"At Times I Wonder"

At 23, fresh out of the US Air Force, where I had spent 4 glorious years, mostly teaching Radio Maintenance at Scott AF Base, I got a part time job at the Screen Gems editorial department while I studied Electrical Engineering.

During my time there, I discovered that a relatively large amount of money was being charged to my company for services not provided and of course reported this to my management.

I was outraged, but no one else shared this with me. Why you might ask? It was because the supplier of these services was a friend of my managements. I was told to forget it, and that they would sort it out.

A couple of years later, a senior executive if the company made a huge services deal with a supplier, and took such an enormous kickback, that the supplier was forced to deliver inferior merchandise to us. When the senior management found out about the transgression, they said that they would handle it. Of course the offending executive was not fired, as he was a relative of a major corporate executive. I was outraged, but alone on this.

I have worked for 48 years and observed countless transgressions like this being uncovered, and while the situation was usually remedied, outrage was rarely present. There always appeared to be a conspiracy of silence so as to keep a potential scandal quiet, lest it "rock the boat."

Having said that, I have noticed a gazillion transgressions that have taken place in Government and the private sector, many involving billions of dollars, most being received with a collective yawn, as though "yes, so what else is new" The S&Ls, Enron, Energy regulations, Halliburton, Iraq, among so many others are routinely noticed, and then ignored.

It has been disclosed in the last few days that a senior official in the budget department was instructed by his superior not to tell anyone that the Medicare Prescription program cost had been understated by well over 100 Billion Dollars. Are we serious about this happening and there is no major public outrage at the moment. No "off with their heads". No "jail the scoundrels". This has been covered in the print media and I'm sure in our mass media as well, but no mass hysteria over the incident. But where is the outrage? Is it conceivable that Companies "related" to the government control the broadcast media, and that is why they are mostly silent? Yes it is, but it's probably my paranoia at work that thinks that this could happen.

Should President Clinton have received oral sex in the oval office? Probably not. Should he have "mislead" everyone concerning the truth? Probably not. However, other then Mrs. Clinton, who was effected by the occurrence? Yet the country was led into convulsions, and the public business put aside to deal with the "outrage" of the congress As a bonus, the President was Impeached, not for having "sex in the oval office" but for "lying about having sex in the oval office.

We appear to be a society gone mad. We accept "Obscenity" fines for media from a congress and regulators obsessed about "sexual content", and not obsessed about our societies shortcomings.

It may not be completely fair to bring together the Clinton/Lewinsky, Medicare, and Obscenity issues into the same presentation, but it looks good to me.

Where is Congressman Henry Hyde when we need him? Where is FCC Chairman Michael Powell when we need him? Where is Newt Gingrich when we need him"

Perhaps they limit their outrages to things that they view as sexual in nature.

I know that lying about sex is wrong. I know because I have done it so many times. But lying to, or misleading the country is real bad, and shouldn't be tolerated.

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