Opinion
Soviets say Americans
are enslaved bv bills
Fifty or so former
citizens of the So
viet Union who
had been living in
the United States
went home the
week before last.
When one of
the returnees was
asked why he was
giving up the free
dom living in the
United States had
provided him, he
freedom is there
Lewis
Grizzard
answered: “What
when the bills keep
coming each month?”
I think the man is on to something
here. /
What freedom is there, indeed, when
you go out to Finance a new car and the
capitalistic creeps down at the bank
keep sending you payment due notices
each month?
And what about monthly house pay
ments? Wouldn’t we all have a lot more
freedom if we simply could pick out the
house we wanted, move in and never
have to fork over those worrisome pay
ments.
It’s a lot different in the Soviet Union-.
You don’t have to worry about car pay
ments because there aren’t many cars
available to buy, and even if there were,
you couldn’t afford one anyway. And
housing, that’s a lot simpler in the Soviet
Union too. Who wants to worry about
buying a house when the government
can assign you a cozy two bedroom bun
galow where you can live with your fam
ily, your spouse’s family, Uncle Dimitry
and God knows who else.
There’s no reason to have a credit
card if you live in the Soviet Union, ei
ther. What’s there to charge? Toilet pa
per after you stood in line three hours
to buy it?
If you live in Moscow, you could go
down to the big department store near
Red Square. It’s called Gum.
I was there once. What a choice Soviet
shoppers have. There were piles of
shoes, just in from Poland, the latest in
1935 fashion, perfect for walking down
to the hard currency stores to watch
Westerners go in and buy goods you
can’t afford.
And for the ladies, there were yards
and yards of designer fabrics for mak
ing homemade dresses. One floral pat
tern caught my eye. Nothing makes bur
lap stand out like a floral pattern.
And cosmetics. Soviet women have a
great choice of perfumes, Evening in
Minsk, Evening in Minsk or Evening in
Minsk.
The only bill you really have to worry
about in the Soviet Union is the vodka
bill. Since life in the Soviet Union is cold
and drab and void of very much in en
tertainment or diversion, drinking
vodka is the national pastime.
Soviet citizens drink so much vodka,
as a matter of fact, the state has become
concerned about rampant alcholism and
has raised the price of vodka and cut
down on the hours it can be purchased.
I can think of nothing worse than hav
ing to live but one day in the Soviet
Union sober.
The Soviet propagandists use the re
turn of the 50 or so from the United
States as proof the West is just as deca
dent as they say it is. What they didn’t
mention is the fact that while 50 may
have gone home, a half million others
wouldn’t go back at machine-gun point.
The poor fool wanted to go back to
the Soviet Union because he didn’t like
having to pay his monthly bills.
The next time I feel like complaining
about my own. I’ll stop and think, and
then thank the Lord I have the opportu
nity to pay them.
Copyright 1986, Cowles Syndicate
Schoi
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My desk was once
in a movie. The
desk, blue and
made of metal,
was replicated in a
Hollywood studio.
It was identical to
the real thing and
appeared in “All
the President’s
Men.” So, in some-
w h a t the same
way, did some of
Richard
Cohen
my Washington Post colleagues, includ
ing Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and
Benjamin Bradlee. They were repli
cated by Robert Redford, Dustin Hof
fman and Jason Robards. I thought my
desk stole the show.
But the movie itself stole my memory.
Much of my recollection of the Water
gate period comes from the movie and
not from my own experience. What is
true for me is also true for Bernstein,
who called me a while back to check
about a minor aspect of a certain Water
gate experience. Did it actually happen,
Bernstein asked, or was it just in the
movie? Neither of us could remember.
For a movie, “All the President’s
Men” stuck pretty close to the truth. But
certain decisions made by one editor at
the Post were, for dramatic reasons, at
tributed to another. Filmmakers excuse
this type of cinematic license by saying
something like, "It’s only a movie.” That
it’s a movie is undeniable. It is at the
word “only” that the statement collides
with experience. Something about a
movie obliterates reality. What we see,
we believe.
