush. He was young. He did not talk about his religious faith. He declared that we should get out of Bush's war in Iraq. And, "did I mention that he is black?" The liberal American press fell in love with him and saw to it that the public heard all the good stories about Obama but only the bad ones about George Bush.

So, what we did today was to inaugurate a well-educated young man who is totally unknown by the American public. Inexperienced, compared to others, yes. But I have come to think less of experience, as I see more and more "experienced" politicians caught up in some sort of scandal.

Obama may turn out to be a great president. I sincerely hope he does. What concrerns me most about him today is that he does not seem to understand that the policies of F.D.R. only deepened the recession of the 1930s. Perhaps he will prove that he does understand our history. Perhaps he will make the right decisions to help us end this current lull in our economic growth.

And perhaps, just perhaps, people will quit calling him our first African-American president.

An Open Letter To My Friends In Europe

Last summer some friends of mine flew to Europe to visit friends there. One of those friends is a prominent person who is constantly observed by the press. This person asked my visiting friends to please not talk to the press, and above all, "do not mention that you voted for George Bush."

Wow. Do they really feel that way? What have they been told by their own press?

Let me say as emphatically as I can, that I did, indeed vote for George W. Bush, twice, and I think he has been an incredible president. Has he always done the correct thing? Hell, I don't know, and neither do you. What I do know is that he has an unshakeable love for America. He is an honest and a decent man. He did his job as best as he knew how to do it. What more could we ever ask?

Did he always act in the best interest of Europe? Don't know that, either... but that was not what we elected him to do.

I like to tell the story of Harry Truman who, after he left office, was once asked by a reporter if he had made any "wrong" decisions as president. He said absolutely not. At the time each decision was made, the evidence for making that decision was overwhelming. He did add words to the effect that future events may have changed things, but they did not apply at the time the decision was made.

Harry Truman, was a small time politician in Jackson County, Missouri, before he went to the Senate and later the presidency. I was born and raised in Jackson County, Missouri, a place that had seen considerable corruption in politics. I did not like Harry Truman when he became president. It took me about 60 years to come around to appreciating him.

Under Beorge Bush's presidency, America suffered one major attack from terrorists. Other nations have sustained repeated attacks, but there have been no more attacks in America.

Some 50 million Iraqis and Afghans have been liberated from murderous dictators and fledgling democracies are growing. Are they "there" yet? Of course not. But look at our democracy, the oldest on earth. It took us a long time to get it "right"... we even killed 364,512 of our own citizens in a bloody civil war (who thought up that name, anyway?), some 80 years after we started.

America has given more money to Africa during Mr. Bush's presidency than has any other nation, including our own, at any time or under any other president.

I could go on listing Mr. Bush's accomplishments, but the Bush haters would continue hating him. And, by the way, they are not all in Europe... we have plenty here at home. Maybe in 60 years, as with Harry Truman, people will come around to appreciating all that George W. Bush has done.

President Bush held his last news conference as president today. I am so proud of this president. So proud that I supported him. I wish every success for our new president, but I will miss George W. Bush!

Goodbye, Mr. President. Thank you.

January 10, 2009

Today is a little anniversary for me. One I am especially proud of.

On this day, 63 years ago, January 10, 1946, at cold and snowy Ft. Leavenworth, KS, I raised my right hand and took the oath to become a soldier in the United States Army.

I wasn't old enough to buy a beer. I wasn't old enought to vote! But now I was a real, genuine United States soldier! What more could a seventeen-year-old farm kid ever want?

Radio's Payola Scandal - The Real Story

In the mid 1950s an event in radio broadcasting became known as the Payola Scandal. Deejays were alleged to have played records for pay, without informing their listeners they were being paid.

At the peak of the reporting, a teenage girl lamented that she had bought a record because her deejay said it was a hit, but she now hears that he only said that for pay. What a crock.

Here is what the scandal boiled down to. In the 1950s, everyone was trying to make a hit record. A teenage garage band would create a song, play it until they liked it a lot, then convince parents to bankroll a recording session and an initial pressing of the record. The disk then went on consignment to some record distributor who tried to promote it.

He would also be trying to promote records produced by more experienced artists and producers, some of which were really good. But when a promoter walked into the studio and handed a deejay 25 or 30 records, no one knew which was which.

I liked the promotion men who visited the station. They were good guys, doing a tough job. One day a promoter named Myron Levy gave me a real gift... an advance copy of a record by a guy called Little Willie John. Dated April 30, 1956, it was the first copy of the record to hit Kansas City. I was to have exclusive play until copies arrived for other deejays in the city. On one side was a song titled "Letter From My Darling". The flip side was called "Fever". The promoter thought "Letter" was the hit side.

