833 I Have A Little List

833 I Have a Little List

Actually it is two lists. Both Forbes Richest Americans and the accompanying World’s Billionaires annual fun fest have been published. The the combined wealth of the 1200 or so people on the World list is greater than the GDP of Germany. Together they represent $4.5 trillion... that’s trillion with a “t.”

The richest man in the world is -- again -- the inaccurately named Carlos Slim. The Mexican telco tycoon is said to be worth $74 billion. Buying this guy a gift must be tough. What do you give him for his birthday, Liechtenstein?

The American side of the list looks like a police lineup of the usual suspects.

Bill Gates is #1 at 54 billion; Warren Buffett is number two with a relatively paltry $45 billion. Four of the top ten are members of the Walton (Wal-mart) family, with a combined worth of something in the neighborhood of $84 Billion. Two of the top ten are the Koch Brothers, the oil guys who aren’t seeking special favors from the governor of Wisconsin. Together, they are worth a combined 43 billion.

So six of the ten are either Waltons or Kochs. That leaves Gates, Buffet and Oracle’s Larry Ellison ($27 billion) at the top and Mike Bloomberg ($18 billion) at number ten.

Forty seven people dropped off the US list. Recession is bad for the super rich, too. At least for some of them.

The Forbes.com website’s presentation of the list is a little less flexible than in previous years. So we can’t tell at a glance if there are any Rockefellers or Gettys on it. (There aren’t.) We don’t know how much of any individuals’ wealth is liquid or what would happen to the un-liquid part of it if they tried to turn their paper into cash.

So, how much of this money is “real?” That is, if Bill Gates walked into his local WaMu branch with a hand truck and a withdrawal slip for $55 billion, what would they give him? Fortunately, we won’t find out. There ARE no WaMu branches in Washington State, or anywhere else, for that matter.

Notice there are no Forbeses on the Forbes List? Not now, and not even when you didn’t need a billion dollar minimum. Is that because they hide their wealth well or because they aren’t as rich as they’d like you to think.

Here’s a hint: in recent years they’ve sold a half interest in their media company, their ranch in the west, their collection of Faberge eggs, the Forbes Building on Fifth Avenue and now, a palatial house in England.

Shrapnel:

--Fellow Long Islander and fellow Sunnyside Queens boy Peter King is the wrong guy to head hearings on the radicalization of American Muslims because of his close and well known ties to the Irish Republican Army. His rejoinder, “The IRA never attacked America” just doesn’t wash. But his investigation might.

--Wisconsin Republicans found a “work around” or loophole to have their way with unionized state workers and have passed a slightly less draconian anti-labor bill than originally proposed. Time for Democratic Party legislators to leave the witness protection program, go home and work against further declawing their constituents. Where are the former IRA and KGB agents when we need them?


I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Address comments and nail bombs to wesrichards@gmail.com.
© WJR 2011

832 Culture Peace

832 Culture Peace

The Conference of New Religions has picked Madison Square Garden for its 2011 convocation and convention. The place will be packed. Twenty thousand or so of the New Faithful are expected. Great boost for the region and the nearby hotels, especially the New Yorker (think “Moonies”) and the Pennsylvania (Think PEnnsylvania 6- 5000.)

Here come the McDonaldites, the Wal-Martyrs, the eBayers, iPadders, iPhoners, iPodders, the Starbuckians and the Roadhoggers. Invitations have been extended to the Tea Partiers, the Footballers, the PoolSharks, and some others, but they haven’t responded yet.

To the uninitiated (most of us,) there aren’t major differences among these groups. But to the individual societies, tension and petty bickering abound. The conference will try to smooth them over to present a united front to the heathens (most of us.)

The Starbuckians, for example think that because this is their 40th anniversary year, they should be given special placement in the hall and that their way of life is both superior to and older than most of the others.

The Wal-Martyrs and McDonaldites point out that their churches are 42 and 70 years old, respectively.

