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Ben Stein's Diary
I Am a Camera
And not everything out there is as perfect as Julie.
A long nap in bed in my office with my new lover, the perfect 7-year-old German shorthaired pointer, Julie. She was found for me by the GSP Rescue of the De Luz Mountains, brought to me about nine days ago in Rancho Mirage. Love at first sight.
She is white with little brown spots, beautiful, soft, furry, loving, enthusiastic, follows me wherever I go. I have loved all of my GSP’s, and each is special in her own way. But Julie and I fell in love in a matter of minutes. Now, when I want a peak experience, I just lower the shades and get in bed with Julie and my Mozart discs, and I am in heaven. This is it. I don’t need anything more.
If there are finer beings than German short hairs, I don’t know what they are. In their eyes is peace.
However, my compulsive little brain refuses to stop running at fever pitch. For example, two days ago, wifey and I flew from LAX to Fort Walton Beach, Florida. On the way to Dallas to change planes, I read through the latest copy of Reason magazine.
There was a lengthy interview with an economist from the World Bank by the name of Kirk Hamilton. Dr. Hamilton was referring to the legendary genius, Adam Smith, and his key work, The Wealth of Nations. In that work, Dr. Smith explained that the real wealth of nations did not lie in farmland or minerals or ports or woodlands or shovel ready construction projects or schools with Internet connections.
The real riches of a nation were what its citizens carried around between their ears, in their brains. The real wealth of a nation was the aggregate knowledge, discipline, creativity, energy, imagination, and willingness to persevere of its people. That, said Dr. Hamilton, amounted to about 80 per cent of the wealth of a great nation like Japan or the USA. This was why the USA was so much richer than even oil-laden nations like Kuwait or Saudi Arabia: because our people had so much more going on between their ears than the people of mineral-rich but mentally undeveloped nations. In poor Third World countries, Dr. Hamilton noted, there is little intellectual capital because the people are so uneducated and (presumably) have such poor work skills. In those countries, whatever wealth there is consists of minerals or lumber. This is not enough to make any sizeable nation rich.
This struck me as so true, and so important, that it compelled a series of thoughts in my febrile brain: if the USA is as rich as the total number of our people times the average of what they know and can accomplish, we are in a phase of intense downgrade of our wealth. I think that’s Dr. Hamilton’s point, too.
The ordinary American — as far as I can tell — knows so much less than he did fifty years ago and has such poor work habits compared with fifty years ago that the average multiplicand of knowledge/capabilities is a much smaller number than it was in 1961.
This means that the wealth per capita will inevitably fall. More than the stock market’s fall, more than the bust in housing, what we are seeing is a collapse in the value of the knowledge asset in this country.
Some say this is highly concentrated in nonwhite minorities (who will soon be majorities), but it is taking place across the board. This is just a much more ignorant people than we used to be, and this will make us much poorer.
Look out below! Here comes the poor old USA, which used to have the smartest workers in the world long ago.
On a bridge in Trenton, New Jersey, near the railroad tracks, there is a faint, long faded sign saying, “Trenton Makes — The World Takes.” Now, Trenton is a ghost town of slums. Buffalo used to be one of the manufacturing hubs of the world. Now, it is an urban nightmare. It’s true all over the country.
The America that we knew as the smartest place on the planet is gone with the wind.
On the other hand, tonight after my nap, I took my wife to a drug store near our home in Beverly Hills. At the front door, an old black man was holding the hands of a shaking old white woman. “You’ve just got to put it all in the hands of God and try to live each day,” he said. “Just take it one day at a time.”
“But I’m too sick to take it one day at a time,” the old women said in between tears.
About the Author
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes “Ben Stein’s Diary” for every issue of The American Spectator.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (38) | Leave a comment
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Shamus| 10.6.11 @ 6:38AM
Americans are becoming steadily more obese, and if Ben Stein's contention is true, then they are coming up short on intellectual capital. Obama tells us we have gone soft. Perhaps our new motto should be "Fat, Dumb, and Happy".
carl| 10.6.11 @ 12:34PM
I know several people who are obese- two of whom are very hardworking, kind, selfless in the service they give. Real sweethearts with great intellectual capacity. Stop dissing on people. We all have great worth and value, some just come in larger sizes. And some of the larger ones have way more value in what they do and who they are than we thin folks. Wake up.
