Comment Of The Day
But, sometimes not every day. Check the archives.

Sunday, June 27, 1998


The President Going Down #1
Subtitled: What are you doing for others?

Over the past three days, We have received twelve emails complaining about the fact that our last Comment posting was Wednesday. We have to work together on this, folks. It is called "Comment Of THE Day," not "Comment Of EVERY Day." We will compromise, though if you will bear with me. On our front page we will put in the date of the last Comment (27, today's), if you will make http://www.legendinc.com your browser start-up page. That way the moment you start up, you will know if there's anything new in the Comment department. Plus, you will start every day with the thought with our website mission statement, "What Are We Doing For Others?" And, that could be the start of something good. Agreed? Sometimes, if we can't get to the Comment, we do post Photo/Quote/Site Of The Day. Did you know that? Be inquisitive, check around.

President Clinton, say what you want to about him, has guts. In front of the leadership of China, the last self-proclaimed Communist world power with the potential to make a lot of trouble, he stated that Tiananmen Square was a big mistake and just plain "wrong." He went on at some length lecturing the Chinese about freedom and the risks of tyrannical government. He stated that the risks of being a repressionist regime were greatly outweighed when compared with manageable risks of a population that is free in its religious and political expressions. Now, this isn't exactly the way that I would have put it, but, hey, he said it. Now when you sit there in your Monday morning quarterback's chair, ask yourself, "What did I do for others over this weekend?" Taking your family for a boat ride, or mowing your own lawn, doesn't really count. "Others," are people you don't know, aren't in love with, and especially it should be people who will never know that you did it for them. So, while you are trying to justify some self-referential and self-serving thing that you "accomplished" over the weekend, think of our sexually-assaulted, maligned-from-all-sides, the butt of endless late-night jokes, and rumor-burdened to the point that most of us would have taken the magnum lollipop by now, think of him... "We celebrate with you the growth of the practice of our faith in China. I believe our faith calls upon us to seek unity with people across the world with different backgrounds and races and creeds." There is no doubt that we have never experienced a President like this guy. He is so full of contradictions, beset by personal problems and challenged on all sides, conflicted and clearly imperfect... in other words, we have never had a President so much like each of us. And, say what you will, he is doing a great job. He may not be a great man, but he will go down in history as a great President.

And I know this will bug a lot of you: he is considered the most popular man in the world in China and in at least three-quarters of the rest of the world. Not, however, around here. But, you see, "others" for him includes you and me anyway. One thing that is not going to happen in the near and perhaps distant future is a war with China. And even Taiwan is safer because of him. And, oh yes, Clinton even put a good word in for the Dalai Lama, saying that that exiled leader and the current Chinese leader would really like each other. "I know both of you."

He concluded, on international television broadcast to the Chinese nation with these words... "I believe Chinese and Americans are brothers and sisters as children of God. We come here in that spirit today." Oh, what the hell, let's impeach him anyway.



It costs General Motors $75,000,000 per day.It's on the way to soon becoming the US's worst strike in 30 years. (1968). 9,200 workers are on strike. 162,600 are "idled" as GM enters "cold shutdown" nationwide, with the predictable exception of its Saturn plant. There are 100 factories closed.
GM has "slashed" advertising, which has a surprisingly widespread effect on the economy.
The union can legally strike on only overwork issues and health/safety issues, which it states is exactly what it's doing (in addition to money, benefits, fairness, etc.) Workers get $150 per week from the Union while on strike, then they can apply for unemployment benefits. Here is legendinc.com's "What are YOU doing for others," test:
Do you care? You should. See you next time.