Then, there’s the availability of the house of worship. Wal-Martyrs are convinced that they have hit upon a perfect formula, remaining open 24 hours every day. The McDonaldites apparently have agreed and are keeping their churches open around the clock, too.

The Roadhoggers had always did that, but concede that they’d rather have Johnny-Come-Lately copycats on this score than claim exclusivity.

This is a good thing. Exclusivity, barring the uninvited from worship has always been a mark of anti-ecumenical faiths. The Podders, Phoners and Padders readily jumped on board with this.

So it’s good to see all these sects coming together to present unity based on similarities rather than differences. Outsiders see them as one religion as it is. But the subtle variations of doctrine and ceremony have been keeping them apart.

There are renegades, of course. People who fear a loss of identity by getting too close to the others. The United Church of Neurotic Activians And Compulsivians, the NACs, are a case in point. They merged years ago when both the Church of the Hyperactive and the Church of the Obsessive Compulsivians fell on hard financial times. They believe they are the overall leaders of these newer groups and refuse to “take in the children,” as they put it.

So, two steps forward, one step back. Eventually they’ll realize that in unity there is strength and there’s safety in numbers.


Shrapnel:

--Quote of the 21st century’s first decade: “Holy crap. They knocked the whole fricking thing down.” This from a newly disclosed tape of an NYPD helicopter pilot or rescuer in the air near the World Trade Center on the morning of 9/11/01.

--There are those of us who don’t especially like Altoids but buy them anyway. The reason: the white wrappers and the various things printed on them. One says “In case of surrender, wave this,” Another says “Home for Troubled Mints.”

--This year’s Forbes 400 has just been published. All the usual suspects are there with four of the top ten named “Walton,” and two of the top ten named “Koch.” Full details probably Friday.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com.
© WJR 2011

831 A Spike in the Board

831 A Spike in the Board

We are rolling a lightly loaded shopping cart toward the register at a famed retailer whose name sounds similar to Birdbath and Bayonce. A cheery clerk stops and asks “Did you find everything all right?” Standard question. Usually used at checkout. But it’s a slow day.

When asked this question one is tempted to answer “sure, thanks” and forget it. And that’s what the questioners expect to hear and even think they hear regardless of your answer.

Not this time.

“Thanks for asking. No, there were several items we’d like but didn’t see.” She smiles shakes her head “yes” and started to walk on, then realized what she had really heard.

“What is it you couldn’t find?”

“Well, there were several items. The most important is a carving board with little spikes sticking up out of it.”

“A what?”

“A carving board with spikes.”

“Why would you want something like that?”

“Because it prevents what you’re cutting from sliding around while you try to cut it.”

“Oh, what a great idea! You should patent that.”

“Um... Grandma had one of those 100 years ago.”

She looks quizzically and then takes out one of those two-way radios and announces to the entire store “Hey, Mike, do we have a carving board with spikes to keep the stuff from sliding around?”

Mike gets on mic and says “You can order that in the catalogue.”

Thing is dangerous if you’re not careful. Put your hand down on one of those boards, and it says there until you bleed out. Maybe they’ve outlawed them because they’re potential weapons? As in “This is a holdup. Put all the money from the register into a bag. I have a spiked carving board and I’m not afraid to use it.”

Or maybe OSHA forced them off the market?

Or maybe too many AAA tow truck operators called out for a flat in the middle of a late night snowstorm had enough of saying “I see your problem, sir. You’re parked on a spiked carving board.”

You can get them from the shopping channels and on line. But there are two major flaws in those we’ve seen. (1) the spikes don’t pull out of the holes so you don’t have to use them when you don’t need them and (2) they’re frighteningly expensive even with free shipping.

What does the rest of America do on Thanksgiving?

Shrapnel:

--Miley Cyrus appeared as host of Saturday Night Live this past weekend. And what a shocker! Despite all the hype, Cyrus can actually sing.

