Author: A.T.

Our filming complete in Bangkok, we flew to Singapore. The thing is, once you get to this part of the world, 14 hours’ flight time from Los Angeles, everything else is just a hop — Taipei, Tokyo, Ho Chi Minh City, Manila, Madras, Kuala Lampur, Vientiene (the capital of Laos! Why doesn’t anyone remember Laos?), Singapore. With another week, I could have seen it all. (Or, like the CEO of a small cellular phone company I met on the flight back, you could spend an entire month in New Delhi, racking up a $1,000-a-day phone and fax bill, negotiating a contract to provide cellular phone service.) But I didn’t have another week; I had to be back in Spokane five days after I left Los Angeles. I was taking the Instant in-depth tour.

Singapore is extraordinary. Think Pasadena, but with scores of magnificent skyscrapers, all seemingly built in the last three years. This little city-state, at the tip of Malaysia, has 2.3 million people (and a government policy encouraging childbirth to reach its goal of 4 million). There were more supertankers milling around its magnificent harbor than — well, it looked like some sort of naval armada.

Normally, I try to spend at least 24 hours in any new country I am studying in depth, but Singapore being a very small place, and I having a flight to catch in the morning, had to settle for 17. The drive in from the modern, pleasant airport, with its stunning mini-aquaria, almost makes you forget what you’re told as you land — that anyone entering Singapore with drugs to sell will be put to death (regardless of nationality, and after just a few days — these courts are not clogged). It’s as if you were driving the entire way through a botanical garden, or at least an arboretum, with not so much as a single billboard. Yes, to your right, there is an endless procession of condo high-rises. But they are almost uniformly handsome and clean. No traffic. No graffiti. No pollution.

Not being much for themes like “strict” or “severe,” I was looking for reasons to dislike Singapore. The one I heard over and over from friends of mine who knew it well was, simply: it’s boring! But you can hardly beat the way it looks or the view from your hotel room. Our Indian restaurant overlooking the water, nestled amongst the skyscrapers of downtown Singapore, was excellent.

And then, walking back to the hotel, we passed Raffles, one of the most famous hotels in the world, named after Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, who acquired Singapore for the British East India Company in 1819. Home of the Singapore sling (a drink, given the faster pace of life, now pre-mixed and simply poured from a container at the bar), Raffles Hotel was initially surrounded by jungle. Today by tall buildings. We had our drink, listened to good live jazz. Back to the hotel, e-mail, check my answering machine halfway around the world (crystal clear connection, because all that really has to happen when I punch in the right series of numbers is for the signal to go through the maze of wires at the hotel through the underground conduits in Singapore to a switching station and up via some sort of microwave maybe through clouds and maybe raindrops and wind to a satellite which beams it to another satellite and then another perhaps, which beams it down someplace over the U.S. and then across a lot of phone wires to South Florida, and then to the local switching station, to the box on the pole out back of my house, over the wire that runs through that tree I need to trim, in the hole they drilled in the concrete, around above the door molding, and so forth, to the Panasonic answering machine on my desk, which clicks on and tells me I’m not home) and then to sleep and Spokane via a change of planes in Tokyo (Japan! an hour in Japan! enjoyed it, felt there was more to see) and Seattle. Downtown Spokane has a really nice riverfront park, and a waterfall that was raging to beat the band, what with all the snow this winter.

And home.

Over the past few days, if you’ve just joined us, I’ve been pointing out the sights of my in-depth, five-day tour of Beijing, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore and Tokyo, en route to Spokane (which itself has an amazing waterfall and beautiful downtown riverfront park). You missed Beijing and Hong Kong already, although I basically did, too, and are joining us as we leave the Golden Buddha, which for centuries appeared to be made of concrete, until somebody dropped it in 1955 and found it was actually made of gold. A sort of giant The Maltese Falcon tale in reverse.

