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I Vent Therefore I
Am It's legend that Betsy Ross, when designing the American flag, decided to use five-pointed stars because they were easier to cut out than six-pointed stars. Considering the number of people around the world who think Israel is controlled by the United States (or vice versa) -- imagine how many more people would hate us if Betsy had decided to use six-pointed stars... * * * * * Phyllis Diller (left) says she's quitting, leaving behind the standup comedy routines she's been perfecting for more than forty-five years. That's a shame; she's one of the best. Still it's hard to blame her; at age 84, being on the road can't be any fun anymore. But when she first appeared, she was a breakthrough: a funny woman who was dedicated to making people laugh, despite her appearance (always a little freakish) and despite her style (always a little abrasive). Over the years she won the admiration of great comics like Bob Hope, Johnny Carson and the late Henny Youngman. She's been inspiring generations of female comics and does so even today. She promises to write her autobiography. Well, here's one fan who's looking forward to it. * * * * * Phyllis Diller one-liners: "Cleaning up after kids is like shoveling while it's still snowing." "Any time three New Yorkers get into a cab without an argument, a bank has just been robbed." "A bachelor is a guy who never made the same mistake once." * * * * * TRIVIA: John Wayne played a Marine in three movies, Without Reservations, Flying Leathernecks and Sands of Iwo Jima. In what branch of the armed forces did Wayne actually serve? (Answer below.) * * * * * So now Matt Drudge and Fox TV's Bill O'Reilly are feuding again, just like they did last year. It smells a little like publicity, especially since O'Reilly is starting up his new radio show to go head-to-head with Rush Limbaugh in many markets. They're both hotheads so a clash is inevitable, it seems. But from my view, they're both right. Drudge has inside information on what he calls "scandalous" backstage behavior as O'Reilly's radio show starts up, O'Reilly has denied the truth of that information, and Drudge now has confirmation that the information is true. It sure looks like O'Reilly lied to Drudge in denying the info, whatever it is (Drudge hasn't released it yet). And O'Reilly's right: Drudge isn't a journalist. He still hasn't made that upward move that separates journalists from gossip-mongers. * * * * * TRIVIA ANSWER: Even though he's seen by many an old-movie fan as the quintessential World War II fighting man, John Wayne never served in the armed forces. * * * * * The buzz in the business world is that the Enron debacle and the ensuing fall of the Arthur Anderson accounting firm has shaken consumers' confidence in big business. Well, actually, a lot of things have shaken consumers' confidence in big business these past few years. For instance: HMOs that require doctors to make a high quota on the number of patients they see each day, causing havoc in waiting rooms that are overseen by increasingly arrogant support staffers. HMOs that refuse to allow doctors to perform needed treatments because of some technicality that's really just related to profit. For instance: Banks that have attached fees to almost every imaginable service they provide while cutting costs and staffers until some bank branches have just two employees working at any one time. Who needs big bank branches with space for seven tellers when only one teller is on duty most of the time? Why not just open up kiosks in shopping malls, next to the guys who'll print your photo on a t-shirt? Often, banks are seen as increasingly-impersonal bloated money-sucking machines that use every avenue to take money from small businesses and individuals who need it most. For instance: CEOs who draw millions per year in salary and bonuses while their companies lose money in the millions or even billions each year. CEOs who take millions of dollars in severance pay, leaving just as their companies file for bankruptcy. For instance: Investment houses that allow brokers to own stock in companies that those self-same brokers advise investors about; if my broker has 50-thousand shares of Enron, you think he's going to tell me to sell my Enron shares because it's a lousy stock and besides, the company's in trouble? For instance: Insurance companies that raise rates in one region as much as 50-percent in one year because of losses on a natural disaster in a different region of the country. For instance: Car makers which progressively make it harder for individuals to work on cars because of the complicated nature of the parts used, or placement of those parts under the hood. Most of the folks I know have given up changing the oil on their cars because they can't get to the oil filter anymore now that its placed underneath or behind the engine. There are people who resent this, who resent being forced to take the car into a shop for one of those one-hour "ten minute oil changes" when they'd prefer to be doing it themselves. For instance: US oil companies, now increasingly international rather than American, allowing prices to swing so broadly that people who need to budget expenditures can't budget for gasoline anymore because no one has any idea how much gas will be next month. Well, the list goes on. Enron and Arthur Anderson and creative accounting and hiding losses behind dummy ownerships and double-barreling auditing with consulting and misleading investors into believing failing companies are healthy -- those are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to consumers' dissatisfaction -- yes, anger -- with big business these days. Considering how much of the US economy depends on consumers and their willingness to part with money, it seems urgent to me that big businesses clean up their act right away and start thinking in terms of providing valuable services that make consumers want to come back for more. Rather than the current "supply and demand" philosophy of so many industries and companies that really just amounts to an old joke that isn't funny anymore -- "We've got the supply, so we'll make the demands." -- Mike Shiloh
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