Grifters

The details of my life are quite inconsequential.

— Dr. Evil

This week the video Plandemic proved its box-office mojo.

Before YouTube deleted the video, over eight million people watched.

Plandemic stars discredited NIH researcher Dr. Judy Mikovits, who claims that two eugenicists, Mr. Bill Gates and Dr. Anthony Fauci, are plotting to take over the world.

Plandemic “recast a pusher of discredited pseudoscience as a whistle-blowing counterpoint to real expertise,” a political scientist told The New York Times.

As P.T. Barnum observed, Americans are suckers for self-proclaimed "truth-tellers" like Mikovits.

They fail to see these messiahs for what they are: grifters.

Since Plandemic was released Monday, Mikovits' $22 book Plague of Corruption has reached the very top of Amazon’s list of print best-sellers.

And before the video's release, she cashed in on a fundraising campaign—halted last Friday by GoFundMe—that backers of QAnon were publicizing.

"Conspiracy theorists are winning," writes Jeffey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic. "America is losing its grip on enlightenment values and reality itself."

But that's nothing new.

Americans have always been targets for grifters.

Take, for example, George Bickley.

An accomplished con artist, in 1854 Bickley founded the Knights of the Golden Circle, a membership organization dedicated to expanding slavery by annexing Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean.

Membership dues were paid by checks made out to "President General of the American Legion," who was none other than George Bickley.

Or take, for example, Robert Welch.

A retired candy manufacturer, in 1958 Welch founded the John Birch Society, a membership organization dedicated to combating a "furtive conspiratorial cabal of internationalists, greedy bankers, and corrupt politicians."

The society was in fact a pyramid scheme: members had not only to recruit other members, but buy an inventory of books they were supposed to sell to prospects.

Or take, for example, Charles Manson.

A small-time thief, pimp, jailbird and drug-pusher, in 1968 Manson founded The Family, a California commune with over 100 members.

A year later, he persuaded a band of his stoned-out followers to murder everyone living in two Beverley Hills homes, because their owners had ripped him off in a drug deal.

Or take, for example, Glenn Beck.

A former disc jockey, alcoholic and drug addict, in 2002 Beck founded Mercury Radio Arts, a right-wing multi-media company. The company is named after Orson Welles' Mercury Theater on the Air.

Although he cites the muck-raking hero of Citizen Kane as the explanation, Beck in fact chose the company's name because he admires the way Welles hoodwinked all America with War of the Worlds.

The word grifter—meaning con artist, thief, swindler, or flim-flammer—dates to the early 20th century. 

It blends the words grafter and drifter.

A grafter profits through shady means.

A drifter is rootless.

That's rootless, not ruthless.

Grifters are the ruthless ones.

Beware the Highwaymen

No thief is happy to be a thief and no murderer is happy to be a murderer.

― Rajneesh

Amid the celebrations of sacrifice and innovation, it's easy to forget malfeasance.

While hard times bring out the best in some people, they bring out the worst in thieves.

I ran into thieves during the Great Recession, when I was running consumer shows. 

A half dozen exhibitors―people with whom I'd been doing business for years―wrote me bad checks for their booth rents at the close of several shows. Some simply skipped out of the shows without paying anything. 

I lost more than $18,000 to those thieves.

I'm running into thieves now. Texas-based Newtek last month billed my credit card nearly $900, claiming I owed the company for "storage." 

While the company had been my web-hosting provider for 10 years―billing my card $6 every month for the service―I shut down my website over two years ago, after which I heard no more from Newtek.

Until it suddenly billed my credit card the $900 last month.

Now the company wants me to prove I shut down the website it hosted. 

"If you 'turned off the services in February 2018,'" the CFO wrote me yesterday, "I could not find any tangible evidence to support this event. 

"I can assure you we are only collecting on balances that are due and payable. 

"I would be more than happy to credit the account if you can provide the tangible evidence."

"No thief is happy to be a thief and no murderer is happy to be a murderer," the guru Rajneesh said. 

"They have been forced. In fact they are victims; they have been compelled by the logic of situations. They have been brought up in such a way that their whole being has been poisoned.”

Time are hard―and growing harder.

Beware the highwaymen!

So Long, High and Tight

He who neglects his hair neglects his country.

― Ben Franklin

American men will go to great lengths for short hair.

The proof: barbers have already reopened in 32 states.

Custom makes men their customers.

For men, high and tight―throughout the past century, at least―has been the American way.

Long hair on men is loathsome to many. Sergeants hate it; so do principals, umpires, bankers and firefighters.