From the Golden Buddha, we vanned on over to the Reclining Buddha, in Bangkok’s largest (I assume) of 400-odd temples. This temple is more like a university campus of temples and shrines and living quarters for the monks and even a “traditional massage school.” There are some 95 pyramid-like “pagodas” dotted between the buildings, all, like the buildings, adorned in colorful tile and cut glass, each home to the ashes of ten prominent families.

(Cremation is the disposition of choice in Thailand — next to the Golden Buddha yesterday was one of the city’s primary and most sacred crematoria. The King himself had a half-page ad in the Bangkok Post inviting residents to the cremation ceremony of a prominent citizen over which he would be presiding a week or two hence.)

Unlike the Alamo or the Golden Buddha, as described yesterday, the sweep of this place was more appropriate. And there, in the center, was a huge building housing the Reclining Buddha — also gold, but gold leaf, which is quite a different thing.

Are you still holding in your mind Wednesday’s image of that Boeing 747, a huge six-story building reclining on its side? I’ve been asking you to hold that image all this time simply to say this: I could be way off here, but I think the two were about the same size. And without in any way intending to demean the majesty and significance of the Buddha, I would point out that the Boeing can fly. So each is, in its way, rather awesome. The Buddha, for its spiritual significance; the Boeing, for what it says about the power of science and human ingenuity.

The almost carnival-like atmosphere at the Golden Buddha was replaced by a more contemplative, cathedral-like setting for the Reclining Buddha. There were no 10-baht fortune-telling machines.

There were, instead, 108 cast-iron (bronze?) pots, suspended at thigh level from 108 short posts, perhaps two feet apart, against the wall, running the length of the Reclining Buddha. For luck, one was invited to pay respects to the Buddha by dropping a coin into each of the 108 pots. As at the Golden Buddha, I was astonished by the low prices — I was able to buy 108 one-baht coins for just 20 baht — except that, as with the lotus bulbs or gold leaf from yesterday, I was not buying 108 baht for 20 baht, but, rather, renting them. A few minutes later, beginning at his head, and with a pleasing plink in each pot, I had recycled my 108 baht and reached the Buddha’s ornate sole.

There were other highlights — this was still just the first afternoon of the first of three days. That night, falling asleep in my bird’s nest soup, I was taken to dinner by a prominent member of one of the three richest families in Thailand. Seems he is a Managing Your Money user from way back (I no longer have anything to do with that software) who still uses it to manage his portfolio, as do I (version 12, DOS). The difference is that he would have two or three extra zeroes after each of his entries.

His stately, quiet wife was with us, and a French/British physicist who has a book forthcoming on the subject of atomic anomalies. That gave me a chance to say my Einstein thing. (“In most of nature, everything is gradual. A bell curve. If Bell hadn’t invented the telephone, there was a guy at the patent office about twelve minutes later. But Einstein was like a complete discontinuity — off the charts — from another planet. If he hadn’t existed, would we ever have figured out all this stuff?” This is my Einstein thing. Our physicist dinner companion replied that, in his opinion, I was right. We would have invented these things without Einstein, but it would have taken another 50 years. Hence, no atom bomb in World War II and a thousand other history-changing differences.)

Near the end of the dinner I summoned the courage to ask how my Thai hosts and this physicist knew each other. It seems he and the wife were classmates — she got her Ph.D. in physics the same time he did. Thailand has long had an enlightened view of women, and we decided that its ability and willingness to harness their talents is one of the reasons for Thailand’s economic success.

And then I went to sleep.

I will spare you the two interesting days that followed, a few moments of which intrepid viewers may see on PBS in the fall. Let me just say that if you visit Thailand and money is no object, you want to stay at the Oriental (about $300 a night). Otherwise, because of the recent overbuilding, your travel agent should be able to find you some excellent, modern, luxury high-rise rooms for $100 a night or less. (And you can still have iced tea at the Oriental overlooking the river and the pool. Dress nicely.)

On to Singapore, Tokyo, Seattle, Spokane and home. I think I can do that all tomorrow.

Our first afternoon in Bangkok, an exercise in staying awake in between Melatonin flashes, involved an uneventful cab ride from the airport and then a city tour.

