A horrible day. I was up a large part of the night with an upset stomach. I am pretty sure it was from eating over-spiced fillet of sole. My fault, because I seasoned it and sautéed it. But at about 7 a.m., I decided to do something “useful” with my awake time (not my "woke" time . . . I don’t even know what that word means).
I called one of my stock brokers, a super-smart fellow who is working out of his beach house because of COVID-19. I was chatting amiably with him and asked him an innocent question (I thought) about my wife’s and my accounts. His answer, which I will not repeat, struck me numb with fear. Instantly I could see myself living on the street or in a homeless shelter. I was the most scared I have ever been in my life, and I am an old man, and I’ve spent a lot of it in fear.
It was staggeringly upsetting news. I thought I had better immediately run off to the Badlands of Mexico and die alone there like Ambrose Bierce is said to have done just as I write this tonight, my heart is still racing with terror.
I wanted to discuss it with Alex, but she was fast asleep in her room with her nurse watching over her. It’s a matter of policy in our home that we never awaken Alex, whose health is fragile at best. Last night was a particularly hard night for her, too. She was eating the sole I had made for her and I made the colossal mistake of turning on the TV news to Steve Hilton on Fox News.
He was discussing the crisis in the black neighborhoods in our big cities, citing almost unimaginably scary statistics about the complete collapse of the schools, the families, the stunning increase in violent crime, and the power that the black politicians have in the Democratic Party. I am absolutely not taking a position on this issue here. I’ve done that many times before, and it never does any good in these sad "communities."
But my wifey stared at the TV for just a few seconds and started to shake and pushed away her tray. "Please!" she cried out. "Please turn it off!"
Of course, I turned it off at once. Wifey kept shaking for about two minutes but then slowly but surely calmed down. I had stupidly forgotten the No. 1 rule of our household: Thou Shalt Not Watch TV News.
It is too upsetting. It’s too foolish. It aims to stir up fear and resentment, and it succeeds.
To read Ben Stein's full article, please visit The American Specator.
Ben Stein is a writer, an actor, and a lawyer who served as a speechwriter in the Nixon administration as the Watergate scandal unfolded. He began his unlikely road to stardom when director John Hughes as the numbingly dull economics teacher in the urban comedy, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Read Ben Stein's Reports — More Here.
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