Back in 1980, for instance, the Public-
Broadcasting Service aired a docu-
drama called “Death of a Princess.” It al
leged that rich Saudi Arabian women
occasionally drove out into the desert
for liaisons with paid lovers. 'The viewer
saw women being driven out into the
desert to meet men parked in waiting
cars. But remember, these liaisons were
only alleged. When the allegation was
raised a second time in the docudrama,
it was denied. This seems like balance —
an assertion, a denial. But the assertion
is depicted, the denial merely stated.
That’s not balance. You cannot tell us
that what we saw with our own eyes is
not true.
I sometimes fall victim to this sort of
thing. In a recent column comparing
AIDS with syphilis, I wrote that Isak Di-
nesen had chronicled her Fight against
syphilis in her memior, “Out of Africa.”
She had done no such thing. Her strug
gle was instead depicted in the movie of
the same title.
My inability to distinguish between
movies and what you might call real life
has taken other forms. For instance, I
no longer know if some of my recollec
tions of, say, Paris come from my trips
there or from the movies.
Given the power of Film, it is not sur-
Wcl lil
Hutinc
prising that President Reagan oc
ally mistakes movies for reality.iH
he reportedly said he filmed ihe If
at ion of a Nazi concentration H
when, in fact, fie had really seen^H
of it. (Reagan denies that he sai igaied
such thing.) A not her time, Re oou say
inspired an audience with the g drkei - s<
of a wartime hero who had gonecB' nte ^
with his plane and was awarded a;® ulv
humous Congressional Med eu V s V
1 lonor. Again, he took that exploit:C r ,
the movies. Dana Andrews, the jfjy in( j ,
went down with the plane. H, r j| ni .
Reagan has attributed the desepi|ther
tion of the armed forces to thebt eld a y
of a black galley hand at Pearl Hi diool bo;
In fact, the man existed and hisei l g Nava
were depicted in a World War 11 pry to h
ganda film. The armed services®
not desegregated until after the
When that was pointed out to RcJ& ex<1
i i- i -I 1 i i. onmnssi
lie replied, I remember the see )0 |
was very powerful.” Indeed it was.
powerful than truth. Bond ■
It’s fun to take a shot at Reagan onto he
he confuses movies with reality-fi; deep in
til you or I do the same thing. ButH'
gan is really more typical ofAmeni|
this regard then he is different.Htl
Nancy watch at least two movies
weekends at Camp David. Not stir]
ingly, he has a cinematic view of A
ica. No less surprisingly, it has bttl
real political asset to him. Afterali
version of America is also ours. Well
seen the same movies.
But something about movies,
from how they turn us into witr
makes them extremely powerful
haps something about tne actorsilHh
selves. For instance, before my oldcT ^
made its screen debut, I had luncti jexas U
Alan Pakula, the director of “All®onve
President’s Men” while its filming" ^"fd
progress. fe re
Pakula, who knows the poweronH'” a y
decided to illustrate it at my exptfft' * )u<
“What’s the color of Woodward’s 1) ^ ' k
he asked me about my friend andM ' '
league. “Blond,” I said. Pakulashoolr«p' l \ 1
head. “Redford’s hair is blond. Wfm st 0 j 1
ward’s is brown.”
Maybe my desk wasn’t blue after.
Copyright 1986, Washington Post WrilersGt
Husr
■> cloi
F s off,
ie ty
After marriage, men become
Maybe someone ’
can tell me what Debra
happens to men Fowler
when they get Guest Columnist
married.
What happens to these supposedly
strong and independent creatures who
seemed to have it all together when they
used to pick you up for a date?
If you ever overhear a group of
women talking about their husbands,
you’ll find that married men seem to
have quite a few common characteris
tics.
Look at married men when they’re
sick, for example.
When a man gets a cold, he jumps in
bed and stays there for days, almost any
woman will tell you. And the whining
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Loren Steffy, Editor
Marybeth Rohsner, Managing Editor
Mike Sullivan, Opinion Page Editor
Jens Koepke, City Editor
Sue Krenek, Jeanne Isenberg, News Editors
Ken Sury, Sports Editor
that comes out of his sick room is unbe
lievable. He wants soup to unstuff his
nose; he wants ice cream to make his
throat feel better; he wants extra pillows
so he can watch TV.