--How to fight excessive drinking -- of others: You could do what this woman in Nyack, NY did, stick her arm out as you walk down the liquor aisle, smashing a couple of grand worth of bottles as she swept them off the shelves. Or maybe she was just signaling a left turn.

--Word to the wise: if you use an electronic or on line calendar, make sure you’re in the right year when you make an entry. Sounds like common sense, right? But it pays to double check.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com.
© 2011 WJR

830 If it Quacks Like a Duck

830 If It Quacks Like a Duck

A friend passes along a politically incorrect internet joke. It shows a small talking doll, a woman in traditional Muslim garb. The caption: “no one knows what it says because no one has...” worked up the nerve to pull the string.

Well, there’s a real life version and now, this doll has pulled its own string. And while it didn’t blow up, it might as well have. Or may as well have.

Meet Saif al-Islam Gadaffi, son of Moammar Kadafi-Duck and Libya’s front man for fake reform. You-can-call-him-Al has a doctorate from The London School of Economics. He dresses in western suits like Gorbachev. Talks about reform. Holds secret and apparently productive meetings with Israel. Says things that US politicians like.

But strip away the London School and the London suits and what do you get? Kadafi-Duck, Jr. Complete with AK-47 and fatigues. Complete with “fighting to the last drop of blood and the last bullet” to maintain rule of one of the world’s top five oil producers.

People who know the guy are shocked! How can this be? This Great Reformer. This Liberal. This paragon of tolerance and compromise is out there with daddy, confusing himself with his population and to his country’s population. Al, babes, those guys you’re fighting? They’re the Libyan people. That’s not the same thing as being you.

Others say maybe he’s conspiring with the oil speculators to bring us a new improved version of expensive gasoline. Five dollars a gallon by summer, anyone?

New boss, same as the old boss.

Why are they shocked? Probably because they believed the publicity releases about this guy without looking too closely. After all, oil is all. And who wants to know the truth, anyway?

Scratch a middle eastern potentate and what do you get? A middle eastern potentate. Scratch a middle eastern reformer and what do you get? A middle eastern potentate.

But no need to scratch any more. Now we know what side he’s really on.

Hey, Al, you got a permit for that assault rifle?


Shrapnel:

--Also in the middle east, they know how to raise money. Iran’s President Achmadinidad’s car, a 1977 Peugeot worth about two grand, has sold at auction for $2.5 million. Supposedly the money will go to build a low income housing project and maybe a missile or two.

--Thanks to the Pope, all of us Jews can breathe a sigh of relief, since we no longer are, he says, “responsible” for the death of Jesus. Um... kind of a case of rhetoric catching up with reality. Good thing, too, because there’s no statute of limitations on this.

--NPR says former White House Lawyer Greg Craig has a new client, John Edwards. Edwards is facing an indictment charging he used campaign funds to cover up his affair. There IS a statute of limitations on that one.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com, as the old address, wesrichards@deathrow.net no longer works.
© WJR 2011

829 Some Old Guys

829 Some Old Guys

Investment king Warren Buffett is 80 years old. He’s one of the two or three richest guys in America. Which position he occupies depends on which “Richest” list you read.

He’s probably the most successful investor of our lifetime. Possibly of any lifetime. He’s built Berkshire Hathaway into the most valuable paper conglomerate in history. BRK owns huge chunks of companies whose names you know, but doesn’t manufacture much on its own.

All this gets done in the unlikely investment epicenter of Omaha, Nebraska. The company’s annual shareholder meeting is a combination of Boy Scout Jamboree and Davos.

Buffett also writes an annual letter to stockholders in which he summarizes the past year and predicts the future. The letter never fails to move markets.

But even in apparently robust health, at 80 one has to think about succession. The obvious choice would be Buffett’s “Robin” or “Tonto,” Charlie Munger. But Charlie’s 86, and that kind of cuts him out of the running.

So there are four guys on the succession list and talk that the company will split his job among two or three of them, maybe all four.