At this point, you have to understand that we were called "Disk Jockeys" because we spent our entire show shuffling records around. There was the music, on little 45s. All commercials were recorded on 33 1/3 rpm, 12" acetate disks, as were station ID jingles, news, weather and sports intros, contest intros, promos for other things happening on the station, etc. We worked with four turntables and every disk had to be "cued" in preparation for air play. That is, each record was placed on a turntable and the stylus placed in the first groove. The output was switched to an off-the-air "cue" amplifier and the turntable rotated by hand until the sound started. The record was then turned backwards, one-quarter turn past the very start of the sound, the turntable output switched back to an on-the-air channel and the turntable set to the correct speed for that record. When it was time to play that record. you just hit the switch to start the turntable, brought the gain up and the audio started almost immediately. When any record finished playing on the air, the record was snatched off the turntable and replaced by the next recording to be played in the sequence.

And, of course, you had to be aware of what you were going to say on the air between all these events... comment on a song, read the weather, a traffic report, read news or sports headlines, do a live tag for a recorded commercial. At the end of a three hour shift, you were exhausted.

We did not really have a chance to listen to everything we played. To this day I occasionally hear a record I introduced on the air some 50 years ago. I hear a lyric I do not remember, and ask my wife if that lyric was on the original record. Usually she says it was.

Back to Little Willie John. I started including "Letter to My Darling" in a segment devoted to new records. Some days after my exclusive possession of that record had expired, I discovered I had been playing the wrong side and "Fever" became a big hit.

In December, 1955, I received a letter from Johnny Cash, thanking me for listing his first record and asking me to play his second record.


I have no idea why I initially saved that letter. It probably got shuffled in with other papers and was saved accidentally. Later, I found and read it, and have saved it since because Cash was promoting the wrong side of his own record. "Folsom" became a hit. I doubt you can find anyone today who remembers "So Doggone Lonesome".

In December, 1955, neither Johnny Cash, "So Doggone Lonesome" or "Folsom Prison Blues" meant squat to me. Cash had had one record at that time, and a decent one. That's all.

So, when the record promoter walked in and gave you 25 new records. On his heels, another promoter gave you 25 more new records, you were overwhelmed. How could you listen to all those records... both sides? Would a single listen tell you much about the recording?

One day a promoter stuck a $10 bill in my shirt pocket and said "Let me buy a couple of hours of your time at home tonight. After dinner, listen to my records and see if you like them." The average local radio guy made less than $100 a week at that time. It took you four hours on the job to earn that $10! So, you listened to records at home that night.

No deejay worth a damn (the only ones being solicited) ever actually played a record for pay. Who would blow off their audience and jeopardize their career for $10? You played what you earnestly believed would build your audience.

The "buy your time at home" arrangement worked until the record promoters started reporting these expenditures as expenses on their tax returns. The IRS stumbled across that fact and began checking to see if the deejays were reporting the income on their personal tax returns. Many were not. The IRS visited them at home with a bill for unpaid taxes.

But for my one-time boss Peter Tripp, then at WMGM Radio in New York, the local law stepped in and charged Pete with breaking some sort of law against commercial bribery. Pete was fined and ultimately lost his job over the non-scandal.

Except for the IRS, which lost a little tax revenue at first, the whole Payola scandal was bogus. But newspapers, always happy to give a little grief to their competitors at the local radio stations, piled on to the story.

Songs Of War

They don't write songs of war any longer. Maybe it is because television and film have brought the reality of war into awareness and it is no longer considered a romantic conquest. I believe it is more than that.

But wars gave us some memorable songs in the past. Along our Southwest border, the term Gringo has a specific meaning... derived from an old song, once popular with American soldiers. When they sang "Green Grow The Lilacs" the Spanish speaking Mexicans did not understand what they were singing about. They only remembered the sound of the lyric: "Green grow". In Spanish, the vowel "i" is pronounced like a long "e" in English. The consonant "r" is always trilled. As the English speaking soldiers sang "Green grow", without a trill for the "r", the Spanish speaking Mexicans heard "Grin Go". The soldiers became Gringoes... prounced greengoes.

That song, incidentally, is an old Irish tune, but will forever be associated with our military in Mexico.

During the Civil War, marching men sang a ditty about the body of abolitionist John Brown, then said to be "mouldering in the grave". Yuk.

At one point, the Reverend James Clarke remarked to Julia Ward Howe that the "Republic"... those states remaining united, needed a Battle Hymn. Legend says the new lyric to the old song came to her in the middle of the night and she got out of her bed at Washington's Willard Hotel to pen them:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
I have never quite understood how that lyric related to the Civil War, but that became the Battle Hymn.

World War One brought us several great songs, most notably George M. Cohan's "Over There". The closing lines of the chorus:
We'll be over, we're coming over
And we won't come back till it's over, over there
are still inspiring... a sort of affirmatin of the American can-do spirit. The reality of that war was not so inspiring. My Dad and his brother went "over there". Dad returned. His brother was killed.

There were many songs penned during and for World War Two:
Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition, Coming In On A Wing And A Prayer and I Had A Little Talk With The Lord among them.

I don't remember a song from the Korean War. Instead, that war spawned M-A-S-H, a comic movie, which later spawned a never-ending TV series. I hated that program because it taught (is still teaching) a generation of Americans that the U. S. Army is little more than a bunch of clowns.

