Ben Stein's Last Column

[AZGrizFan]

I never liked this guy. I may have to change my opinion of him.

by Ben Stein

How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today's World?

As I begin to write this, I 'slug' it, as we writers say, which means I put a heading on top of the document to identify it. This heading is 'eonlineFINAL,' and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started. I loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end.

It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the world's change have overtaken it. On a small scale, Morton's, while better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to. It still brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars. I saw Samuel L. Jackson there a few days ago, and we had a nice visit, and right before that, I saw and had a splendid talk with Warren Beatty in an elevator, in which we agreed that Splendor in the Grass was a super movie. But Morton's is not the star galaxy it once was, though it probably will be again.

Beyond that, a bigger change has happened. I no longer think Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant, friendly people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be treated. But a man or woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining star we should all look up to.

How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today's world, if by a 'star' we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model? Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or getting trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese girls do their nails.

They can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any longer. A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit , Iraq . He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world.

A real star is the U.S. soldier who was sent to disarm a bomb next to a road north of Baghdad . He approached it, and the bomb went off and killed him.

A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day, is the U.S. soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with a piece of unexploded ordinance on a street near where he was guarding a station. He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded.. He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad .

The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosul even after two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.

We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers of our magazines. The noncoms and officers who barely scrape by on military pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and die.

I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton's is a big subject.

There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament...the policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no idea if they will return alive; the orderlies and paramedics who bring in people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery; the teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children; the kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards.

Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse.. Now you have my idea of a real hero.

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters. This is my highest and best use as a human. I can put it another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin...or Martin Mull or Fred Willard--or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman or as good a writer as Fitzgerald. Or even remotely close to any of them.

But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me.. This came to be my main task in life. I did it moderately well with my son, pretty well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister's help). I cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years. I stayed with my father as he got sick, went into extremis and then into a coma and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms.

This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York . I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human.

Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.

[grizzaholic]

Good read there AZ.

[Wedgebuster]

No Tom, you were right the first time, he is a mega-douche. Never heard a single intelligent thing come out of his mouth when talking politics.

He should have stuck with game showmanship, although he was boring doing that as well.

[grizzaholic]

But my eyes are no longer red and itchy.

[AZGrizFan]

No Tom, you were right the first time, he is a mega-douche. Never heard a single intelligent thing come out of his mouth when talking politics.

He should have stuck with game showmanship, although he was boring doing that as well.

Well, I guess we know where you stand.

[Wedgebuster]

No Tom, you were right the first time, he is a mega-douche. Never heard a single intelligent thing come out of his mouth when talking politics.

He should have stuck with game showmanship, although he was boring doing that as well.

Well, I guess we know where you stand.

Oh I'm not disagreeing with his article at all, it's just that he is such an a-hole, I had to force myself to read it.

I hope I never have to watch another diatribe from that sour puss douche dingle doofus.

But hey, good find Tom. I can't help but think somebody penned that for him, or he has a damn good editor.

[ASUMountaineer]

Well, I guess we know where you stand.

Oh I'm not disagreeing with his article at all, it's just that he is such an a-hole, I had to force myself to read it.

I hope I never have to watch another diatribe from that sour puss douche dingle doofus.

But hey, good find Tom. I can't help but think somebody penned that for him, or he has a damn good editor.

I'm definitely not a Ben Stein fan, but are there any conservative leaning people you like?

[Wedgebuster]

Oh I'm not disagreeing with his article at all, it's just that he is such an a-hole, I had to force myself to read it.

I hope I never have to watch another diatribe from that sour puss douche dingle doofus.

But hey, good find Tom. I can't help but think somebody penned that for him, or he has a damn good editor.

I'm definitely not a Ben Stein fan, but are there any conservative leaning people you like?

Well that is a very good question, so I looked for a list, and I found this;

http://rightwingnews.com/mt331/2008/12/ ... _colum.php

Looking over that list, most I have never heard of, and those who I have, I really don't care for. As for middle of the road columnists, George Will is tolerable. As far as the top listed conservatives Ann Coulter is a horrid cunt.

Now for the liberals, here is a list for them;

http://www.boycottliberalism.com/Columnists.htm

I find several here that I do enjoy reading, and some I do not. My favorite here is the late Molly Ivins.

