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How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today's World?
Monday Night at Mortons ^ | Ben Stein

Posted on 04/24/2004 3:53:59 PM PDT by xzins

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. Lew Harris, who founded this great site, asked me to do it maybe seven or eight years ago, and I loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end.

But again, all things must pass, and my column for E! Online must pass. In a way, it is actually the perfect time for it to pass. Lew, whom I have known forever, was impressed that I knew so many stars at Morton's on Monday nights.

He could not get over it, in fact. So, he said I should write a column about the stars I saw at Morton's and what they had to say.

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.

A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq. 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 ordnance 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.

I no longer want to perpetuate poor values by pretending that who is eating at Morton's is a big subject. 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.

Last column, I told you a few of the rules I had learned to keep my sanity. Well, here is a final one to help you keep your sanity and keep you in the running for stardom: We are puny, insignificant creatures.

We are not responsible for the operation of the universe, and what happens to us is not terribly important. God is real, not a fiction, and when we turn over our lives to Him, he takes far better care of us than we could ever do for ourselves.

In a word, we make ourselves sane when we fire ourselves as the directors of the movie of our lives and turn the power over to Him.

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.

As so many of you know, I am an avid Bush fan and a Republican. But I think the best guidance I ever got was from the inauguration speech of Democrat John F. Kennedy in January of 1961.

On a very cold and bright day in D.C., he said, "With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth...asking His blessing and His help but knowing that here on Earth, God's work must surely be our own."

And then to paraphrase my favorite president, my boss and friend Richard Nixon, when he left the White House in August 1974, with me standing a few feet away, "This is not goodbye. The French have a word for it--au revoir. We'll see you again."

Au revoir, and thank you for reading me for so long. God bless every one of you. We'll see you again.


TOPICS: Editorial; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: 4thid; anamericansoldier; benstein; god; heroes; opus; september12era; service; stars; stein
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1 posted on 04/24/2004 3:54:00 PM PDT by xzins
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To: xzins
Great post!

"In a word, we make ourselves sane when we fire ourselves as the directors of the movie of our lives and turn the power over to Him."

This is the whole 12 step plan, as well as other paths to spiritual awareness. Let go and let God.

Very interesting.

2 posted on 04/24/2004 4:08:22 PM PDT by jocon307 (The dems don't get it, the American people do.)
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To: xzins
One of the finest swan songs I have ever read. It figures to be that. It was written by a class act, Ben Stein. au revoir bonhomme.

If this thread develops as I think it will, someone should ping Ben to it, so he can see the comments that appear here.

Congressman Billybob

Click here, then click the blue CFR button, to join the anti-CFR effort (or visit the "Hugh & Series, Critical & Pulled by JimRob" thread). Please do it now.

3 posted on 04/24/2004 4:08:55 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob (www.ArmorforCongress.com Visit. Join. Help. Please.)
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To: xzins
Great article from an excellent writer and fine person.

I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values ...

I know how you feel, Ben!

4 posted on 04/24/2004 4:09:53 PM PDT by Tax-chick (I was swimming with dolphins whispering imaginary numbers in the fourth dimension.)
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To: xzins
Excellent column Bump!
5 posted on 04/24/2004 4:10:07 PM PDT by Tennessee_Bob (http://www.code16.com/cat/)
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To: xzins
Gee, what kind of salary did Jesus make when He was alive?

I guess it paid a lot better to pretend to be Him, for the camera!

6 posted on 04/24/2004 4:11:02 PM PDT by RonHolzwarth
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To: Congressman Billybob
It's a damn Opus. Who'da thunk?
7 posted on 04/24/2004 4:11:26 PM PDT by IncPen (Proud member of the Half Vast Right Wing Conspiracy)
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To: xzins
This is my way of thinking. It should be everyones. Thanks to all my hero's.
8 posted on 04/24/2004 4:17:01 PM PDT by US_MilitaryRules ( "Your It")
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To: xzins
Thank you for the post. Ben Stein hits the nail on the head again.

I am one of those controlling people who struggles to remake the world as I would have it.

Over time, however, I have found it tremendously freeing to 'let go and let God.' It is hard to do at first (especially if you have problems believing in God), but worth the effort. I think I'm a much calmer, much nicer person now.
9 posted on 04/24/2004 4:19:17 PM PDT by radiohead (Over toning the opponent since 2003)
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To: xzins
This is an excellent article from Ben Stein - but then I'd expect as much from a man of his intellect. What an interesting juxtaposition - just saw his "appearance" as a character on Fairly Oddparents. Definitely a man of many aspects!
10 posted on 04/24/2004 4:22:11 PM PDT by Moonmad27 (Imagine our country under the "leadership" of a President Kerry. Scary, isn't it?! Vote W in 04!)
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To: jocon307; Congressman Billybob; Tax-chick
I was pointed to this article by a young lady who used to sing in our chapel choir in Germany.

She's now at Ft Hood with her kids, whil her husband, a US Army Staff Sergeant, is now on duty in Iraq.

So, this one's to Deb. She's a great lady and one of the silent, uncomplaining family members who does great things for our junior enlisted spouses so they can learn how to endure when hubby is gone.

As for Ben Stein -- This is a tear-jerker for me.

Because of what it acknowledges.

The troops in Iraq.

The emergency folks who risk their lives daily.

Loving families.

God.

It's one of those things you read on occasion that makes life better. You know you've just read a contribution.
11 posted on 04/24/2004 4:23:48 PM PDT by xzins (Retired Army and Proud of It!)
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To: RonHolzwarth
What the heck are you talking about?

FMCDH

12 posted on 04/24/2004 4:31:55 PM PDT by nothingnew (KERRY: "If at first you don't deceive, lie, lie again!")
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To: xzins
I feel like he's presented us with a banquet. One filled with so many goodies that it should be eaten slowly and each course savored.
13 posted on 04/24/2004 4:32:40 PM PDT by Humidston (You heard it here - BUSH/RICE - 2004)
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To: RonHolzwarth; nothingnew
Yep, movie stars don't do.

They pretend to be people who did the doing.
14 posted on 04/24/2004 4:34:11 PM PDT by xzins (Retired Army and Proud of It!)
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To: xzins
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.

Why was it ever?

15 posted on 04/24/2004 4:34:23 PM PDT by meowmeow
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To: Congressman Billybob
Now this, THIS is an opus!

May the years ahead be kind to you, Mr. Stein.

Tet68 sends.
16 posted on 04/24/2004 4:37:09 PM PDT by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: meowmeow
That is actually a fascinating question.

Why has America been so enamored of movie stars who only pretend?

And why all the transferrence onto them of the great qualities they sometimes portray?
17 posted on 04/24/2004 4:37:15 PM PDT by xzins (Retired Army and Proud of It!)
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To: xzins
I love Ben Stein.
18 posted on 04/24/2004 4:42:12 PM PDT by Bahbah
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To: xzins
How about a picture of Ben - not everybody knows who he is.
19 posted on 04/24/2004 4:44:16 PM PDT by CyberAnt (The 2004 Election is for the SOUL of AMERICA)
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To: xzins
Wonderful, beautiful tribute to the real heros!
20 posted on 04/24/2004 4:50:07 PM PDT by Budge (<><)
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