ben stein.

For many years Ben Stein has written a biweekly column 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

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.

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.

what's new.

hey hey hey--

i figured that i haven't really updated everyone on my life recently, and i know you've just been on the edge of your seat in anticipation. so here. we. go.

i'm done with the orchard for the year and likely forever. next year i'll be looking for a real job, preparing for grad school, or getting ready to move away to an undecided destination [although london is looking up]. so no more orchard means i'm back to the marketing communications office on campus, which is already way better than last semester. i have my very own office which is not shared with the break room or the bathroom. i even have my name on the little finder thing that you look at when you walk in a building to see where each office is located. yeah, i'm that important. AND yesterday, i wrote text for a brochure that will likely be used. if it is, that means that thousands of prospective tamu-c students will read my paragraph all over the world. that's really exciting. i get to tagalong to interviews with important people across campus, so i get to meet the most incredible people commerce has to offer. i also like that i get to do all sorts of writing in that office: press releases, campus news coverage, alumni magazine, and pr type stuff [as in the brochure and president's report]. it's good stuff.

the other biggest thing is my move across town this week. i signed a new lease yesterday and have been moving a little at a time so far, which means i haven't moved much at all. saturday is my big move in day. i've got some of my family coming to carry all of my big furniture up the road a ways [well, at least load it on and off the truck]. i will also officially inherit hamlet and franky. i have mixed feelings about them living with me, most of which stems from my sadness for them. they have to go from country to city, open spaces to tiny apartment. sad day, but i'll be happy to have a little company when i come home.

business is a little slow this month, but it will be better next month. i have faith it will all work out, because i have yet to miss any kind of payment on anything. blessed, i most certainly am. i just keep praying it goes on that way. school starts at the end of the month. my LAST year. wow. it's so hard to believe. don't ask about anything beyond next year. the simple answer is that i have lots of options and no decision making power. so, the future remains a mystery.

so.... that's my current life in a nutshell. the. end.

-lovingly-
k

pages to fill.

today, i wrote. it's such a small sentence for such a big act. i forgot how good it feels to actually write, just for me, on a pad of paper with a pencil making those swishing sounds as it moves against the grain. I wasn't penning vicariously though a keyboard and computer screen or letting it out in small conversational bursts. It was just me in my office with a legal pad and a pencil. It was amazing.

it was so nice to have this sheet of paper right in front of me containing all of my crazy put concisely in sentence form. now i can do whatever i want with it. lock it up forever. rip it into teeny, tiny little pieces. or even put it on the floor and dance on top of it victoriously. it's tangible, and you can do whatever you please with it.

and once that pile of crazy is neatly formed on lines of notebook paper, it is easier to sort through. you can answer the questions you've found, or maybe just figure out which questions really need answering, or you can just let it out and forget about it forever. all i know is that i have to do that more often.

400 miles.

today i sat down in my car and stared at the meter showing me a full tank for at least 5 minutes. i sat there and thought of just how many places could a full tank of gas take me. i could make it to another state even with hopes of making it to anothr state of mind. i have never wanted to leave a place so badly as i have wanted to leave here today. there have been so many things happening in my life the last week or so, and most of them i could definitely do without. i've gotten bad news, been yelled at for no reason, been sick, and have had the very core of me insulted. i have never felt so numb and so hurt at the same time. just give me an open road and a reason to go. i'm ready to leave everything behind.

packrat.

i'm a packrat. and i mean that in the sense that it applies to just about every area of my life. i hold on to old possessions whether or not they have any monetary or sentimental value. i hold on to other things like problems or emotions and whatnot. i hold on to people and to experiences and to so many other things.

it was just recently that i have discovered why. i like options. i like to know that something is out there waiting on me. it's out there for the sole purpose of being helpful to me. possessions, some people, and some good and/or hurtful experiences. it is just so easy to hang on to things when you think you have so much room. then all of a sudden, you're overflowing with things that you know you will never use or haven't even seen in years. but you just can't let it go because one day you just might need that one thing.

i hate letting go more than so many things. dreams and people are the hardest to let go of because those are closer to your heart than many others. it hurts, and i think i'm terrible at letting that hurt show. not to flaunt it or get sympathy, but to draw nearer to others that are still in my life or to help others find their way in their lives by being an example. some days when i sit down to think about all of the times i have had to give up something, i feel overwhelmed with sadness and hurt and confusion. the question you always want to ask is "why," but that question only brings more confusion. you start to feel as though all you do is give, and you get nothing for yourself.

that eternal perspective is tough when all you see is the immediate that may be filled with pain. that's where i am right now. i am trying to look forward to the prize at the end of the race.

perspective: lost and found.

well, there is just nothing like an evening with cca to give me a little perspective. first of all, i miss those people and those times so much! second of all, just getting the opportunity to spend time in a place where you just felt God's hand so present is amazing. you start to forget what that feels like sometimes. the altar was so crowded that the old staffers that were there had to go up to help counsel, and sometimes there is nothing like helping someone else draw nearer to God to help you do so. last night gave me perspective on why i do [or don't do] certain things, and why i am the way i am. there is a purpose for all of that, and there are times when i lose sight of that fact and get all caught up in other things. my determination had started to fade, but now i think i regained a little momentum. thanks.

it was so great to see everybody, and i miss them like crazy even more now! i thought it would help the withdrawal, but i think it just made it worse. i'm just pray that next summer i will get to spend my time doing what i love most! have a terrific summer, friends!

-lovingly-
k

writing for the sake of hearing my keyboard.

i just feel like writing right now. no particular thing to say. just writing. i have a busy week ahead of me. it starts with busy saturday... orchard, wine tasting [which i'm really looking forward to], and malissa's birthday party at side street. i hardly think i can stand all of the excitement. then sunday it's just work, but then it's back to commerce to get completely set for my cheer camp the next week. i have to start choreographing at it kind of sneaked up on me. so i have to come up with all of that among the excitement of the weekend.

let me tell you this camp has drained me. i have been working on shirts and shorts and uniforms and everything. but i can't really be complaining because i'm doing what i love. you really can't beat that. on the upside we picked up 2 more girls in the last 2 weeks. that is amazing. now we have six, 3 older and 3 younger. so underneath the stress i am really starting to get excited.

i am kind of starting wish i had a daytime job. it would give me something to do, but i will be alright eating and sleeping and being lazy during the day. really. i'm sure i'll manage. and now, i will wrap all of this up. i know that if you've made it this far, you're probably thinking that i need to shut up now. so, i will. much love.

have a blessed day!

-lovingly-
k