Last Column…
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For
many years Ben Stein has written a biweekly column called ‘Monday Night
At Morton’s.’ (Morton’s is a famous chain of Steakhouses known to be
frequented by movie stars and famous people from around the globe). Now,
Ben is terminating the column to move on to other things in his
life. Reading his final column is worth a few minutes of your time.
Ben
Stein’s Last
Column…
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How Can
Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today’s World?
As I begin to write this, I ‘slug’ it, as we writers say, which means I put
a heading on top of the document to identify it. This heading is
‘eonlineFINAL,’ and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing
this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started. I
loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would
never end..
It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my
changing as a person and the world’s change have overtaken it. On a
small scale, Morton’s, while better than ever, no longer attracts as
many stars as it used to. It still brings in the rich people in droves
and de finitely some stars. I saw Samuel L. Jackson there a few days
ago, and we had a nice visit, and right before that, I saw and had a
splendid talk with Warren Beatty in an elevator, in which we agreed
that Splendor in the Grass was a super movie. But Morton’s is not the
star galaxy it once was, though it probably will be again.
Beyond that, a bigger change has happened. I no longer
think Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly
pleasant, friendly people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be
treated. But a man or woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines
and reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining
star we should all look up to.
How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane
They can be interesting, nice people, but they are
not heroes to me any longer. A real star is the soldier of the 4th
Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm
near Tikrit,Iraq. He could have been met by a bomb or a
A real star is the U.S. soldier who was sent to disarm
a bomb next to a road north of Baghdad. He approached it, and
the bomb went off and killed him.
A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day,
himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family desolate
in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad.
The stars who deserve media attention are not the one s who
of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.
We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers
I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values,
and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is
eating at Morton’s is a big subject.
There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament…the policemen
men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards.
Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at
the World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse.
I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only
even remotely close to any of them.
But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and,
immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms.
This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers
in Iraq or the firefighters in New York. I came to realize that life lived to
help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in
return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He
has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a
human.
By Ben Stein
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We truly take a lot for granted.
Forget the Hollywood ’stars’ and the sports
‘heroes’…and pass this on!
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