Penelope Prune| 10.6.11 @ 12:42PM
Only 27 more shopping days until Christmas, and you lazy asses are sitting here reacting to Ben Stein's usual drivel.
Get off your butts and get out there to the mall and spend, spend, spend.
Do your part to stimulate the economy. I'm off to Sears right now. Goodbye.
Jack in Wi.| 10.6.11 @ 10:11PM
There is too much rich food in this country and people don't have to work physically any more. People are chained to desks, computers, and TV's. It is time to get up and get moving. Exercise is great for the body and the brain. Throw away the sugar bowl as well. That is a major cause of obesity.
donserge| 10.6.11 @ 8:27AM
Hunting behind a good bird dog such as the German shorthaired; just watching him enjoy his work, has to be one of the great experiences in life.
Herb| 10.6.11 @ 9:02AM
Well..... Ben's hunting dog is almost certainly for companionship only. Hard to imagine him in hunting togs clutching a shotgun; at the drop of a hat Ben would cast the weapon aside and launch into a rhapsodic Sound of Music meadow ballet to the tune of "If I could walk with the animals, talk with the animals..." as his German shorthaired frolicked around him. Slo-mo this thought for even more ghastly effect.
Agnes of God| 10.6.11 @ 9:12AM
When I got to the sentence "I could not find my keys," my heart jerked, and I thought, "Oh my God, the dog swallowed them!"
It was such a relief to read that Ben was holding the keys in his aching, arthritic hand, and we would be spared the heart-rending story of Julie having her stomach cut open to retrieve the keys.
Speaking of stomachs, I hope that by now Ben has lost some weight. He was positively porcucine in a photo published in this tabloid a month ago.
And according to what Ben writes in his diary, his wife tends to be sick a lot. Must be because of all that flying. They're constantly whizzing all over the country, staying in hotels (when they're not in the Watergate or their Idaho home) and eating god-knows-what, and eating lots of it.
Ben, may I suggest you leave your wifey at home so she can rest and completely recuperate from her digestive problems.
Cute pooch.
Miss Alabama| 10.6.11 @ 10:17AM
Ben, darling, how I envy Julie lying next to you in your cozy bed. You're such a huggy bear, and so gentle and caring.
Dear reader, do not jump to conclusions about my relationship with Ben. Although we do have a very close relationship, it is platonic, other than occasional mild cuddling and petting. There is absolutely no sex invovled! I insisted on that!
If only my husband were as kind, gentle, and considerate as dear, sweet Ben.
Yesterday afternoon I was standing in my bedroom wearing my Fauve Mia Lingerie from Nieman Marcus--the black lacy underpanties with the pink ribbon accent and scalloped trim--when my husband, Hank, walked in and grabbed me, rubbing up against me like a rutting deer, and I said, "Darling, please not now! I've got my makeup on, and I'm . . ."
Well, that's as far as I got. Hank ripped my expensive Fauve Mia panties off my body--ripped them to pieces-- pushed me onto the bed, and you can imagine . . . my make up was smeared all over the silken duvet.
The brute! The insatiable pig!
Ben, the gentle, sweet marshmallow, would never have behaved so violently toward a woman, no matter how sexually aroused he might be.
These Southern men are animals when it comes to sex, especially the Baptists. And Hank comes from a long line of Baptist ancestors--rich, land-holding Baptists, I might add, or I would never have married him (I'm Episcopalian).
Yes, I would trade places with Julie in a minute just to be near my lovable, huggable, big fat teddy bear, Ben--one of the gentlest, sweetest men I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.
Dear readers, if you only knew him, you would be kinder in your comments. To know him is to love him.
Junius| 10.6.11 @ 1:56PM
Miss Alabama, from your shocking brutal discription of your husband he sounds like he is a rabid, slavering hound continously in heat. No wonder you pine for the passive embraces of Gentle Ben, however there is a high probablity that if the object of your fantasies, Mr. Stein, were to achieve a high level of arousement his frail, somewhat overweight frame may vapor lock in the midst of coitus thereby rendering the romantic experience a traumatic event for you. My advice is to seek another, more sturdy object for your unfulfilled desires. I hear Michael Moore may be available. May your search be short and fruitful.