I knew people who were in Korea both before and during that conflict. Unlike the M-A-S-H characters, they were serious, dedicated people, some of whom suffered greatly. Nearly 37,000 Americans died in Korea. Do you think Klinger's attempts at a Section Eight discharge a fitting tribute to them?

By the time of Viet Nam, America's entire entertainment industry, along with most of its major media organizations, were so deeply into the anti government, "America is wrong" tank that nothing patriotic survived.

Have you heard any songs about the heroism and patriotism displayed by Americans in Afghanistan or in Iraq? Not that there is any lack of inspiring truth there... some 50 million people freed from tyranny! What a subject for songs never written.

The sound of laughter....
oh, God... not now!

Laughter is contagious. Hear someone laugh and it is hard not to join in. That is sometimes the problem. There are times when you're not supposed to laugh.

In broadcasting, you become very relaxed at your job. But there is still an underlying tension that sometimes causes trouble. Sometimes that tension causes one to get the giggles.

Every broadcaster knows this, and in local stations around the country, it has often been considered good sport to "break up" your colleague when he/she is on the air. You might slip some bogus copy into their pile of script. So, when he is reading farm market reports, he suddenly finds himself saying "heifers steady, bulls mounting". Or, reading some copy from a local car dealer, his copy may read "bring in your title and your wife and we'll dicker."

The great air personality Peter Tripp once told me of auditioning for an announcing job. The job prospect was reading a script and someone reached out with a cigarette lighter and set the script afire. But this is an aside... it was not to cause a laugh, but to see how the guy could handle an emergency. Still, it sounds like a good way to break a guy up!

I have been in recording sessions involving several announcers when someone suddenly got tickled over something. When it was their turn to talk, they just burst into laughter. Stop the tape. rewind. Take two. More laughter. Take three. This goes on until the laughter runs its course, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

I remember two times when I was on the air and started laughing inapropriately. They are true stories and I hope friends or family of the people involved never read this, because I am embarrassed by it.

In local radio we often read news "cold"... that is, we saw the copy for the first time when we read it, live, on the air. The first story was about an elderly woman who lived alone, and very cold weather. Her neighbors did not see activity for some period of time and went to investigate. They found the woman dead in her home, with a small space heater operating full blast. The room had become very hot. The story went on to reveal that the woman's dog and her cat were also dead. Then the clincher... "even her goldfish, in a bowl, was dead." I lost it. Can't really explain why that was so funny, but I could not control the laughter.

The other story was about a guy who had a flat tire while driving on a busy hiway. He pulled onto the shoulder, got his spare, his jack and his lug wrench out of the trunk and changed the tire. (You can see this one coming.) When the guy finished changing the tire, he stood up, took a step backward, into the path of a speeding truck, was struck and killed. That is a sad and tragic story, but it hit me as hilarious. I could not stop laughing.

On the subject of broadcasting and laughter, there were also times when the broadcaster made his listeners laugh.. but he was unaware.

I once did a Sunday morning broadcast of gospel music, sponsored by a company that called itself "Tractor Parts and Farm Supply." After one broadcast, several listeners informed me that I had unknowingly called them "Tractor Farts and Parm Supply."

In the 1950s, a guy named Sheb Wooley made a record titled "Purple People Eater". The stations' deejays, naturally, referred to it off the air as "Purple Peter Eater." One day I played that record on the air. Soon after the record started, the statiion's receptionist came into the control room and asked what I had done. She said she answered the phone and a woman caller said only "Sam Bradley said...." then burst into uncontrollable laughter herself. I instantly knew what must have happened.

Another example did not involve me at all, thank goodness! In fact, I was driving in my car, listening to a network news broadcast... CBS, I think... and I believe the broadcaster was Lowell Thomas. It was during the Eisenhower era, and the story dealt with an Eisenhower visit to the city of Hershey, PA. I guess the story was brief and uninteresting, because Thomas embellished it with a brief ad lib, stating that "...thousands of Hersheyites turned out, with and without nuts." A live announcer was scheduled to read a commercial for Studebaker. He snorted and gasped through the copy, trying in vain to control his laughter.

Today's local radio has degenerated into little more than syndicated national talk shows, so live local radio is now more rare. Still, any time someone opens a microphone, there is always the danger that something, some insignificant, perhaps serious or even tragic something, will suddenly become very, very funny.

Where Have All The Anchors Gone?

Tuning in to your favorite radio or TV program this week, you may have noticed that the regular host is absent and a substitute is filling in.

The regular host is taking a holiday break. A well deserved rest.

I guess.

Unless you're an old-time broadcast purist, like me.

Recently a family group was watching some old 8mm film at my house, shots of family scenes, taken some 40 odd years ago. In one sequence, there I was, on my knees beside the Christmas tree, passing out gifts to the children.

One younger family member, not yet born at the time the film was shot, wondered aloud why I was wearing a white shirt and tie when that film was made. A shirt and tie, around the tree early Christmas morning? It does seem a little odd today.