One guy on that list is a fellow named Peter Buffett, Warren’s son and co-worker. Dad wants junior to be named chairman in a reconfigured future to “preserve the corporate culture.” Now there’s something you don’t hear every day.

It’s a lesson that’s lost on companies large and small. The Titans of Industry forgot about that when the Pennsylvania Railroad bought the New York Central and screwed themselves, each other and the American transportation system.

The Titans forgot that when Daimler bought Chrysler and screwed themselves, each other and much of the auto industry.

The Titans forgot that when Comcast bought a majority interest in NBC and soon will screw themselves, each other and We The Viewers.

The Titans forgot that when Sears bought Lands’ End and Kmart bought Sears. And when a giant exterminating company bought a local exterminating company which it crushed like a bug. And when “Chainsaw Al” Dunlap killed Sunbeam.

So here’s this unassuming guy, Buffett, who takes clients to lunch at Dairy Queen (which he owns,) and buys expensive suits that look cheap on him and who has made millionaires and billionaires of many while living in a house he bought for 32 grand in 1958. Maybe the old coot knows something. Like it’s not enough to be smart and good if you want to preserve it, whatever “it” happens to be.

Shrapnel (Old Guys Edition):

--Oscar broadcast was really bad, especially the somnambulistic James Franco who never looked at co-host Anne Hathway even when they were conversing. The worst mistakes were playing an old film of Bob Hope as Oscar TV host, who in his corny way made this year’s show even more wooden than it had to be and bringing out Kirk Douglas, 94 and a stroke patient. He was more interesting and watchable in his dotage than anyone else.

--Speaking of old guys, hail and farewell to Frank Buckles of Morgantown, West Virginia, last American soldier who served in WWI. Three years ago, he told interviewers that “last survivor” had to be somebody “and it was me.” Frank Buckles was 110 years and one month old.


I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com (assuming it actually works when you want it to.)
© WJR 2011

828 My Hero

828 My Hero

(STATE COLLEGE, PA.) -- What’s the most dangerous place on earth? Is it Lybia? Or Madison? Iran? If you guessed “none of the above,” you’re right. The most dangerous place on earth is wherever you stand if it’s between a Penn State University student and his or her bar of choice. Especially at the onset of a fake and stupid holiday called “State Patty’s Day.”

Called WHAT? Maybe you need a little information first. A few years ago, SAINT Patrick’s day fell during the school’s spring break, and with students out of town, there was one less excuse for everyone to go out and get sloshed.

So some enterprising future teachers, accountants, business people, engineers, scientists, artists and others got together and made up and publicized the fake holiday. And it’s been going on ever since, even though the REAL holiday no longer falls during spring break.

State Patty’s day 2011 was Saturday, February 26th. And at late afternoon, the town’s main drag was jammed like Broadway on Thanksgiving morning. Here, the kids are older and there are no giant balloons. Or maybe the kids ARE the giant balloons. The locals wear green shirts with the holiday name in white, sometimes with pictures of the school’s symbolic mountain lion. A favorite says “State Patty’s Day Wear Green Get Drunk.”

Already, the locals are writing comments to the newspaper, most of them describing what they call the unspeakable acts of frat boys and girls, mostly on their lawns. Around here, DWI and alcohol poisoning mean cash flow for courts, lawyers and the hospital emergency room. Broadway on Thanksgiving morning. About two hundred cop stops, about 40 charged with drunk driving.

Now, to the hero, whose name is Jennifer Zangrilli, operations manager of six restaurants in the area, four of them downtown watering holes. And this day, they are either not serving alcohol or are closed entirely. It’s only a handful of restaurants in a town where there is at least one bar on every block, sometimes two or three. And Zangrilli is not the only owner to shut down for the day. But her company is old, well established and well -- and deservedly -- respected.

