(Kimball's Unauthorized Perversion)

1. Why do some car dealerships (usually used car dealers) fly the flags of Third-World countries? If they represented countries that make autos, it would be a sensible way to advertise imports, but whereas all of the G-7 countries except Canada have certain automobiles associated with them, I don't see their flags a lot. A Volkswagen dealer, for instance, probably doesn't fly a German flag more than half the time. I also remember seeing one lot that was completely ringed by Philippine flags, so it's a safe guess that the owner was a Filipino. But then there are cases that make no sense to me, where the flags represent places like Kuwait, Bolivia and Somalia. One dealership on the other side of Orlando even flew Khmer Rouge flags! If those countries are industrial powerhouses, they're sure keeping it a tightly guarded secret.

2. I have come to the conclusion that high-profile trials in California are the ultimate filler story for the news. Remember how in the summer of 2001, everybody was talking about whether Gary Condit was responsible for the disappearance of his intern, Chandra Levy, but after September 11, some of the talk show hosts admitted they couldn't remember the congressman's name? And when they had the recall election for governor in 2003, my first reaction was relief that Kobe Bryant would no longer be in the headlines every day. More recently, in the summer of 2006, we were told that Iran was planning some big surprise, like a missile attack on Israel, for August 22. When that morning came, I was woken up by the radio talking about a fellow who claimed he killed Jonbenet Ramsey, instead of news from the Middle East, and I immediately knew that all was quiet in the rest of the world.

3. I also learned from these trial stories that the second worst time of the year for news is late summer. Presumably this is because a lot of us are on vacation in July and August, including the people who make news. The worst time of the year for news is the week between December 25 and January 1; that's why most of the magazines and newspapers fill their pages with pictures to remind us of what happened during the past twelve months. Nowadays late summer is becoming just as hard to fill with news stories, but unless you're Jewish or Ethiopian (their calendars begin the year in September), it's pointless to have an annual recap before Labor Day. Of course the media would go out of business if they ever ran a headline or began a radio/TV program by saying, "Today nothing happened," so they have to put something in their pages or air time. So if you see an unusual number of offbeat "Man Bites Dog" stories that normally wouldn't make it in the news, that's another sign that all's quiet in the rest of the world.

4. The most uplifting news of 2004--literally--may be the successful test flights of Space Ship One, the first space craft built by somebody besides the government. To me, Burt Rutan and his pilots are a 21st-century version of the Wright Brothers, and they did it in one year on a $30 million budget; can anyone see NASA launching a new rocket so quickly, or so cheaply? Now that Sir Richard Branson is investing in them with his new Virgin Galactic company, they give me hope; if NASA can't get us back into space, perhaps these guys will.

5. The December 2004 tsunami that struck the Indian Ocean and killed a quarter of a million people proved two things to me. First, we don't need the United Nations to come to the rescue when a major disaster strikes. The United States, Japan, Australia, and India put together an effective rescue team right away, and sent it to the affected area, without any multinational organization directing them. When the UN finally arrived, several days later, its agents spent most of their time holding meetings in hotels about what they planned to do, and a large portion of the aid they gave was birth control devices. I'm sure that even in a country with a high birthrate like Indonesia, repopulation was far from being the foremost thing in the minds of the survivors.

Second, it showed that Western culture is superior to Islamic culture. Because Sumatra was the closest landmass to the epicenter of the tsunami-causing earthquake, two-thirds of the victims were Moslem, but the oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf did not do anything to help until they were shamed into doing so by the US. And the money they finally gave toward tsunami relief was far less than what we gave; the Saudis gave more money to the families of suicide bombers in Israel. I guess that means the Saudis would rather see dead Jews than live Moslems. It would serve them right if our kindness results in some Indonesians converting to Christianity.

While my family loves to watch reality shows, I seem to have missed something. Can we really call them that, when the premise of programs like "Temptation Island," "Big Brother" and "The Bachelor" is to put people in situations they're never likely to experience in real life? The "Extreme Makeover" series is more believable, but even there the odds are against me ever having strangers pay for my plastic surgery or a new house. Nor is the governor likely to come and inspect the finished work, as Arnold Schwarzenegger did on one episode of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." But I guess you can't call them "TV shows with non-professional actors."

The closest thing I've seen to a reality show in real life is the primary campaign of a presidential election, when the candidate who does the worst after each round of voting drops out of the race. If interest in politics among the voters drops, we could call the primary campaign a new reality show, "Elimi-candidate." Of course, we'll have to find a way to explain those candidates who get "voted off," but stay in the race all the way to the convention. Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich did that in 2004, because life on the campaign trail beat working for a living.

At any rate, I don't expect I'll ever audition for a reality show. In 1973 I went with my school to Washington DC, to watch President Nixon's second inauguration, and for the parade I found a real good spot--in the front row, right across the street from the presidential box. I was close enough to the VIPs that the treasury secretary, John Connally, waved at me twice. I was also in front of the TV cameras, so when I got back to the hotel and turned on the TV set to see how the parade looked from there, I saw the back of my head in the front row of the crowd, broadcast all across America! Therefore I don't need to be on TV again; I've had my fifteen minutes of fame already.

© Copyright 2006 Charles Kimball