“Every move he makes is painful — it
must be, for all the moaning he does,” a
friend of mine said about her husband,
who was, at the time, wallowing in mis
ery with a sinus infection. “He says he
doesn’t sleep a wink all night — but his
snoring keeps me awake. And he claims
nothing tastes good — after he eats
three pieces of pie.
“If I don’t call him from work to
check on him, he pouts,” she declared.
“It drives me crazy.”
A man can play tackle for the Dallas
Cowboys, drive an 18-wheeler 12 hours
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a day, work construction or work on
Wall Street — it doesn’t matter. When a
stuffy nose strikes, the world stops.
But — their wives can have massive
surgery and men still expect us to carry
on businessas usual.
I remember when I had a skiing acci
dent and was laid up at home with a
badly injured leg and ribs. My spouse,
considerate though he is, Finally called
to check onme at 5 p.m.
“Are you doing all right?” he asked.
“No, I’m lying in a pool of blood at
the bottom of the stairs,” I answered.
“This is the First chance I’ve had all
day to call you,” he said. “I’ll be home
shortly. ... What are we fixing for din
ner?”
“Gee, I don’t know,” I said, “and I’ve
spent the entire day thinking about it.
How do corn flakes strike you?”
Few married men I’ve ever met can
keep up with their belongings. How
they survived before they got married is
a wonder to me.
“Have you seen my keys?” my spouse
asks me almost every other day.
“Have you looked for them?” I used
to respond.
“No,” he’d say. “I Figured that since
you’re always putting things away, I
shouldn’t waste my time looking — you
probably put them somewhere.”
This used to annoy me, especially
when I could see his keys from where I
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
boys once again F
happened to be sitting or standing. And
they always were exactly where he threw
them when he came through the door.
After several years of pointing this out,
however, I now just go get them and
hand them to him. Why bother making
a fuss when the next question will proba
bly be:
“Have you seen my sunglasses? I
know I left them right there.”
Men seem to believe that we wives
spend our leisure time rearranging
their closets. Whenever they’re not
around, we sneak into their closets and
begin hiding things — as if we don’t
have enough to do.
Although I’m a firm believer in men
doing their share of the household
chores, I’m also a believer in never leav
ing a married man alone in the house
for more than a day or two at a time.
What’s neat and clean to him isn’t
necessarily neat and clean to his wife. I
learned this after leaving my spouse
alone for six weeks once. It will never
happen again if I can help it.
When 1 returned home, strange ob
jects were alive and multiplying in my
refrigerator, which contained a two-
year supply of TV dinners and hot dogs
and several cartons of rotting milk.
My spouse had assured me on the
phone that he’d kept the house neat. I
didn’t know until I got there, however,
that “neat” meant he’d stacked six
week’s worth of newspapers in a|
the living room — as opposed to hurl
them throughout the house. “Neat
meant that the dirty clothes — soni ( !
weeks old — were, indeed, inthej
per - , . - ,
“Why didn’t you wash thesethinf not cc
asked in disgust. Il Me
“I didn’t need them,” was the« Hn
and true answer. Who can argue'ip ov
that? i en »r
Another thing most married wotff ni ’
don’t like to do is let their husband^
the grocery shopping. A bachelo'B
used to shopping for decent fooqti,, an
himself. A married man, who SsHndir
doesn’t plan the meals, isn’t.
In addition to buying the roast
chicken and the vegetables you #
him to buy, he comes home withpio | s ei
artichokes. Five bags of tortilla cl
seven jars of hot sauce and five car |
sardines. My mother actually hasa
cial shelf in her pantry for my fall
impulse food buys. Whenever, he]
he wants “something different,’
slings the pantry door open, poii'j
his shelf and says “have at it, the sail
balls and stuf fed herring you bo*
last week await you.”
But who’s complaining? ThesJ
the things that add spice — andinw
tion — to life.
Debra Fowler writes for the Killeerjp
ily Herald