Cabermon| 10.6.11 @ 10:39AM
Agnes, your letter is lovely and clever, but your word "porcucine" conjured a horrific vision of an obese Ben Stein covered with sharp spines! I assume you meant "porcine." I hope you didn't mean "porcupine!" And Ben's chubby, not obese.
Best regards.
Agnes of God| 10.6.11 @ 11:30AM
Thank you, Cabermon, for the correction.
At the moment I began to type porcine, I was startled by the fluttering wings of a flock of doves
that flew by my open window. There must have been a thousand! You can imagine the drama. I nearly swooned in astonishment.
Dan Hirsch| 10.6.11 @ 9:32AM
Did Ben just quote Jimmuh Carter's malaise speech? Barack Obama's "soft America" speech?
We as a nation, saddled as we are with
the New Deal,
the Great Society,
the War on Poverty,
Ponzified Social Security,
Socialized Medicare and Medicaid,
the prescription drug bill,
the anti-citizen, anti-business EPA,
Dodd-Frank,
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae,
Obamacare,
another 80,000 pages of federal regulations,
$135,000 in federal debt per person,
double and triple dipping government employees with pensions that NOBODY in the private sector gets,
we are just not smart enough and hard-working enough to match 1961 economic productivity.
Ben, give us 1961 rules and government, and this country could make 1961 look like the Great Depression, 1930's or late 2000's, you pick. You probably don't recall how grim things were in 1981 and how irritating it was to have to sit and wait for the Democrats' tax cuts shoved down their throats by the people responding to President Reagan to take effect. Remember they made the whole country wait two years before they went into effect.
Oh, yea Ben, stop relying on "Reason" and other such high-brow magazines (What's a magazine, Daddy?) for an understanding of "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nation."
Read it yourself! Here, for FREE!
http://www.econlib.org/cgi-bin/printarticle.pl
It's not like you don't have the spare time...
Don't Tread On Me.
DH
PS Anyone wondering how long it will take Fox News to describe the "Occupy Wall Street" thing as what it is, ASTROTURF? DH
ncatty| 10.6.11 @ 9:55AM
Why is the dog recumbent on the Confederate Battle Flag?
Herb| 10.6.11 @ 10:50AM
Because Idaho was originally settled by survivors of Quantrell's gang who said "Fergit Texas, them damyankees will never find us up here in Sandpoint!"
(sorry)
Tom of Tennesee| 10.6.11 @ 11:40AM
Well my question is why is the dog recumbent, period!!!
He should be out in the backyard running around.
Don't y'all agree with me?
Clancy| 10.6.11 @ 11:41AM
It all depends.
Could be raining out there, and Ben would not want his pampered pooch to get wet. Not on your life!
Clancy| 10.6.11 @ 12:34PM
But I would like to know what kind of treats Ben gives his dog.
Hey, Ben, buddy, do you ever give her MilkBone dog biscuits? My dogs love 'em, and occasionally I like to snack on them, but I would not want you to pick up this habit, as you are already a bit chubby.
You don't want to pop a heart valve by snacking on dog biscuits--your hand in the bag when your wife finds you--rigomortis already set in.
Too horrid to think of. And what would the tabloids say?
Occam's Tool| 10.6.11 @ 9:19PM
Dear Clancy: True story. The names have been changed to protect the guilty:
When I was initially practicing in Alabama, I was recruiting a colleague (one of the worst decisions of my life). The fellow seemed OK---went to my Medical School a year or so under me, good fraternity, pleasant personality, solid residency training (UT Dallas, I believe)....
My girlfriend (later wife) and he and his other half were riding around in his car one day, on our way to B'ham. He was in a humorous mood, and was clowning around with his dog's biscuits, a box of which were in the car. For a lark, he started nibbling on one.
Or at least my future wife and I thought it was a lark, until his wife told him, "Fred! (not his name) Stop chewing on Norman's (the dog's real name) dog biscuits! You know he always knows when you've been eating them!"
And thus began my descent into the Twilight Zone for the next 5 years....
Personally, I prefer the company of my cats Cassius and Rocky over any dog...
Miss Alabama, I am sorry that your husband cannot behave appropriately in your presence, but given the pulchritude of Alabama women that I experienced in rural Northern Alabama, your husband's attitude and behaviors are explainable, if not forgiveable.
