BEN STEIN'S DIARY: Night Vision
Stein, Benjamin J.
BEN STEIN'S DIARY Night Vision by Benjamin J~ Stein SUNDAY ~"~-ARRIVED AT THE MEMPHIS AIRPORT feeling sick and exhausted from two very tiring days in Monroe, Louisiana, home of the world's...
...Plus, she is not enough of a hater for the Howard Deans of this world...
...I walked over to the news stand and bought some reading matter...
...I'm standing in the driveway loading the dogs into the car for the drive back to town, and I look up into the nighttime sky, and what do I see...
...My hosts and I talked about the 2008 elections and who the GOP would put up against Hillary...
...he asked...
...It is perfect...
...But they need a message...
...I am not at all sure I have ever seen contrails lit up at night before, but this is an impressive sight...
...Isn't a billion enough...
...He was wearing a hat that said "B-29 Pilot" and a red, white, and blue bow tie...
...By doing good things for deserving people, I hope...
...If the time is right, I can see the moon through the palm trees next to the pool and the Santa Rosa Mountains behind them palms...
...I think I'm getting a cold and my son has dropped out of school," I said...
...The stars are so bright that I can see them clearly without my glasses...
...I learned that from Richard Nixon," I said and drank my second tea...
...Anyway, we talked about Mitt Romney (a Mormon), John McCain (a super impressive guy), Jeb Bush, and George Allen...
...As I sat in my old Cadillac (eight years old) and rode home along the Pacific Coast, I thought of all the glory that has been showered on me and on mankind...
...The sight of all of that possibility high in the blue sky still haunts me, 54 years later...
...And right over alarge ficus tree in my yard, but about 38,000 feet up, a Boeing jetliner laying down ghostly whitish gray contrails glowing with the moon as their backdrop...
...I almost died that night...
...Yes," he said...
...Yes, in fact, I have been...
...I hope it does anyway...
...They mentioned two singers I had never heard of...
...That was the Lord in the cockpit with us...
...A Jap night fighter put a shell in the cockpit and we somehow made it back home anyway...
...In the Pacific...
...Yes, my son is acting up again...
...But those stars, that moon, those contrails...
...I'm not feeling well...
...Chilling in its power of suggestion...
...I don't know how we got back but the good Lord saved us...
...There is a war on, and we need unity, not screwing over the ordinary working Joe so people who are already rich can get a lot richer...
...I often lie in my bed in Malibu and stare out the window at the nighttime sky...
...I sat down with my tea and an old man with an old woman came by...
...Then I slept for hours and when I got off the plane at LAX, the spell was broken...
...How will you be saved...
...he asked...
...You're sharp," I said...
...Yep," he said...
...I often complain about how ungrateful Tommy is to me for all I do to make his life pleasant and safe...
...My Brigid dog is lying next to me...
...I sin a lot but I am also very helpful to people...
...You show me one white person in the world who would say that at a Starbucks...
...Yes, I am heartsick over the way the media mistreat our soldiers in Iraq...
...He told me he was on the plane to L.A...
...I was directed to a barbecue place near Gate B8...
...You're the guy from TV," he said...
...When I boarded the plane I saw my pal from The Last Picture Show, my dream girl, Cybil Shepherd...
...I knew what was coming...
...What are they but a pure gift in the night, one of many, many, many...
...should be a square deal for American workers, where they don't get ripped offby corporate looters who end pension plans, put companies into bankruptcy, recapitalize the companies, and then walk off with billions while the employees march offinto poverty or desperation...
...In any event, as I just said, I am back from Salt Lake and I am out at my house in Malibu (a very small, non-looter's house...
...But the sight of those contrails by night in Malibu is just hallucinatory...
...And those glowing contrails...
...she asked...
...continued on page 62 60 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 2006 BEN STE[N'S D ARY T~qURSDAY TAM JUST BACK FROM SALT LAKE CITY, where I spoke at | the University of Utah...
...No one caring about my soul, my health, my hugs, my country...