What he could not know was that I had worked my regular radio program that morning and the family had suspended Christmas activity until I returned from work.

I spent every Christmas on the air for many years. The rule then was simple. If you are normally on the air on Thursday morning, and Christmas happens to fall on Thursday, you were on the air on Christmas morning.

Our listeners were important to us in those days... no reason why we should change their program preferences just so we could have a day off!

We were not alone, of course. Lots of policemen, firemen, health care professionals and others worked on christmas Day. It just went with the job. And, for many people, it still does.

But not for those celebrity anchors.

But then, they deserve the time off.

I guess.

Broadcasting:
The Fairness Doctrine

The old Fairness doctrine was in place throughout my career in broadcasting. I hated it worse than anything I ever encountered as a broadcaster. It totally robbed us of the ability to speak out on matters we believed to be politically important.

Broadcast news people are often the best informed segment of our population. How often have you heard someone ask, "Did you hear the news report about..... ". I once could reply, "Hear it? I read it this morning at 6:00 and at 6:30 and at 7:00, ..."

Unlike a print reporter who may have spent most of their day honing a single story, the broadcast news man reads all the stories, from many sources, over and over.

So, doesn't it follow that they would be well equipped to comment on the news? Doesn't matter. If they did comment, they were then beholden to invite some dummy to come on their air and comment with an opposing view. I know many will lawyerly argue that that was not the exact requirement of the rule. But lawyerly opinions are a costly option out of reach of many small broadcasters. If time and money prevent you from getting a reliable legal opinion, you are restricted to a single course of action: Just forget the whole thing. You could not risk jeopardizing your license or even exposing your station to the need to hire the lawyers you could not afford in the first place.

The Unfairness Doctrine.

In the first place, who ever came up with the idea that the airwaves belong to the people? I was part of a group that sought to build a new radio station. We spent thousands of dollars over seven years, trying to get a license. Our application appeared to portend a profitable operation, so another group decided to ask the FCC for a licence in the same place, same frequency, same power. Being first didn't matter. The FCC scheduled a "Comparative Hearing", an opportunity for a handfull of dumb bureaucrats to decide which applicant would best serve the interest of the public residing within the coverage area of the proposed facility.

In such cases, an "Examiner" is appointed to conduct the hearing. In our case, the chosen idiot would ask a question like "How many other radio stations serve this area?" To answer that question required that each applicant employ a professional engineer to do a detailed study to plot the coverage area of every radio station which reached this particular swatch of geography. I no longer remember exactly how many thousands of dollars that cost. To my knowledge, the Examiner never looked at the results

In preparing our application, I was required to submit a personal biography. I wrote out a page, briefly outlining my broadcast experience. Our Washington law firm glanced at it and smiled. "They don't read these things", they told me, "they weigh them." Go back and write everything you can think of that may conceivably contribute to your experience as a broadcaster. Hm, I thought. I once stood on the sidewalk and watched General Dwight Eisenhower ride by in a victory parade held for him at the end of World War II. Does that qualify as a close association with the Supreme Allied Commander and president-to- be?

Well, the FCC granted the license to the other applicant. I read their reasons and said, "Wait a minute.... you overlooked... " The FCC agreed, withdrew the license from the other applicant and threw the entire matter back into hearing. Our attorneys, weary of seeing us squander our meager fortunes, told us to merge with the other applicant. We did, which meant everyone's interest was halved.

To finish the story, we put the station on the air and it was an instant success. But, four months after the station began broadcasting, Washington closed the Air Force Base in our city and the local economy tanked. We struggled for seven more years but never made another dime of profit. Broke and exhausted, we sold the station for about the cost of the land where the transmitter was built, and left town. Fourteen years, down the tubes.

But, I digress. While we were on the air, we built a fabulous news reporting machine. Our regular staff, largely eager, young, unmarried men and women, worked countless overtime hours without pay, for the sheer joy of accomplishing something excellent in broadcasting.

We used to say that if you hear sirens in this community, turn on your radio. Within minutes you would know why and to where the emergency vehicles were responding.

This was the Viet Nam era. At one point a group of Southeast Asian journalists were brought through our city while on a U.S. tour. I was privileged to spend several hours in serious discussion with an editor from a Saigon newspaper, learning his perspective of the war, why it was important for the U.S. to help the South Viet Namese. But if I wanted to talk about it, I would have to invite a local war protestor to present an opposing view.

I attended every political rally in our area for three major elections. I had interviewed every candidate for every state or local office, and every Congressional race. I had a wealth of information about the candidates and the issues. But if I wanted to broadcast commentary, I would have to contact each opposing campaign and offer a chance to rebut.

If, indeed, some modern politician speaks of reviving the Fairness Doctrine - in any form - please oppose it. Or you will forever end the ability of broadcasters to share their knowledge in the discussion of any serious issue.

In May of 1945, I was employed by the Day & Night Manufacturing Company in Azusa, CA. I worked in the paint department where we were making rocket parts for the U.S. Navy. Midday on May 7, the factory whistle blew and we were instructed to assemble at the front of the plant.