First stop: the Golden Buddha, which — first impressions being what they are — I think was not the best idea. The idea of the Golden Buddha, like the idea of the Alamo, is super. Five and a half tons of 14 karat gold would be worth a look even if it weren’t hundreds of years old and cast in the form of a giant, radiant Buddha. That’s about $35 million worth at current prices, if I have my numbers right. But like the Alamo, which I’m told is now sandwiched between a drugstore and a pawn shop — or two neighbors not much more glamorous anyway — so is the Golden Buddha similarly situated. The acres of lawns and raked gravel that should be leading up to it from all sides are, instead, a few narrow crowded streets with honking and parking and tourists.

No guards that I could see, but one would be hard-pressed to filch the five-and-a-half ton Golden Buddha. (In America, I fear, you would have needed guards to protect it from hacksaws. Not here.) Instead, it was surrounded by Buddhists come to pay respects, and tourists, who were encouraged to buy lotus bulbs and incense sticks to do likewise.

These items were very cheap. There are about 25 baht to the dollar, and these beautiful bulbs and incense sticks were only 20 baht — all the remarkable for the three tiny squares of ultra-thin gold leaf that came with the lotus bulb and incense sticks. “Wow!” I couldn’t help thinking. How are the monks going to make any money providing all this for 20 baht?

But jet-lagged as I was, I eventually realized they were not so dumb after all (bald, to be sure, but not brainless). Because here was the drill: you’d lay the lotus bulb before the Buddha, meaning that you had effectively rented that bulb for five or ten minutes (at some point, it would be recycled back downstairs to the vendor’s booth), and you would stick the gold leaf onto a nearby Buddha provided for the purpose — gold leaf is so thin and malleable, it basically just sticks onto the Buddha. So that, too, is recycled. Perhaps the incense sticks, too; I’m not sure.

Next to the little Buddha provided to stick on the gold leaf were a row of slot machines. In these you would insert 10 baht, watch little Christmas-tree lights light up sequentially in rapid succession running around a track, each with a number. Where it stopped indicated the number the Buddha had selected for you. You would then take a slip of paper from a cubby-hole bearing that number, and that would be guidance from the Buddha. “When in Bangkok . . .” being my philosophy (and being a fast man with 10 baht), I was soon drawing a pink slip from cubby-hole 24, as the Buddha had instructed.

“A fool and his 10 baht are quickly parted,” I thought it might say or, more realistically, some vaguely upbeat and reassuring message along the lines of the fortunes that follow a good sweet-and-sour chicken and some leechee nuts (which are not nuts, by the way, and you should try them, chilled, though I digress). But no. Here’s what the Buddha had to tell me, in Thai (a 44-letter alphabet from the Sanskrit) and in English and in Chinese (I am assuming it said the same in all three and so quote only the English): “Just like a small boat rowing upstream amidst a strom.” I paused momentarily to wonder whether there might be some brighter explanation here than the obvious one — could the Buddha for my 10 baht really be predicting a strom? Perhaps in Thai strom means “shower of flowers and candy.” But as I read on, I decided strom was probably not even a misprint, but short for “maelstrom.”

The Buddha continued: “Encountering hardship in virtually all directions. [Oh, thanks a lot.] But should best be heading south or west. [After Bangkok we would be headed south to Singapore, then east to the U.S.] Patient not likely to be recovering. [Geez!] Unlikely to get any support. [Thanks.] No lucks. [Agh!] Missing articles will not be reclaimed. [The week before, on a trip to Seattle, I had lost the pocket watch my dad had given me 20 years before on the occasion of my 30th birthday. I had been trying, unsuccessfully, to get United Airlines to let me post a reward for its return.] Legal case in your favor. [Ah, well, that was something.]”

Can you imagine? Welcome to Bangkok.

Still, I will say I gained respect for the Buddha. He called them as he saw them — you have to admire that — and he somehow knew about my watch and about a “legal case” I plan to tell you about one of these days.