...BEN STEIN'S DIARY Night Vision by Benjamin J~ Stein SUNDAY ~"~-ARRIVED AT THE MEMPHIS AIRPORT feeling sick and exhausted from two very tiring days in Monroe, Louisiana, home of the world's prettiest girls and the world's most noxious paper plant fumes...
...she asked...
...62 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 2006...
...Now, out at Rancho Mirage, I swim back and forth on my back in my pool...
...Yes, I am growing old...
...I had never been anywhere so dark and had never seen so many stars...
...But how grateful am I to my Father in Heaven for what He has done for me and my family...
...The night was bitterly cold but the lights on the trees were warm and cheery...
...Two billion...
...But you're the only one who stopped to talk to us and treated us like we was human beings instead of pieces of furniture," one of the women said...
...How grateful am I that He has showered His blessings on me...
...Go ahead...
...I think the message "So you think you can be saved by works alone and not by faith in Jesus...
...A slightly deranged young man asked if he could sit with me...
...The barbecue was decent but not great...
...And by the way, how rich does a man have to be...
...Gratitude is what I preach, especially to myself...
...God bless you," I said...
...I think the answer is that if it's all about money, you're never happy, period...
...My first clear memory is of looking up at the sky above Silver Spring, Maryland, and seeing a Saber jet flying high above me laying down a magnificent contrail as I walked into my home...
...In some ways, the utter relaxation that flowed over me as I lay there was the most calm I have ever been...
...Were you a B-29 pilot...
...I didn't really want to have that conversation with a storefront preacher from Tupelo right then (maybe some time later...
...Lovely city, lovely people...
...She has super high negatives along with a zealous following...
...When I walked into the airport, I spied my fav~ orite place, Starbucks...
...God bless you," I said again...
...Three very lovely black women started shrieking about Clear Eyes and one of them looked at me very seriously and said, "You look like you aren't feeling very well...
...Stars, galaxies, a bright moon...
...In 1972, when I was a teacher at the University of California at Santa Cruz, the first night I was there, I lay down on a picnic table in the quad of College V and looked up at the night sky...
...Steam rises from the pool every time I hit it with my arms and legs...
...Well, here's another," she said and hugged me...
...How rich do you have to be to be happy...
...I think I'm ready to go back to Memphis where they say "y'all" and them swinging cats are having a ball...
...I went to another Starbucks and four large black women who worked there told me I was the third celebrity they had seen that day...
...This must have been about 1951...
...Do you think you're a sinner...
...With my whining and moaning, am I not as ungrateful as my son...
...Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer in Beverly Hills and Malibu...
...Definitely...
...By the way, I am not at all sure the candidate will be Hillary...
...Have you ever been hugged by a black woman...
...I can see the stars and the airplanes coming into Palm Springs airport with their windows lit up...
...If the war in Iraq is going well, and the economy continues to roar along, any of them could win...
...I am the most avid free marketer ever, but what I see malefactors of great wealth doing at Delphi and Sears and Time Warner, just for starters, scares me to death...
...He quoted me many Bible quotes and then I told him I had to go...
...A large black woman approached me...
...Can I ask you something, Mr...
...So you think you can be saved by works alone and not by faith in Jesus...
...We visited for a few minutes and I put her on the phone with our mutual friend from New Orleans, DeeAnne BarNey...
...Twenty missions and the 17th was the killer...
...Well, this tea will make you feel better," she said...
...We owe you a lot...
...Every few minutes, a jetliner glides across the sky...
...I asked him...
...I wonder if the passengers in the planes can see me...
...Why not...
...Brigid lay in the back seat snoring softly and I thought that some day I will be gone from this perfect spot, but for now it's heaven, and I did nothing at all to deserve it except to be here in America...
...but I never saw him get on board...
...Sure...
...After my speech, my hosts and I walked around the Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...
...How can anything be so beautiful...
...I went to the Northwest Club and asked about food...
Vol. 39 • February 2006 • No. 1