Once there, we were informed that our enemies in Europe had accepted surrender terms. The war in Europe was over. V-E Day! I was a 16-year-old, living far from family and friends, so I was not involved in any big celebration. It was celebration enough to know that the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler was no more.


By August of that same year, I was back in my home town of Kansas City. We had been informed that the unconditional surrender of the Japanese was imminent. When the announcement came on the afternoon of August 15, most businesses closed and massive numbers of people poured into the streets in joyous celebration. V-J Day! Swaying back and forth with the crowd, singing patriotic songs and kissing girls, the celebration contnued far into the evening. When it was over, I was smeared in lipstick from ear to ear. My white shirt was red from shoulder to shoulder.


Two and one half months later I celebrated my 17th birthday and enlisted in the Army.


After the Army I went back to school and then began my career in broadcasting. On June 25, 1950, I was on the air at WLDY Radio, in Ladysmith, WI, when I heard the AP teletype machine ring five bells - the signal for a news bulletin. I read the bulletin on the air: "North Korean forces have crossed the 38th parallel, invading South Korean territory."


Our forces were quickly pushed southward, almost into the sea, when the brilliance of General Douglas MacArthur saved the day. With his newly dispatched reinforcements, the North Koreans were quickly pushed north to the Chinese border. Then the Chinese joined the war. MacArthur wanted to carry the war back to them, but Truman blinked, fired MacArthur, and let the Chinese/North Korean forces push back south to the 38th parallel.


The presidential election of 1952 hinged on discontent with the Truman administration's inability to end the war. Dwight Eisenhower was elected and his first official act was to travel to Korea and consult the field commanders of the military over which he had been chosen Commander in Chief.


Eisenhower negotiated a cease fire and the establishment of a DMZ - a demilitarized zone along the 38th parallel, which the opposing armies agreed not to cross. They have, however, glared at each other across that zone for 55 years. The Korean War never really ended. But then, how can you end a war which was never declared? The Korean Conflict, as it was more accurately known, was a "police action". Never mind that 36,916 Americans died.


The Viet Nam War really began in 1954 when the French engaged in the battle of Dien Bien Phu. After years of advising, equipping and supporting the South Vietnamese, the United States finally became fully engaged in the war. America's military won that war on the battlefield. The U.S. government lost to the anti-war movement at home. In May of 1975, our military was ordered to cut and run, insuring that the 58,193 American dead had died in vain. There was no victory celebration at the end of the Viet Nam War.


The Gulf War to drive Iraqis out of Kuwait ended so quickly that most Americans never realized we were in a war, and since much of America was still anti-military, that victory was not widely celebrated.


Then came the Iraq War. A new kind of war in which the real enemy was not the Iraq army, which America defeated in a blink. The enemy turned out to be an almost unending string of murderous Islamic thugs who poured into Iraq for the sport of killing a few thousand Americans and tens of thousands - perhaps hundreds of thousands - of innocent Iraqi civilians.


Today, November 22, the Iraqi Parliament votes on a security pact with the United States which will pave the way for American Forces to leave their nation. A democratic Iraq will assume responsibility for its own defense.

The dangerous regime of Saddam Hussein is gone. 28 million Iraqi people now live in freedom. A fledgling democracy exists in the heart of the Middle East. It is time to recognize that the Iraq War is won.


Today, I am proud to join thousands of like minded Americans in declaring that today, November 22, 2008, is VI-Day: Victory In Iraq Day! Our thanks to America's incredible military which made this joyful day possible.

Prop 8 - another thought

In a democratic society there are an abundance of rules, regulations, laws that grant protection and privilege, prohibition and punishment. These rules derive from a majority of the people, either directly by referendum or by the elected representatives of the people, using powers granted by the majority.

Not all these rules are good. The majority is not always right. Ayn Rand once asked, "What if the majority wants you killed? Is that all right?"

In California, there arose a movement to require that the civil union called marriage, with its various rights and privileges, be bestowed only in the case of one man marrying one woman. The question was put to the ballot and the majority approved. Then, the courts examined the question and said it violated a more supreme law, the constitution.

The proponents managed to remake the question into one of amending that supreme law. They achieved a referendum on a constitutional amendment, which passed. The concern is for what happened next.

At this point, let me say that I have had no horse in this race. No one has convinced me that same sex marriage is a bad thing. The latest protest is that children raised without traditional man/woman parents somehow grow up with more and different problems. Again, I am not yet convinced.

When a rule is passed that you perceive to be a detriment to your well being, it is natural that you would like to see the rule changed or discarded. So what do you do?

You can attempt to persuade the proponents of the rule that it should change. Powers of persuasion can be dramatic if your appeal is made to people's sense of fairness and justice, and if you can convince them that they will not be harmed by overturning the rule.

Or you can attempt to bully and intimidate them into changing the rule. History has almost universally proven that the latter tactic does not work. Sadly, that is what many same sex marriage proponents have done in reaction to Prop 8.