But you can do better than Ben among Jewish men. Take Paul Newman, for example.
Junius| 10.6.11 @ 4:15PM
Very Strange. Mr. Stein bemoans the hardships of a black man (victim of our oppressive society) he espies while making a rare foray onto the streets of the plebs, yet he adorns his bed with a Confederate Battle Flag which was proudly flown by the side defending the right of slavery. A somewhat puzzling contradiction by a supposedly erudite man of letters. What does this all mean? Is there a hidden message in the photo? One thing I am sure of is that Ben needs to get a flea and tick collar for the dog if it is going to be allowed on the bed!
Steve| 10.6.11 @ 11:26AM
Ben Stein has mastered the art of simplicity. The simple things in life are often the best of life. More often than not they are without cost yet we do not recognize their value. We are too busy with things that do not matter and do not last.
Sylvia| 10.6.11 @ 11:44AM
Simplicity? You jest!
Simple things? I laugh out loud.
Ben lives a lavish, hedonistic life in Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Washington, D.C.
Without the accustomed expensive accoutrements and amenities , he would be miserable.
Steve| 10.6.11 @ 12:30PM
Fair enough. Ben Stein lives well, better than me. But there is paradox and inconsistency in all our lives. Yet, he still recognizes the worth of simple moments and I appreciate that aspect of his writing.
Dave| 10.6.11 @ 12:40PM
Just remember, all you Ben Stein fans. Stein is also the same guy who called Al Franken "one of the smartest guys I know" and MAXED OUT HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO AL FRANKEN'S SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN! No one should treat Stein with an OUNCE of respect after aiding a wacky Hollywood liberal to win a seat in the US Senate!
Ken (Old Texican)| 10.6.11 @ 1:03PM
Ben,
find your keys and hush.
JW Garner| 10.6.11 @ 1:14PM
The dumbing down of America was brought to the forefront to me last year. A teacher sent home a note that my child was arguing with her in class. Then I found out why. The TEACHER (and I use that term loosely) said 0.5 divided by 0.5 is 0.1 and when my son argued she said it was not one because the 0.5 divided by 0.5 was a decimal. I personally believe she should have been suspended or fired but of course she is union and so nothing was done to her. I am appalled by the poor quality teachers I see everyday. They are destroying our children's futures through misinformation. And they make in a year twice the average salary of the area I live, so they are rewarded richly for their incompetence.
Dan Hirsch| 10.6.11 @ 2:11PM
In an MBA level economics class, an instructor explained that two lines on a cost curve were parallel but had different slopes. I raised my hand and politely asked if this was a two-dimensional plot, wouldn't those two lines have to have slopes that were 'really close' for the lines to be parallel. The "good" professor corrected me, "No, they're different." Fortunately for me, one of my fellow students tugged on my coat and told me that it was fruitless. I realized he was right and "saw" my error.
How did this selfsame instructor introduce himself to his MBA class on the first day? By explaining that Reaganomics would introduce the greatest Depression since the the 1930's. It was 1981.
I left that school shortly thereafter and finished my degree at a real business school...
DTOM
P.S. Confused? Sue your math and geometry teachers! DH
Occam's Tool| 10.6.11 @ 9:21PM
My friend had an idiot teacher in junior high in Indianapolis who tried to teach him that water, being a solid, contracts as it freezes.
Dave Williams| 10.6.11 @ 2:56PM
I'm a professor, and I tremble for this country -- the sheer doltishness I encounter every day (NOT "everyday"!) is terrifying and heartbreaking. What is even worse is that the stupid people will, as all stupid people have always done, want to keep the smart ones down. This will be done primarily through government regulation, and if you think we haven't already started down that road, look again. Best to tend one's own garden, wait for whatever apocalypse is heading our way, and re-emerge at a time more propitious for learning...
Stefan Stackhouse| 10.6.11 @ 4:13PM
New civilizations have sometimes emerged out of the ashes of a previous collapse. However, the time scale for this is almost always centuries. If we fail to prevent our beloved USA from collapsing, something may come up from the ashes, but it will be those few and fortunate great-great-great-great grandchildren that might get to see it.
Occam's Tool| 10.6.11 @ 9:23PM
Dear Dave---I must disagree---by the time you and I are ready for retirement, we will be seeing an American Renaissance.