But guess what? When I got back to Seattle at the end of my five-day, in-depth tour of Beijing, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, and Tokyo (rushing to make a speaking engagement in Spokane), the taxi company (that had been willing to allow me to post a reward) found my pocket watch! “Missing articles will not be reclaimed?” It’s in my pocket! Of course, the Buddha could be referring to something else.

Anyway, although I did worry that the atmosphere surrounding the Golden Buddha was insufficiently contemplative and respectful, I decided it was, like Davy Crockett at the Alamo, too good a story not to like. Here it is:

Apparently, when the Golden Buddha was in jeopardy of capture by some marauding invaders, hundreds of years ago, it was covered in concrete (or some similar substance) to disguise its value — who would go to the trouble of heisting a Concrete Buddha? — and, according to the story, as generation blended into generation, somehow the Thai people forgot. Or maybe a few people remembered, but everyone else was by then saying, “Oh, sure, sure” — since what were the chances this enormous six or eight ton Buddha (with the concrete) could have had a solid gold core?

So there they were in 1955, we were told, moving the Concrete Buddha from Sukothai or Ahutiya or some similar previous Thai capital, to Bangkok, when it dropped, and a piece of the concrete broke off, revealing . . . well, isn’t that a wonderful story?

Meanwhile, I hope you are still holding yesterday’s image of that Boeing 747, a huge six-story building reclining on its side.

Tomorrow: Boeing, Bangkok, Buddha – Part III

Space in Hong Kong is at a premium. The airport, with its single runway, is no exception. (Forget about trying to land your G-4 here. There are barely enough landing slots for the 747s, let alone corporate jets. Go land in Macao and take the ferry over to Hong Kong.) As a result, as our bus passed jet after jet, cargo plane after cargo plane, skid after skid of who-knows-what (silk? microchips?) lined up on the tarmac, it appeared we were driving to Bangkok. And then, finally, we reached the stairs leading up to our jumbo.

Given jet bridges, one rarely sees a 747 from the ground, close up. The overall impression is of a six-story building lying on its side — two stories tall even in recline — that could not possibly fly.

Hold that image.

We board the flight and watch more Seinfeld and Ellen reruns. A fine breakfast later we are in Bangkok, capital of the Kingdom of Thailand. The King no longer has direct power, but a lot of influence and a lot of Mercedes. (The plural of Mercedes, I have decided, like moose, is Mercedes.) He is in his 51st year on the throne. Later that day, the King and I get to cross paths. Our van is held up at an intersection as the King whizzes by in his caramel-color Rolls Royce, preceded and followed by a string of red Mercedes.

Here’s what I want to tell you about Thailand: it is a wonderful country, filled with bright, warm people. (And free luggage carts at the airport.)

About the size of France, with a population of 60 million, it is one of the developing nations that, despite its current real estate glut and other economic indigestion, is a wonderful success story. The per capita income has risen from $84 a year in 1961 to around $3,000 a year today. There’s a huge gap between the rich and poor — 20,000 families have net worths in excess of $3 million, and a few have world-class fortunes. But widespread misery and starvation are not part of the Thai landscape.

If you have enough frequent flier miles, visit. I can’t believe I waited so long. Bangkok is, it’s true, home to more than its share of pollution, traffic and HIV infection. But then again, so is New York. (It’s also hot most of the year — New York in August.) And the image this conjures is unfair. The pollution for a few days is no big deal — my eyes saw it but didn’t feel it. And as for traffic, in an air-conditioned cab or van, all very cheap by U.S. standards, what’s the rush?

Do you picture mobs of sweaty people leading water buffalo through congested streets? Picture skyscrapers instead, construction cranes, and the juxtaposition of modern office towers and shacks (but each shack with its little doll-house like Buddhist temple); three-wheeled “tuk-tuk” taxis here and there, but mostly modern taxis and European and Japanese vehicles. One feels safe, one is not assaulted by beggars or peddlers, one is struck by the vitality of the place, the friendliness of the people. (One should not, however, drink the water.)