No matter how sympathetic you may feel for persons who want to marry a person of the same sex, that sympathy quickly fades when you see people storming private property shouting their views to others engaged in peaceful, private activities (a church service). Or, when you see protestors on the street shoving an old lady with whom they disagree. Or when you see people threaten some who agree with them but who happen to be a member of a group which generally opposed their point of view. All these things have happened in connection with Prop 8.

Unfortunately, these protestors are now giving me second thoughts. Now I am being pushed to look beyond the merits of same sex marriage. Now I want to say, "Wait a minute! Are you really the loving, caring people we have believed you are? Or are you just another bunch of thugs bent on imposing your will on the rest of us?"

Who Is The Better Speaker?

Right now the elitist liberals in the U.S. are having fun... pretending they are so accustomed to George W. Bush's sometimes halting style of speech that they are confused when Barack Obama speaks in complete sentences. What is really funny here is the liberals display of their own ignorance.

During my radio broadcasting career, we learned that you often have the opportunity say it only once, so it is important that you say it correctly. Unlike print, where the reader can stop and re-read what you have written, there is no go-back in broadcasting (until, at least, the advent of Tivo!). We used to say KISS, or, Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Simple is okay. Clearly understood is what we actually wanted. .

Steven Pinker is a professor at M.I.T. who has written books on language. Dr. Pinker is a man after my own heart. While he does not exactly trash the rules that make language a bit more melodious, he does not give those rules paramount importance.

In essence, Dr. Pinker says the object of language is the transfer of thoughts or ideas. If person "A" says something to person "B" and "B" clearly and accurately understands what "A" was thinking, their language is good. Bravo, Steven Pinker!

Unfortunately, in the dumbing down of America, the language czars have prevailed and a large number of people now put style over substance. No wonder print readership is falling. What is said is no longer as important as how it sounds.

George W. Bush is a good and decent man. When he answers a question he takes a moment - often in mid-sentence - to weigh his thoughts, to be sure he is accurately and clearly conveying those thoughts in his speech. This sometimes makes him sound halting, which the intellectuals interpret as stupid. Now along comes Obama, whose flowing rhetoric sounds really intelligent.

Everyone is impressed with his manner of speech. Few are hearing what he is saying.

For example, in a discussion of abortion, Obama said, "If one of my daughters makes a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby." Millions of adoring fans thought he was a caring and considerate father.

A less eloquent, but more forthright, speaker may have said: "If my daughter falls for some smooth talk, gets laid and creates a baby, we'll just kill the damn thing. Can't have my daughter burdened with taking responsibility for her own actions."

How would Americans have reacted to that statement? It was, after all, just a more accurate way of expressing the exact same thought Obama was sharing.

To me, the most beautiful expression of intelligence is when someone says, "Wait a minute... what did he just say?" Let me know if you ever hear that.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck - It's A Duck!

Scoff, if you will, at the duck paradigm of scientific exploration, but when you have spent 80 years looking at ducks, watching them walk, listening to them quack... you get pretty good at determining if that really is a duck!

With that in mind, here is my take on candidate Obama - two days before the big election.

A little history: Obama's Mom was an air-headed white girl from southeast Kansas. Nothing evil about that, America is full of air-heads. Witness the Obama supporters in Harlem, interviewed by Howard Stern's roving reporter... the ones who were okay with Obama's pro-life stance and thought it was pretty cool that he had selected Sarah Palin as his running mate???

I once lived in Southeast Kansas. Different folks there. Across the state line in Springfield, Missouri, my business partner and I once took a client, along with his sales manager and his ad manager to lunch at a decent restaurant. When the servers delivered our meals, the client required that we all hold hands and bow our heads while the sales manager, in a clearly audible voice, said Grace. No big deal. Just different.

So, Obama's Mom went off to school, to begin a lifelong career as a student. She chose a U.S. school in Hawaii, about as far as you can get from Wichita. As a further bit of evidence that she did not have a close family relationship and strong Kansas social grounding, she took up with some black men. Years later, in the 1970s, one of my own white daughters wrote me from college that the cutest guys on campus were black, and seemed to be probing for my opinion about her dating a black kid. But this was the 1950s. A black and white couple would have suffered instense social pressure.

I say Obama's mom took up with black men, because we know she was legally married to one, but when she gave birth to a mixed race child, he looked more like Frank, the black poet in the neighborhood, then the man whose name he was given. Was that marriage one of convenience to help the Kenyan stay in the U.S.? Did they ever actually consumate their marriage in the biblical sense of the word? That is to say, "Is Barack his kid?" We'll likely never know.

Anyway, the Kenyan outlasted the usefulness of the marriage and split. Mom now married Lolo, an Indonesean man (He wasn't a Wichita sort of guy, either!), and off they went to Southeast Asia. He turned out to be another bum and she dropped him. Not, however, until he had indoctrinated her son to some degree (while they were learning boxing and shooting baskets) in the art of eating meat from dogs and snakes and roasted grasshoppers. And, he instructed Barack, "If you can't be strong, be clever and make peace with someone who's strong. But always better to be strong yourself. Always".