Their aversion is scriptural: “Doth not nature teach that if a man have long hair it is a shame unto him?”

It's also historical: Ancient Barbarians had long hair; Native Americans had long hair; hobos and hippies had long hair.

You can't trust any of them!

"Trust and confidence go hand-in-hand with remaining high and tight," says journalist C. Brian Smith.

But I respectfully disagree. I think, as does journalist John Green, "The worse the haircut, the better the man."

Feminists also hate long hair―but on women.

I'm pro-feminist, but like long hair―especially on women. 

I like in particular:

Veronica Lake

Cleopatra's braids. 

Marie Antoinette's mane. 

Barbara Feldon's bob. 

Angela Davis' Afro. 

Farrah Fawcett's shag.

Princess Diana's pixie. 

Bo Derek's cornrows.

And―my all-time favorite―Veronica Lake's pageboy.

How about you? 

Whose 'do do you fancy?

Thanks, Mom!

Necessity is the mother of invention.

— Plato

What better day than today to celebrate Necessity?

Wartime shortages of chocolate in 1938 prompted Italian pastry maker Pietro Ferrero to find a substitute. 

After months of trial and error, Pietro hit upon the winning recipe: mix one part coconut butter with five parts hazelnut oil and five parts molasses; add a smidgen of cocoa.

Pietro's brother Giovanni was so impressed, he formed a company to sell Pietro's "Super Cream" throughout Italy, Germany, Austria, France and Belgium.

Today we call Super Cream by another name. 

Nutella.

According to Plato, Necessity was the goddess of fortune.

She rules the cosmos by wielding a giant spindle that her three daughters, The Fates, perpetually rotate.

Picture the planets and stars orbiting Earth and you get the idea.

Not only do they spin heavenly bodies, The Fates also weave destinies.

When you die, you appear before Necessity's throne and request of the Fates your next incarnation. 

You can return as a king, a courtier, a commoner, a peasant, or even a pet or wild animal. 

Myself, I hope to return as a Kardashian.

So while the Fates are in charge of every individual's destiny, Necessity is in charge of the whole shebang.

Which is why we should celebrate her today.

Late Friday, the FDA approved an antigen test invented by Quidel Corporation. It detects in only minutes whether you're infected by Covid-19.

The new test gives the nation's healthcare workers the tool they've so desperately needed.

Necessity is indeed the mother of invention.

Thanks, Mom!

Published Mother's Day 2020.

Perfect Storm

I'm doing what I was made to do―and I've got a feeling I'm going to do it even better this time.

― Capt. Billy Tyne

You know the drill.

A colleague phones―often he has sizable obligations―to say his job or business has withered.

Fortunately, all of my colleagues are sensible people with emotional and financial reserves, so there's no hint of "talking them off the ledge."

But I can imagine there are people who are making desperate calls―or none at all. 

In fact, suicide-prevention experts are worried the Great Shutdown will trigger a spike in unattributed deaths.

The difference between the sensible and the suicidal is hope. Behavioral scientists have correlated hope with coping.

In my opinion, people find hope in one of three places. 

Some people find hope in belief in a savoir; others, in substance abuse; still others, in sheer will.

The philosopher and psychologist Eric Fromm thought hope was the evolutionary counterweight to our acquaintance with finitude. 

Unlike the other animals, Fromm said, we are self-aware; and the price we pay for that awareness is insecurity.

"How can a sensitive and alive person ever feel secure?" Fromm wrote.

"Just as a sensitive and alive person cannot avoid being sad, he cannot avoid feeling insecure. The psychic task which a person can and must set for himself, is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity, without panic and undue fear."

Why aren't my colleagues hobbled by insecurity? 

What makes them hopeful?

A team of behavioral researchers in the UK think they've found the answer: self-esteem. 

In four different studies, the researchers separated respondents into two groups: those who tested positive for high self-esteem, and those who tested positive for low self-esteem. 

They then asked them to write about death. 

The researchers found that people in the first group felt very little after the exercise, while the people in the second group felt hopeless.

I've also noticed my colleagues aren't only hopeful; they're thinking of others. 

Who's depending on them to come through? 

How can they help customers? 

Can they find in this mess an opportunity to contribute more to society than they have in the past?

The nuns taught me back in Catechism class that hope is a virtue that aspires to "the to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man." 

Hope is life-preserver. 

"Buoyed up by hope," the Catechism says, "man is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity."

The nuns had that right.

Stay well.