Before long, I was placing my palms together in front of my face and bowing my head just as they were. It’s a lovely gesture of mutual respect, and seems to be delivered not peremptorily, but with a sweet smile. We should consider adopting it ourselves. Oprah could start this trend. Get Rosie and Jay in on it, and we would be transformed.

Anyway, I hope you’re still holding the image of that 747, the huge building reclining on its side.

Come back tomorrow for more. Or just cut to the chase and buy a few shares in the Thai Fund, or something similar, if you are a long-term investor whose assets are too heavily concentrated in U.S. equities. Thai stocks have had quite a setback in the last year or so; yet there’s a reasonable chance the country’s amazing growth will continue — growing more than twice as fast as the U.S.

(The problem is, perhaps recognizing all this, the Thai Fund currently trades at a fairly hefty premium to its net asset value — which means you pay $1.15 for $1 worth of assets. That’s a very steep handicap I make it a rule never to accept — I only buy closed-end funds at a discount. So I haven’t bought those shares myself. [Symbol: TTF on the New York Stock Exchange.] But I have my eye on them.)

Or buy shares in a company called Asia Fiber, if your broker has an Asian connection. It makes nylon fabric — the black fabric of your umbrella may have been made in the factory we visited, or the cover for your tennis racket. What I like about it is that when Mark Mobius started buying it for his various mutual funds seven years ago, the stock was five or six times as high as it is today. By now, his funds own 12% of the company. This doesn’t mean it will go up. (And if your browser doesn’t register italics for some reason, that last sentence was italicized.) But if it went down or disappeared, you would at least have the satisfaction of knowing you had done much less badly with it than famed investment manager Dr. Mobius (whose fame, let me be clear, is well deserved, which is why we had flown half way around the world to follow him around with a film crew). Full disclosure: I’ve bought a little myself.

Tomorrow: Boeing, Bangkok, Buddha – Part II

I really debated admitting this, because I’m supposed to be Mr. Been There, Done That, or at least Mr. Worldly or at least someone who’s ventured beyond Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. But the truth is, despite trips to Sydney, Australia, and Sydney, Ohio; Provincetown, Massachusetts, and Cape Town, South Africa; Poland, Maine, and Moscow, Russia, . . . I have never been to Moscow, Idaho. No wait. That’s not the confession. This is: In addition to never having been to Moscow, Idaho, until last month I had also never been to Asia.

And now here I was, fresh from the Marco Polo Lounge at the Los Angeles International Airport, setting sail at 600 miles per hour and 39,500 feet for a five-day, in-depth tour of the inscrutable continent, beginning with Beijing.

“If I had jumped out of the plane two hours ago,” I told a friend excitedly, “I would have landed– splat — in Tiananman Square.”

Can you imagine? We had been flying over China. Over Beijing. (This was, unfortunately, all time permitted me to see of China.) And then over the mountains and suddenly into Hong Kong, where nice apartments, defying all predictions of collapse in the face of the Communist takeover July 1, routinely fetch millions of dollars, up sharply in the recent past.

Flying in on Cathay Pacific in business class, I had my own personal TV, watched my own personal Ellen and Seinfeld reruns, and had a bewildering choice of movies, languages and subtitles. You want to see a Korean film with Italian subtitles? Mel Gibson speaking Thai? The choice isn’t quite that all-inclusive, but one does get a sense of the potential babble.

Emerging from which are some standards. English. (We are so fortunate not to have to learn Chinese or Thai to catch up with the rest of the world.) Americana. (In Bangkok, there will be a shrine and a McDonald’s side-by-side — their shrine and ours.) Windows 95. (Bill Gates is featured just as prominently in the Bangkok Post as in the LA Times.)

With 100 days to go before the historic changeover, it was a particularly exciting time to visit Hong Kong. Being on a tight schedule — I had to be in Spokane five days later — I had only 75 minutes to size up this extraordinary place. And as I have the capacity to get lost in the shower, let alone Hong Kong’s Kai Tek Airport, I decided it would be best to go straight to Gate 17 and spend my historic 75 minutes there, drinking in the culture and waiting for the flight to Bangkok.