A hero because she doesn’t want her share of customer bar fights and bar-fing? Who can blame her? A hero because she’s setting an example? Sure, though the kids who want to get bagged will find places to do so. But here’s someone who’s putting the good of the community before profit. And THAT’s why she’s a hero.

There is a downside. First, no income on one of the busiest days of the year. Second, employees, many of them college kids with big tuition bills, or older hands with mortgages probably won’t get paid for the day.

But sometimes, you have to do the right thing. And when someone does, it’s worth talking about. And copying.

Shrapnel:

--Hunter College of the City University of New York has been named tenth best bargain in higher education. When mama went there, it was “girls only,” and it was free. For her graduate days at Columbia, which wasn’t and isn’t a bargain, she did something really shocking: earned scholarships and got jobs.

--Last Train to Clarksville? “Discovery” has arrived at the International Space Station, and then as the oldest traveler in the fleet will be grounded for good. But when it returns to earth, it will leave behind a robot spaceman with a twitter account, the better to tell you the latest... latest... latest.

--Discovery was to have made this trip in November, 2010, so it’s four months late. Computer problems delayed it, hatch problems lengthened the time of the linkup and there’s some insulation now missing from the side of the ship. Who’s running this show, the Long Island Railroad?


I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011

827 Radio News: an Opposing View

827 Radio News: An Opposing View

Colleagues will get out the flamethrowers and put snakes in the mailbox after reading the heresy to follow. But there are things here that need to be said. And while it’s radio-specific, there’s a lot that also applies to television.

A long time ago in a far off land, you could hear a radio newscast with a minimum of distraction and interruption.

New Yorkers did this by tuning in WOR and WQXR and WCBS. You turned ‘em on and someone told you the news. Period.

WOR’s news department was staffed by stentorian sounding announcers, many having no idea what they were reading on the air. But they were backed with a 25 or 30 person team of writers and editors who did.

WQXR had the luxury of news prepared by the New York Times and later the Associated Press.

WCBS had Ed Murrow’s late evening newscast. He told you what was going on. Murrow was a first class reporter-writer, despite the many people who said so, and he had two able right hands, Jesse Zousmer and John Aarons.

No tape. No BS. No reporters reporting about themselves. Few or no “live shots.” No “Man-In-The-Street” reactions to things. No sound bites with comments from people who had no standing in a story. No “pundits” or instant “experts.”

In all cases, plain prose you couldn’t misunderstand no matter how hard you tried.

As recording tape became cheap and available, more and more of the radio “news” was “sound.” Like comments from the fire chief, the police, the neighbors or the local congressman. And “natural sound.” Snow shovels scraping the ground, fire trucks, that kind of thing.

Adds little or nothing to a story. Just tell us the news. You think idiot sound makes stuff more “immediate” or “lively?” Ridiculous.

The Next Big Thing was I-A-V, Idolatry of the Active Voice. Or “people do stuff.” This may have been an overreaction to use of the passive voice at the time, but sometimes the action is more important than the actor. That’s why English HAS a passive voice. Eliminating it at all costs is ridiculous and results in sentences no one can understand.

Accompanying this was the wise-guy approach to writing. WNEW had a first rate news department, also 25-ish strong. Much of the time they squandered it by writing so cleverly that the words became the story, not the other way around.

The WNEW stylebook of that era, written by a guy who pretty much knew what he was doing, cautioned against overuse of cleverness. (He noted one item about a cemetery workers’ strike in which he said the lead sentence “Some cemetery workers are in grave trouble...” was too extreme. Apparently anything below that on the scale was acceptable.) Few paid attention to that caution.

Today, the template is audio packing peanuts that add nothing to a story but confusion, a reporter whose every other word is “I” and anchors who work at stations starting with the letter “W,” but who can’t pronounce the word “Double-You.”

Nobody’s perfect. Even Walter Cronkite declined to use the conventional pronunciation of the month, February, opting instead for “Feb-u-ary.”

Bring back announcers, writers and editors who just tell us the news. Please.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address hate mail to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011