So, I guess I line up a little left of center. And thanks for asking!

[ASUMountaineer]

I'm definitely not a Ben Stein fan, but are there any conservative leaning people you like?

Well that is a very good question, so I looked for a list, and I found this;

http://rightwingnews.com/mt331/2008/12/ ... _colum.php

Looking over that list, most I have never heard of, and those who I have, I really don't care for. As for middle of the road columnists, George Will is tolerable. As far as the top listed conservatives Ann Coulter is a horrid cunt.

Now for the liberals, here is a list for them;

http://www.boycottliberalism.com/Columnists.htm

I find several here that I do enjoy reading, and some I do not. My favorite here is the late Molly Ivins.

So, I guess I line up a little left of center. And thanks for asking!

Yeah, there's not many media pundits on either side I like. As a matter of fact, very few politicians I care for who claim to be "conservative." I thought I saw you say, around the election, you were a Republican, but that's why I was asking. Cool deal.

[Wedgebuster]

Well that is a very good question, so I looked for a list, and I found this;

http://rightwingnews.com/mt331/2008/12/ ... _colum.php

Looking over that list, most I have never heard of, and those who I have, I really don't care for. As for middle of the road columnists, George Will is tolerable. As far as the top listed conservatives Ann Coulter is a horrid cunt.

Now for the liberals, here is a list for them;

http://www.boycottliberalism.com/Columnists.htm





I find several here that I do enjoy reading, and some I do not. My favorite here is the late Molly Ivins.

So, I guess I line up a little left of center. And thanks for asking!

Yeah, there's not many media pundits on either side I like. As a matter of fact, very few politicians I care for who claim to be "conservative." I thought I saw you say, around the election, you were a Republican, but that's why I was asking. Cool deal.

Well, in Wyoming if you are not a registered Republican, you ain't voting!

I would make just as lousy a Democrat as I am a Republican. I hate the two party system.

[ASUMountaineer]

Yeah, there's not many media pundits on either side I like. As a matter of fact, very few politicians I care for who claim to be "conservative." I thought I saw you say, around the election, you were a Republican, but that's why I was asking. Cool deal.

Well, in Wyoming if you are not a registered Republican, you ain't voting!

I would make just as lousy a Democrat as I am a Republican. I hate the two party system.

Welcome to the club. I am a registered Republican, have been. But, many people I know involved with the party on the local and state level don't consider me a Republican. They think I'm too liberal. It's funny...they're the Bill Frist, GWBush, Señor McCain type Republicans.

[AZGrizFan]

I'm definitely not a Ben Stein fan, but are there any conservative leaning people you like?

Well that is a very good question, so I looked for a list, and I found this;

http://rightwingnews.com/mt331/2008/12/ ... _colum.php

Looking over that list, most I have never heard of, and those who I have, I really don't care for. As for middle of the road columnists, George Will is tolerable. As far as the top listed conservatives Ann Coulter is a horrid cunt.

Now for the liberals, here is a list for them;

http://www.boycottliberalism.com/Columnists.htm

I find several here that I do enjoy reading, and some I do not. My favorite here is the late Molly Ivins.

So, I guess I line up a little left of center. And thanks for asking!

Left of center. That's funny. You make Lenin look conservative.

[Grizo406]

That was an excellent read, and I agree with every bit of it!

Seeing as who it was from, I was wondering when "Bueller...Bueller???" would come up? Thankfully, it didn't!

Nice find!

[Wedgebuster]

Well that is a very good question, so I looked for a list, and I found this;

http://rightwingnews.com/mt331/2008/12/ ... _colum.php

Looking over that list, most I have never heard of, and those who I have, I really don't care for. As for middle of the road columnists, George Will is tolerable. As far as the top listed conservatives Ann Coulter is a horrid cunt.

Now for the liberals, here is a list for them;

http://www.boycottliberalism.com/Columnists.htm

I find several here that I do enjoy reading, and some I do not. My favorite here is the late Molly Ivins.

So, I guess I line up a little left of center. And thanks for asking!

Left of center. That's funny. You make Lenin look conservative.

Tom, for the love of God, remove that floppy disk from your portal for once, the view of an unedited world is amazing.