There, directly across from the gate, was a warren of pay phones — I’m in Hong Kong! I have to call somebody! — but they all required phone cards, and it was 6:45 in the morning, Hong Kong time, which is to say 5:45 the night before of the day before on the East Coast (which, combined with the prevailing winds, makes the flight to Asia two days long, and the flight back instantaneous).

In short, I am completely confused, but clinging to the certain knowledge that I am at Gate 17, as I am supposed to be — that’s the main thing I have focused on — and that I have no phone card. (Credit cards, sure; but Hong Kong phone cards?) Not to worry. Next to the several pay phones is a simple white wall phone with a choice of eight buttons. Hertz, Avis, I guess, as I move closer, but no! The first button is for AT&T Direct. Push that one button, and you’re back home. There’s the familiar . . . what is that sound? . . . the request for an area code and phone number . . . that sound again prompting you for your card number . . . and moments later it is as if your loved one is next door. Certainly clearer than if he or she is, say, downstairs or out by the car. (“What was that honey? I can’t hear you.”)

Peck a few keys on a phone by Gate 17 and, seconds later, a 12,000-mile gap is bridged, clear as a Bell. What a world, for those of us fortunate enough to be in the flying/computing/credit-granted part of it.

Tomorrow: The Saga Continues

ILLIONS AND ILLIONS

Several of you pointed out my Irene typo. In one place, I said she cost $160 million; later, $160 billion. Which is it, you wanted to know. Just goes to show how numbed we’ve become to big numbers. The answer: $160 million. For $160 billion, you could buy every plane American, Delta and United own. You could build a chunnel between England and France. You could pay off the 1997 federal deficit. I knew that, but one of my index fingers (I type with both, so it’s hard to fix blame) did not.

THE NEXT 150 YEARS

“Can you imagine what the next 150 [years] will be like?” I asked rhetorically at the end of that same flawed comment. To which Mark Gorman replied: “Actually, no. If I could, I would have a much better idea of where to invest. But the cynic in me foresees a world where power (lawmaking, regulatory, financial, and the media) increasingly rests with people who have NEVER had direct contact with the industries and activities they are controlling. The people in positions of power will not only never have worked on an oil rig, they will never have had a friend whose father worked on an oil rig. They will expect to buy meat inexpensively at the supermarket and benefit from medical research, while voting for increasingly restrictive animal rights laws. In other words, they will be increasingly cut off from the ‘real’ world. I am enough of a cynic to realize that this sort of thing has been going on since the dawn of civilization. Furthermore, specialization is necessary in a complex society. It just seems to be getting worse, and I fear the consequences. More people should have experiences such as yours on Irene.”

Being more of an optimist than a cynic myself, I’m not particularly fearful. But I’d recommend climbing around Irene to anyone. There’s nothing like actually getting out and seeing things. I’ll never forget our class tour of the Wonder Bread factory when I was in the third grade. Or last week’s in-depth tour of Asia.

Tomorrow: Asia — The Saga Begins

IT PAYS TO DIS . . . TROY

“This note is in response to your junk mail column and specifically the practice of companies that send unsolicited blank checks, as you described. This resulted in a most unpleasant experience for my daughter a few years ago. She had been sent a packet of those checks, but before she got them a thief removed them from her mailbox (typical not-too-secure apartment complex), filled out the checks for hundreds of dollars, forged the signature and managed to cash them! My daughter didn’t even know it had happened until the bank informed her of the rapidly increasing number of checks that were being returned. About the same time multiple vendors were also leaving not-too-pleasant messages about bounced checks.

“It turned out that the thief was apprehended in his car with opened mail addressed to a slew of other people including my daughter. I understand that he got off with a warning. My daughter spent months cleaning up the personal financial mess that was created by the incident. Lesson: I would modify slightly your admonition. ‘DISCARD’ should be spelled ‘DESTROY.'” — Lee Haas

Wayne Arczynski takes this a step further. “You miss the point,” he writes. “Junk mail should not be thrown out, it should be recycled. I have a friend (‘oh sure’) who tears up his junk mail and uses the handy return envelopes to recycle the information back to the source.”

