Scrapbook
Scrapbook A Nation of Whiners There was a jaw-dropping report last week on NBC News about a new disease called—brace yourselves— "sudden wealth syndrome." The Scrapbook's first impression was that...
...and former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld...
...Early in his administration, he apologized for having raised taxes too much...
...Whatever then happens with permanent normal trade relations for Beijing, an important congressional message will have been sent: America will not sacrifice international security to commercial interests...
...What is remarkable about this recommendation is that it comes from a mainstream group of Republican wise men, such as American Enterprise Institute president Christopher DeMuth...
...NBC's report was one of several dozen in the last year prominently featuring the "discoverers" of sudden wealth syndrome and coiners of its catchy name, DiFuria and fellow Bay Area psychotherapist Stephen Goldbart...
...The Scrapbook's first impression was that some sitcom writer had penetrated the news division...
...A Slower Boat to China Reports that the trade-at-any-price business lobby is going to succeed in bulldozing China's permanent trade status through Congress may have been exaggerated...
...It's the gratuitous, usually wrongheaded apology that deals with some alleged sin of a previous administration...
...Then, later last year, he apologized for American support for a military government in Greece...
...It turns out, as usual, that truth is stranger than an invented story...
...Symptoms, too much money, too much loneliness...
...The hot zone, California's Silicon Valley where experts say 60 new millionaires are created every day...
...And DeLay—often skeptical of increased defense spend-ing—recognized that American defense posture in the region should be heightened...
...AVILA: A sense of isolation, imbalance, brought on by sudden riches and nothing meaningful to do...
...SEUSS: It's not being a leader was the thing that I missed the most...
...But ten years later he's back, running Northern Light, an Internet search engine, unable to join the idle rich...
...The Senate, in particular, should move promptly to follow the House in passing the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act...
...Last week, the Congressional Policy Advisory Board, a group that meets under the auspices of the House Republican Policy Committee, concluded that China's threats to Taiwan "have created a serious threat to peace and security in East Asia...
...And he said this only after apologizing for the slave trade and for having aided anti-Communist African nations during the Cold War...
...Sometimes in denial with their money...
...AVILA: CEO David Seuss says he suffered through it, making millions at his computer software company in the '80s, selling [the company], and swearing never to be the boss again...
...Actually, the shah mostly repressed violent Islamic extremism...
...Meanwhile, in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, House majority whip Tom DeLay described China as the "leading national security issue of our time" and drew an analogy between appeasing the Chinese over Taiwan and appeasing the Nazis at Munich...
...Here's the transcript: TOM BROKAW, anchor: It is no secret, of course, that this economy has generated enormous new wealth in America...
...former U.N...
...Clinton himself is the master...
...In 1998, while visiting Africa, he went on an apology binge...
...For one thing, China's own behavior is simply too egregious to hide under the business roundtable...
...After treating many patients, psychologists have a name for it: sudden wealth syndrome and a center to study it...
...DAVID SEUSS: I remember thinking, "Gee, I wish I could have a meeting now, but there's no one at home to have a meeting with...
...Washington Times, March 13...
...Last year, he apologized for America's having backed a military regime in Guatemala...
...This was one of the rare times he found himself at fault...
...That's the great thing about America...
...Carrying Coals to Newcastle Award "Animal rights activists are urging college students this week to guzzle beer to save cows from the 'cruelty' of being milked...
...In addition to criticizing the Clinton administration's "inadequate, confusing, and in some instances counterproductive" responses, the board recommended "prompt Senate approval of the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act" so that U.S...
...Besides what one assumes to be their thriving practice treating nouveau-riche victims, Goldbart and DiFuria help cure the rich by teaching them to give away money at their Money, Meaning and Choices Institute...
...She said the overthrow in 1953 of prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh "was clearly a setback for Iran's political development...
...Albright also apologized for U.S...
...JIM AVILA, reporting: It's an unusual virus with unusual symptoms...
...Not because of sudden wealth syndrome, but as a longtime sufferer of its dreaded and more prevalent variant, persistent middle-class-itis...
...Oh, well, maybe the time will come when Clinton and company apologize for something they did that was really bad, like appeasing China, trying to cozy up to Fidel Castro, selling the White House, demonizing Ken Starr, trashing any woman who got caught in a sexual engagement with Clinton, or just plain lying all the time...
...All of which set the stage for Albright's apologia...
...policy would be "unambiguous...
...So Sorry When secretary of state Madeleine Albright apologized to Iran last week for America's part in aiding a 1953 Iranian coup, she was merely echoing a popular theme of President Clinton and his administration...
...JOAN DIFURIA [of The Money, Meaning and Choices Institute]: An array of symptoms may be that they're embarrassed, guilty, ashamed...
...Further, he argued for an end to the "diplomatic fiction" of the longtime "one China" policy and support for democratic Taiwan...
...Like Seuss, by the way, The Scrapbook finds itself unable to join the idle rich...
...support for the shah, who "brutally repressed political dissent...
...Peter Rodman, a national security aide under President Bush...
...Perhaps the biggest sin America ever committed about Africa was the sin of neglect and ignorance," he declared...
...To paraphrase Alice Roosevelt Longworth, if you don't have anything nice to say, e-mail it to Scrap-book@weeklystandard.com...
...At a time when most in Congress, under extraordinary pressure from big business to turn a blind eye to Beijing's threats to the peace, are failing to speak up on China policy, the Advisory Board and DeLay set a standard that others on Capitol Hill might profitably imitate...
...Heritage Foundation president Edwin Feulner...
...ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick...
...E-mail THE SCRAPBOOK THE SCRAPBOOK is now reachable 24/7...
...In addition to threatening war with Taiwan every few days, the Beijing regime is so paranoid that it recently jailed a woman in the restive province of Eastern Turkestan for the "crime" of mailing newspaper clippings to her husband in America (i.e., "revealing state secrets...
...But don't get your hopes up...
...Too much pressure...
...Perish the thought...
...Sudden wealth that changes lives dramatically...
...But having it all can generate some unexpected problems that send many of the newly rich running for the therapist...
...Wrong: It was a setback for the Soviet Union and communism...
...But, of course, he never, ever apologizes for having done anything seriously wrong...
...As fast as you can acquire a fortune, there will be clever people to help you dissipate it...
Vol. 5 • March 2000 • No. 27