After about four years, much to her credit, she concluded that sitting in a classroom with a bunch of ragheads learning scriptures from the Quran was not going to help her son earn a living. So she shipped him back to Hawaii to be raised by her parents. Thankfully, they were not happy about the distance from Hawaii to Wichita and had moved to the islands to be closer to their daughter. (Was that why she escaped to Indonesia??)

Every parent knows that every teenager thinks their parents are archaic. If you were a cool black dude, going home to a white family each day must have been extremely painful. But when that white family is grandparents... it must have been unbearable.

Barack started hanging out with the old black poet. Why? Was this really his father. Had he spent time at Barack's house while his mother was in Hawaii? No matter. We know now that the poet was Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist of the first order, who taught Barack that black people "have a reason to hate."

Barack learned to placate people's fears by being courteous and smiling a lot. "...they found it a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn't seem angry all the time."

Eventually, with the knowledge that black people have a reason to hate; with the understanding that it is better to be strong - but next best to make peace with someone who is strong; and with a smattering of indoctrination in Communism, Barack made it off to the Ivy Leagues. There, hard left professors added an intellectual tone to those learnings.

Radicalized and educated, Barack found someone strong to make peace with. He fell in with Alinsky and Ayers; served his apprenticeship to them and convinced them he was someone worth considerable investment in time and fortune. His community agitation work took him to black churches where some pastors, still believing in hard work and education as the road to success, rejected him. Then he met Jeremiah Wright. Wright gave legitimacy to his 'Hate All whites" leanings. Ayers honed the Communistic beliefs incubated by the poet Frank.

Somehow they arranged his admission to Harvard Law School. With an Organizer's salary of about $12,000 a year, Obama found the tens of thousands of dollars needed for tuition and living expenses. (Tuition to HLS today is $44,900!!) Nice trick!

They hand carried him into the Illinois State Senate and to the U.S. Senate. With acceptance by the DNC he became a candidate for President. Employing all those "smile while you backstab" tactics he had perfected, he defeated all "regular" Democrats and won the nomination.

So, today we have a white-hating, Muslim accepting, young black Communist itching to move into the Oval Office.

Where do I get all this? Just my opinion. (Did I hear a quack?)

But they haven't lettered his name on the door just yet, so with a deeply imbedded sense of patriotism and great trust in the American people, this Tuesday night I will go to bed early, as I do every night, and wait until Wednesday to celebrate President McCain.

UPDATE: Okay, America surprised me. But, which America? Today I scratch my head, wondering where were the Catholics when they chose a man who "wouldn't want his daughters punished with a baby"? Where were the Jews when they abandoned a friend of Israel? Where were the feminists who railed against fair treatment of women, when they dissed an honest, self-made woman from Alaska? And what happened to Black America, after pleading for an end to racism, themselves became racist and voted 95% for skin pigment?

Writing advertising copy. My basics

Before television, before radio, in the days when advertising pretty much meant newspaper, someone posed a question to leading advertising practitioners of the day: "Define advertising." One of the old masters replied that advertising was "Salesmanship in print."

Years later, another advertising practitioner advised that "In advertising, salesmanship is king and creativity is its servant".

I agree with both of those experts, but many of today's advertising people do not. Too often today's advertising is rated by how entertaining - how funny - it is. Or, how clever. Or, how many new special effects are used. Or, the popularity of the celebrity spokeperson.

My wife (and long time business partner) has a saying about business: "Nothing happens until someone sells something." That is what advertising is all about. Let me explain.

Since the early 1950s I have spent a lot of time and effort in advertising for the Home Improvement industry. Since about 1970, a popular product of that industry has been the replacement window. When a salesman calls at a customer's home and sells them windows, it starts a lot of wheels in motion.

The contractor's finance department seeks and acquires financing for the customer's order. The "measure man" goes to the customer's house and makes precise and accurate measurements of every window to be replaced, and notes any other information necessary for accurate completion of the order. The ordering department computes the exact size and other specifications of each window and places the order with the factory. At the factory, details of the order are fed into a computer which instructs high-tech machinery to cut every part necessary to build the exact windows ordered. The windows are assembled and shipped.

When the shipment arrives at the window distributors warehouse, the installation manager contacts the customer and makes an appointment for the installation date. A crew of installers takes the windows to the customer's house, completes the installation, does the job site cleanup, and hauls off the old windows. They also have the customer sign a completion form.

The finance department takes the completion form to the financing institution, which, after confirming the completion and job satisfaction with the customer, issues the check.

The salesman is paid his commission, the factory is paid for the windows and shipping. the Finance Departments people are paid, the installers are paid, the advertising agency is paid, the advertising medium is paid and, hopefully the home improvement contractor realizes some profit.

None of that could happen until the salesman made the sale. And that could not have happened if effective advertising had not persuaded the customer to call the contractor and inquire about his windows.

If you produce an ad that is entertaining, you will make someone smile. If you produce an ad that sells, you will cause many, more important things to happen. Salesmanship is what really matters. If you can do it in a creative way, that is a plus, but only if the salesmanship is still effective.