“Though I find your Henry Ford history interesting, do you have any thoughts on the market crash?” — David L.

Did it crash? I thought it was just down 7%. Maybe today it will crash. Hope not. Having so long dreamed the market would someday reach 5,000 (perhaps by the end of the century — up from 777 a mere 15 years ago), I guess I don’t see 6,500 as a crash. But of course I “hear” you. If I ever know in advance which way the market is headed, I will definitely post it here.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming: Stubble Trouble.

I know you’re probably sick of hearing about my visit to that offshore oil rig, Platform Irene. But better sick than dead. When I was telling you about the helicopter and the hydrogen sulfide hazard last week, I forgot to give you a proper safety briefing.

Did you know, for example, that when approaching or leaving a helicopter you should “Stay low, head up and eyes looking around?” And that you should “Keep your arms down at your sides?” Without a briefing and instructions like that, you might have gotten off the chopper, spotted a loved one, and jumped up and down waving your arms — chop, chop — to say hello. Of course, in our case, we were not allowed anywhere near the outside of the chopper when its engine was on or its rotor was turning. But these were valuable tips all the same.

Less obvious, and thus all the more important because you might not have thought of it on your own: “Hard hats and baseball caps will not be worn at any time while the helicopter is operating.” This is a federal regulation, so a lot of thought and study doubtless went into it, though no explanation is given (repeated thwops on the hard hat could dull the rotor blade?). There is no mention of big hair — Marge Simpson, where are you? — but we may have been handed the abbreviated version of the regs. (I am quoting here not from the verbal briefing we got but from the fine-print safety form we were handed to read and sign.)

As for the hydrogen sulfide, which could quickly kill you if you didn’t slap on a respirator as soon as you heard the sirens go off and saw the panic in the roustabouts’ eyes, we were reminded about 29 CFR 1910.134(e)(5)(1) Part which states that “Respirators shall not be worn when conditions prevent a good face seal. Such conditions may be a growth of beard, sideburns, a skull cap that projects under the face piece, or temple pieces on glasses.”

Which sounds very much like ANSI Z88.2-1980 (7.3), also part of our briefing sheet, which states, “A person who has hair (stubble, mustache, sideburns, beard, low hairline, bangs) which passes between the face and the sealing surface of the respirator shall not be permitted to wear the respirator.”

Leading, no doubt, to the following dialog for the Platform Irene TV Movie I envision, amid wailing sirens and roustabouts running every which way:

“Quick! Pass me one of those air packs!”

“No. Not until you go downstairs and shave off that stubble.”

“But [muffled, as when shouting and holding one’s breath at the same time] I’ll die in ten seconds if you don’t give me that thing!”

“Sorry, bud. Safety regulations.”

I suppose in theory the point is that no one with these hairy hazards should be allowed on Irene in the first place. But that’s not how it works. You can get onto the rig; you’re just not supposed to sue if there’s a gas leak and you have a mustache.

My impression was that our hosts were far safer and more sensible than the printed forms they were required to hand us. Had there been a gas emission, I think they would have found a way to save even George, our bearded cameraman. Hope so. Liked George.

Forbes had a good rundown on bank debit cards recently. They’re Visa and MasterCards that immediately hit your checking account when you “charge” something. They’re like paperless checks — so convenient you don’t even have to key in a PIN when you buy something.

Forbes panned these cards for three reasons. First, of course, you lose the “float.” (You also lose the frequent flier miles some credit cards offer.) That is, the money leaves your checking account instantly. With a credit card, the average interest-free float is around 40 days if you pay your bill within the allotted grace period. (The grace period may be 25 days, but the average charge was made in the middle of the month, so it’s 15 days before it even hits your bill.) Second, “you lose the option of withholding payments — important leverage in case of disputed charges.” And third, “it could give a thief carte blanche to your checking account.”

