Saturday, August 8, 2005 -- oops, it's October. Reading the Sidney Blumenthal article on the economics of Republicanism (see Political Waves article above, a "plan...a plan..."), I was reminded of a story about my old high school classmate Adam R. Kidan, the first Neocon I ever knew, who has been indicted for fraud along with a bunch of Tom DeLay pals. I told my Adam Kidan story in this blog back in August, after seeing his face on the cover of truthout.org -- if curious, go to the link below, and scroll all the way down to August. 15.     http://planetwaves.info/blogarch050920.html I'll classify my story as "humor" in order to avoid categorizing it as geopolitics, from which I have retired. The theme is, "Where does it all begin??" Everything does have a beginning; there was even a first time someone put salt on an egg. But it was before you were born. When I knew Adam Kidan, he had a job pumping gas. He was about 17. This was back in the days before self-service (which is still illegal in New Jersey -- but I don't think he went to Jersey for work, we lived in Marine Park in Brooklyn). If our elder readers do recall, you would pull up at the gas pump and give the guy a $10 bill and say "$10 please," (or even a $5 bill for $5 worth) and they would pump it for you. When they were done, you would drive off. No paperwork generated; not everything was purchased with a credit card, and not everyone had a "gas card." Petrol was, for the most part, a cash business. Adam came up with a cool little scam, which he told me about proudly. Instead of giving each customer their full $10 worth, he would only pump $9.90 or something like that. Nobody would notice; nobody was looking. He was friendly, and your gas gauge read the right amount, which is of course approximate. At the end of the night, after filling up 100 or 200 cars, he would have enough left over for a free tank of gas for his own car. We can see that at the roots of Adam's situation are the virtues of equanimity, fairness, and spreading the burden equally over the public. Unfortunately, we've come a long way from there; and it will be a long way back. But we have begun. I wonder though. We are at the same time we're facing an increase in fuel costs, seeing that mass transit is the focus of terrorist attacks and government warnings. I don't mean to insinuate a conspiracy, as I am not a conspiracy theorist, merely an observer; but mass transit has been the enemy of the oil business since the first days. Those days when Firestone replaced light rail and Ford replaced trolley cars and Esso filing stations replaced suburban train stations. Googling Adam Kidan, I came up with this treasure: http://snipurl.com/i96z Here is a really great quote: << Kidan told the Miami Herald that the payments had no connection to the Boulis murder. “If I’m going to pay to have Gus killed, am I going to be writing checks to the killers?” Kidan asked. “I don’t think so. Why would I leave a paper trail?” >> Great question.