There is not yet a growing Civilization ready to take us down. Yet.
Peppermint Tea| 10.6.11 @ 6:20PM
Ben, we're not leaving you because you are old, pampered, and forgetful, we all have those experiences,
it's that you would rather sleep with a dog.
Danny Ross| 10.6.11 @ 11:17PM
What nonsense. Our politicians and corporate leaders have conspired - with the intellectual connivance of free market economists - to ship the jobs of the workers in Detroit, Buffalo and Youngstown to China, Korea and Mexico, so the executives can justify their salaries and politicians can use the campaign contributions to buy their offices. The Establishments laughed at Ross Perot's "great sucking sound". Well, the jobs are gone.
POST American| 10.6.11 @ 11:54PM
----AS the UN, on behalf of the 'World' Bank,
is slaughtering native farmers in Honduras,
Africa and around the world
---while North America is saturated by
that HAARP-esque, GE sourced FUKISHIMA
disaster fallout --and while the Globalist
RED China TREASON and EUGENICS OP
finishes off --------------UH------------------
could Stein PLEASE pick up the plot?
Cpm| 10.8.11 @ 11:19AM
Paranoid Poetry Slam.
AVCurmudgeon| 10.7.11 @ 11:42AM
I teach a class of adult learners. As part of the curriculum the class has to write memoranda; as part of preparing them for that we have to teach them essential English ("I saw", not "I seen"). Now, these are folks of a stripe you and I see every day. They have their HS diplomas or in many cases their GEDs, but they are essentially uneducated.
I have to say this is largely because our public schools have lost their true mission, which is teaching fundamentals. The students do not know how to write a simple declarative sentence, do not know the parts of speech, and have a minimal vocabulary (as part of the class I began a "word for the day", a la Bill O'Reilly; they've never heard a word like "bloviate" but they get a kick out of knowing that such a word even exists).
My point? Education begins in the schools, and our schools no longer educate. In California our schools will now inculcate social training on proper attitudes toward GBLT youth, which (all other objections noted but to one side for now) will necessarily mean less time available for actual education on things the kids actually need to know.
And our politicians wring their hands as to the decreasing comparative level of knowledge between our country and others? Political correctness uber alles.
And btw Ben, I love GSPs too. But I have Great Danes myself.
Bill| 10.16.11 @ 9:36AM
In a decision made during the eh-hm, Clinton years, we intentionally - INTENTIONALLY started on a course to export our manufacturing jobs to the third world. You don't remember? How easily we forget. Americans were going to be competing in a 'new' knowledge economy. Does that little tag line ring a bell? America would provide the financial fraud err 'know how', and the rest of the world would do the dirty work.
Modern finance has certainly delivered on the fraud end, and why anyone thought a 'knowledge' economy would employ sufficient numbers to actually be a viable economic model is completely beyond me. But then these are largely the same folks that said 'shovel-ready' construction projects would fix our problems. Laughable at best - considering maybe 100 people in a geographic area work on a bridge or a road - just how was that going to affect the other 400,000 not shoveling away?
Oh wait, I take that back, it's worked expertly (or at least is on it's way to working expertly). You see the real reason behind 'free trade' and the exportation of manufacturing jobs is to depress American wages, and at 17% unemployment (the way we used to measure it) that's on its way to happening.
The real problem is that the people of the United States trusted their politicians to look after their interests, and went off to the mall oblivious to the true state of affairs in this country. But why would they suspect anything was amiss, they after all actually have a vote, what other interests would our politicians be serving?
Thomas Dunn | 1.11.12 @ 7:33PM
God bless our influx of Asian americans. I had the privilege of taking some optical engineering courses a few years back and my instructor was from Taiwan. He came to America in the sixties because of the freedoms here and access to education. He became the chief scientist at Xerox with hundreds of patents to his name. While he still has family in Taiwan, he is passionately American. God bless him and may we bring all the bright, hard working, conscientious, and freedom loving such as him to our country. It is our hope going forward as it has been the basis of our greatness in the past. Lawful, intelligent immigration is a great benefit to our nation. My family has been in the States since the mid-1800's. They came here from Scotland. I am raising my kids as best I can to excel and pass on to their generations strong, christian values and work ethic. In the end we will be okay.