I don’t know whether Carte Blanche is still a credit card — it used to compete with Diners and American Express — but credit-card puns aside, the point here is important. With a credit card, your liability is usually limited to $50, and while there may be some hassle in straightening things out, a lost card is mainly the card-issuer’s problem. You get a bill in the mail for $18,320 in charges, none of them yours, and you don’t pay it. With a debit card, you would get your checking account statement and notice that $18,320 in bogus debits had been sucked out of your account, pushing you to the limits of your “overdraft-checking” privileges, for which you’re charged 18% annual interest, and causing checks you wrote to bounce. In short, you’re busted.

Yes, you’d eventually get that $18,320 added back into your account and straighten everything out, most likely. You might even get the overdraft checking interest and the bounced check charges reversed. But it would surely be more trouble than just declining to pay an $18,320 Visa bill.

(Forbes warns that some thieves take a more subtle approach to exploiting your stolen debit card. Say a thief gets the account number off a discarded receipt, then has a phony card made up with your number. Now, rather than charge $18,320 all in one spree, he occasionally uses it for small purchases you might not notice. Until you do notice and cancel your card, you’re buying him gasoline, sweat socks, the occasional dinner, books and CDs at Barnes & Noble — whatever. And when you finally do notice, you may only be reimbursed for fraudulent charges incurred within the last 60 days.)

Avoid bank debit cards. Carry only a few credit cards at most, instead, and be sure to pay them in full each month to avoid incurring interest. Check your credit card statements carefully and reconcile your checking account statement promptly when it arrives each month. (Computer programs like Quicken and Managing Your Money make this easy once you get set up.)

When your bank sends you a new ATM card to replace your old one, with the great news that “now you can use it for purchases, too — as easy as a credit card, but with no interest to pay!”. . . see whether they’ll let you cut it up and provide you with a plain old ATM card instead.

You know the old slogan? “Ah wants a car that Ah can afford. And when Ah says afford, Ah means a Ford.” The first car I could afford was a 1967 Acapulco blue Ford Mustang — $2,411, brand new, including tax. Loved that car.

Anyway, in a comment last month about Schindler’s List, sponsored by Ford — and the fact that the original Henry Ford was, ironically, a raging anti-Semite — I mentioned that Hitler actually had a picture of Ford hanging on his wall.

Writes my trusty unpaid researcher, the estimable Dave Davis of Dallas and the Adolphus: “It turns out that that picture of Ford on Hitler’s wall wasn’t exactly an 8 X 10 glossy.” According to Henry Ford And The Jews by Albert Lee:

<blockquote>Next to Adolph Hitler’s desk at Nazi Party Headquarters in Munich hung a life-sized likeness of Henry Ford. On the table in the antechamber, visitors were often shocked to find anti-Semitic booklets and books with Henry Ford’s name and portrait on the covers . . .

Hitler often spoke of Ford to his followers, frequently bragging about financial support he had received from the American industrialist. With the press, Hitler was more guarded, yet at times he did express his adulation. When Ford was said to be running for president of the United States, for example, Hitler told Chicago Tribune reporter Raymond Fendrick that Ford had 100 percent of his support. “I wish,” Hitler said, “that I could send some of my shock troops to Chicago and other big American cities to help in the elections.” . . . In 1931 Hitler summarized his feelings when a Detroit News reporter asked what the portrait of Ford on Hitler’s wall meant to him. “I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration,” Hitler said.</blockquote>

Gee. Without Henry Ford, we might not have had the Mustang — or World War II.

Speaking of which, my friend Jim Halperin, whose amazing success as a first and second novelist I’ve chronicled here is now writing his third novel, which imagines that Hitler was assassinated in 1934 — and what the world would have been like today had that happened. It’s too early to show you any of that, but you can still visit his Truth Machine page (and yes, the movie rights have now been sold).

But back to Henry Ford:

On the occasion of Ford’s seventy-fifth birthday, Hitler sent personal congratulations, along with the highest honor which could be awarded by the Nazi government: the Grand Cross of the German Eagle. Ford shared this honor with only four other men, one of them Mussolini.