Surviving A Depression - A Primer

I have to smile when I read that the middle class is being squeezed. Well, okay, everything is relative and anytime you have to take an economic step backward, I guess you are being squeezed.

I remember a time when our family was really squeezed. My father was born in Texas, raised in that state and in Oklahoma. In 1918 he went with the Army to France. Returning home he was stationed in New York for a time - long enough to meet and marry a girl from Brooklyn.

My grandmother was ill and my Oklahoma grandfather moved to Kansas City, seeking better health care for her. Sadly, my grandmother died, so my Dad and his bride left New York for Kansas City. There they settled and started a family.

By 1930, they had four children and Dad had a good job driving a truck. But Mom hungered for the sidewalks of New York, and persuaded him to pick up the family and move back to Brooklyn. Neither of them - or many other average Americans - were fully aware of the scope of what had happened the year before on Wall Street.

They temporarily moved in with some of her New York city family and he began looking for work. When a family member with four little kids moves in, they are extremely welcome for about an hour. After a week or so they are extremely unwelcome. Dad walked the streets all day every day, to no avail. No one was hiring anyone. Still, they had to have a place to live.

Some acquaintenances had experienced a foreclosure on their mortgage, but were told that they could not be evicted. (Even that long ago!) They moved anyway and Dad moved the family into that house where he was assured he could stay. That proved to be untrue and the family was summarily tossed into the street.

Friends... that is the true definition of being squeezed.

There were no food stamps then... no welfare checks. There was a helping hand at the end of each arm... no others were offered.

Dad sought work at a lumber yard (they were not hiring, either) where the kindly owner took pity on the homeless family and said they could stay in an empty building on his property. There they stayed until Dad earned enough on odd jobs to return the family to Kansas City.

In due time he got his old truck driving job back again. With a steady pay check of $25 week, he wisely rented an old farm house, with acreage. No electricity, no running water, no inside plumbing. Telephone? Are you kidding?

Dad planted a garden. He bought a cow, so we kids had milk. Then came chickens, pigs, and more cattle. We never went hungry again. In fact, Dad was able to sell a little produce and some milk to supplement the family income.

We had a close, happy life during the depression. To be sure, there were no luxuries. None of us kids acquired a taste for "soda pop" because we never could afford the nickle to buy a bottle. Mom made our clothes. In warm weather we went barefoot. When our one pair of shoes wore holes in the soles, we lined them with a piece of cardboard. Mother even made our own soap.

Toys? We spent hours pushing a barrel hoop along with a stick. We played hide & seek. We played tag. I learned how to make a bean shooter. We entertained ourselves in countless ways. Of course, there were no electronics, but we did have a spring-operated, wind-up record player and a few old 78 rpm records. I remember a song lyric that said. "Can I sleep in your barn tonight, mister? It's so cold lying out on the ground." Another popular song was titled "Brother Can You Spare A Dime?".

In 1935, another child was born, and our family numbered six. On a few occasions I recall my mother somehow saving a nickle from her budget. One of my sisters and I would walk to a small store, about a mile from our rural home, and buy a Three Musketeers candy bar. At that time, this candy was three small bars in one package. Mother would cut each of the little bars in half, producing six pieces... one for each member of the family.
The Mars company will never know how much joy they brought to our family.

Later I knew a man named J.R. Hudgens. When J.R. was first married, he and his bride were homelss and broke - almost. He had a dime. They were offered a summer job on a farm, a position which came with a little shack for a home. Then, he found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: someone gave them a big sack of beans! J.R. walked to the nearest town and spent his dime on a chunk of salt pork. They ate beans until paid the first commission on their harvest.

During the depression, if you had a roof over your head, you first protected that at all cost. Your next effort was directed toward keeping the family fed. It didn't matter that it was simple fare. Just so it was food. No one got fat. You worked too hard to ever gain weight. If you managed to acquire a little extra, you saved it... just in case! There was no greater feeling of security then knowing you had next month's rent covered.

If you live in a nice house with electricity, plumbing, running water, natural gas heat, cable TV, telephone, etc., you are not yet squeezed. Enjoy it. Protect it. Be thankful that you are not living in the dirty 30s.

You probably think I am a great detective...

Paul Mirengoff posted a brief comment about Paul Newman on www.powerlineblog.com. Mirengoff noted, and I agree, that Newman was one of very few actors whose mere appearance in a film was enough to make him want to see it.

He went on to say that in the film Cool Hand Luke, "the Newman character, a prisoner, bets his fellow convicts that he can eat 50 eggs, and proceeds to eat them. This led to egg-eating contests in frat houses all over America. The winner of Dartmouth's contest issued a challenge to Newman. The actor was gracious enough to respond. He said: "You probably think I can shoot pool too."

The mark of a great motion picture actor/actress has always been to make the audience feel that the role they play is real. The mark of a truly great actor is to understand yourself that it is only an acting role. Newman, of course, did. Too many do not.