Neff Zone

PRINT EDITION: Saturday, March 5, 2005

NINETY PERCENT OF THIS IS HALF MENTAL

It’s getting near baseball season and as I’ve been looking at the news this week I’m reminded of the old Yankees catcher Yogi Berra who said: "90% of this game is half mental." If that confuses you, and it should, making sense of what’s going on with our fearless leaders in Washington and Lansing will surely cause you to take a Louisville Slugger to your head.

Last week President Bush visited his old pal Vladimir Putin in Russia. Quite the diplomat, that Dubya, because he no sooner left Moscow when the Russians announced they were going to sell nuclear material to Iran. Of course, Putin was quick to point out that the material was going to be used for peaceful purposes and its use would be closely monitored by the Russian government.

Now, this is the same country that the Knight-Ridder newspapers wrote about last week, saying: "Russian men drink too much, smoke too much, live with too much stress and go to the doctor too rarely. Russia's men's-health crisis could trigger major social or political unrest in a nation with huge stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Military leaders complain that most new draftees are so unfit, drug-addled or psychologically damaged that only about 10 percent are capable of withstanding boot camp. Russia could become incapable of patrolling its borders or policing vast expanses of rural emptiness, creating new havens for smugglers, terrorists and others."

Yep, they’ll be doing a dandy job of checking on the Iranians. Basically Putin told Bush: ‘Nice talking to you, but we’re grabbing the Iranian cash while the grabbing’s good. Don’t let the door smack you in the keister on your way out.’

You might think ill of Putin, but not so fast camel breath. When Bush arrived back in Washington he was ferried to the White House, as always, in the Marine One helicopter (reserved for his use). He might be interested to know that while he was away the Kish Air show was being held in Iran, with weapons dealers from all over the world showing off their wares, including a dozen companies that do business with our own Pentagon. A banner under one Iranian helicopter said (in Farsi), "Death To America," so there was no doubt as to the tone of the event.

What makes this all so pertinent is that an Italian company named Finmeccanica, part of a group led by U.S. company Lockheed Martin, was there showing off its newest helicopter to the Iranians. Last week, Lockheed won a $6 billion contract to build replacements for (you guessed it) Marine One. About $1.7 billion will go to Finmeccanica, so now they’ll have plenty of new technology to show their Iranian buddies, while our future presidents fly around in helicopters made with outsourced parts. So, it’s pretty difficult for Dubya to fault Putin for taking Iran’s money when thinly veiled subsidiaries of American companies are doing the very same thing at the very same time. By the way, the contract with Lockheed was reviewed and approved by Donald Rumsfeld.

With Russian nukes now on the loose, and our captains of industry providing our enemies with presidential helicopter technology, you’d have to assume "security" is not a high priority in this country anymore. You’d be semi-wrong, however, at least in Michigan. This week Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land will begin to enlist the state’s boaters for Amerca’s Waterway Watch, a Coast Guard program that asks boaters to be aware of suspicious activity on our lakes and rivers. Legislators far and wide are hailing this idea and jumping on the publicity bandwagon; it’s a feel-good initiative with seemingly no political fallout. Land is going to mail a brochure about the program along with license renewals to all 300,000 Michigan boaters. The Watch says suspicious activities to for which to be on the lookout include: people taking photos, people running along the shoreline, an unusual amount of people on board a watercraft, fishing in odd locations, and people attempting to rent fishing equipment or recreational vessels with cash for short-term use (as listed on http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-m/mp/AWW_Website/). You’re asked to call a nationwide hotline if you see any of these suspicious activities, or even 911 if the danger is immediate. What an idea! I know I’ve been edgy since the Naval Reserve on Lake Cadillac closed; all the time they were there I saw nary an enemy destroyer coming through the canal.

On the other hand, I wonder what 300,000 brochures cost to print and mail, not to mention staffing a national hotline. Do we need Homeland Security personnel investigating tourists taking snapshots, joggers on the McKellop Walkway, pontoons full of family reunioners, anglers looking for a quite spot, and folks renting a fishing pole and rowboat for a day? Is this the best use of our tax dollars? Or perhaps should we focus on illegals streaming across the Mexican border or Iranians dropping Russian nukes on us from U.S. taxpayer financed foreign helicopters masquerading as Marine One?

We need to think about these things because, to paraphrase a very wise man: "90% of these decisions are half mental."