Posted on 02/12/2005 7:43:28 PM PST by GodBlessAmericia
Here is a man who finally realized what the hollywood elitist really are. Ben Stein's Last Column...
For many years Ben Stein has written a biweekly column for the online website called "Monday Night At Morton's." (Morton's is a famous chain of Steakhouses known to be frequented by movie stars and famous people from around the globe.) Now, Ben is terminating the column to move on to other things in his life. Reading his final column is worth a few minutes of your time.
Ben Stein's Last Column... (read all of this or you will have missed the best).
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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 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.
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.
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 t han 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.
Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will. By Ben Stein
This is NOT his last offering. I am annoyed that it was not better stated in the title. This was written years ago. It has been discussed by other Freepers when it was posted a few months ago, with the same annoying title, having the readers think he was no longer writing.
Ben is still writing for American Spectator and offers thoughts on CBS news.
What a wonderful article. I'm going to read it again as soon as I can get my eyes dried out to the point that I can see to do it.
"This column is over 2 years old and you posted it without so noting, and with the title "Ben Stein's last column?"
Your posting privileges should be revoked.
This comes awfully close to being a fraud"!
Uhhhhh.......did you guys notice this post? By the Admin Moderator?
No, I mean the title suggested that he croaked. That'd be aneurism time for me.
The above link is worthy of reading.
I'm glad to read something inspiring and uplifing on FR. I don't care if it is new or old.
There is no shortage of inspiring things on FR.
But we should value inspiring posts, and not chastise the poster or threaten to pull his posting privileges, because the posted material is old.
Must be thumbs tonight. Yes, I meant the title of the thread is misleading and that not only you but many of his fans would be find their world a bit dimmer without Ben's patriotism and insight.
bump for later
I agree. Most of them are heroes. We just talked with one of them Friday, when we went in for our parent-teacher conference with my son's autistic teacher. She has done such a great job working with him the past three years, and he is a stubborn 11-year-old autistic kid who can't speak and doesn't like much interaction.
The teacher has been using a picture system to help him keep a routine and communicate a little. It's too complicated to go into it, but it involves having small picture/symbols posted at various locations in the classroom and other parts of the school, including his locker, the water fountain, the lunchroom, etc. When it is time for that activity, Austin takes the picture he has in his workbook and velcro-sticks it next to the posted picture, say of his locker.
Anyway, some middle-school kids were playing basketball one afternoon in the elementary school gym. A group of them were getting a drink at the water fountain outside my son's room, and they started making fun of the little "water fountain" picture posted there for my son, wondering out loud who would be so stupid that they would need a picture, etc.
Austin's teacher, who is one fiesty woman, heard them. She shot out of her room and began chewing those kids out: "You should all just be thankful that you can talk and communicate with others. Not everyone is so fortunate. That picture is posted there for a boy who is severely disabled, etc." She lit into them. They sheepishly apologized and went away.
I love it when people stand up for my kid. I love it when any teacher loves the kids they teach and wants the best for them.
I wrote to Ben to inform him that Erin had developed breast cancer several years later. Our group each picked a favorite CD to send Erin to boost her spirits. I contacted Ben to ask him to select his favorite. His reply to me was quick and genuine. He selected his favorite Bob Dylan CD. Erin was touched and tickled.
For that, he will always have my admiration.
A quick and swift BUMP to the top, just for you kind sir.
Mr. Stein has always been that most rare of critter in Hollywood, the "original class act". May we not be deprived of his presence too soon...
the infowarrior
btt
Whoops. Should be: "my autistic son's teacher". That slightly changes the meaning.
Thank you for your kind reply. We pray for angels, too. Austin has had his share of lousy teachers--who just didn't care--so having Mrs. Petersen the past few years has been a blessing. This is his last year with her, though.
Would that all teachers could be like her.
Your posting privileges should be revoked.
This comes awfully close to being a fraud!
There it is in a nutshell, why I switched from legacy media to FR as my primary news source. You cannot get away with inaccuracies, spin, or even a mild manipulation of readers like this without someone immediately taking you to task. This is why the Blogisphere is so much more reliable than the legacy media.
When I was younger (18-20) I was a liberal moron that was raised by a republican family and guess what I came round as most youth do. It is hard to know where you fit in this world and you make many mistakes while finding the truth. God Bless Ben Stein.
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