Mullings A Political Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Bei Mir Bist Du Shoen

Monday, March 19, 2001

The Russian space station, Mir, is scheduled to fall into the Pacific Ocean in a couple of days.

Last September, a Russian company, Mircorp, which had bought the rights to maintain Mir and to fly commercial passengers up to it, announced they sold one seat - for $20 million - to a former NASA engineer turned investment guru from California, Mark Tito.

UNfortunately for Tito, the only ride currently available on the Mir is a reprise of Slim Pickens' character in the final scene of Dr. Strangelove.

FORTunately for Tito, Mircorp has convinced the Russian space agency to take the most expensive e-ticket in history and rebook Mr. Tito from his cancelled flight on Mir to a new flight on the International Space Station, a change of itinerary which has been met with something less than dim enthusiasm by NASA.

According to an article by Simon Saradzhyan on Space.com, the Russian space agency needs the dough and they are adamant about the 60-year-old Tito's flight. The director general of the agency said, "The flight of Tito is a purely Russian issue."

Which is approximately what the Soviet Union said about Yugoslavia in 1980.

As Mr. Tito will not be riding the Mir down, there is some danger of pieces flying off onto inhabited areas. Here's a graf from yesterday's Sydney Australian:

Japanese authorities have warned people not to go out during the 40 minutes in which the country is thought to be most at risk. "If large pieces of debris fall, you are safer indoors than outside as there are roofs above you," a cabinet official said.

Ah! Finally. Someone who understands difficult concepts. Dear Mr. Cabinet Official: I have a Honda. Would you say it is better to drive it in the street or through the side of my next door neighbor's house?

All the Sunday shows had long segments on the economy generally, and the stock market in particular. Mullings did not participate in the dot-com run-up and, so has no losses to report from the subsequent drop.

This all goes back twenty five years when I decided that anyone could make money in the stock market if one studied the market closely enough and chose companies wisely.

To test my theories, I picked a stock which was selling in the mid-single digits, bought a hundred shares (which, used up a huge proportion of my available assets) and waited smugly for my fortune to accrue. I occasionally walked through the local men's store eyeing spats, considering a gray-striped cravat (with, maybe, a pearl stickpin), and trying on a homburg which I practiced wearing at a what used to be described in the popular press as a jaunty angle.

Within a month the carefully selected company went bankrupt and I lost my entire stake.

Mark Twain once wrote that we should beware of acting "like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again - and that is well; but also, she will never sit down on a cold one anymore."

Meow.

Didn't Foot-and-Mouth Disease used to be Hoof-and-Mouth Disease? Who changes these things? Throughout my childhood I was told to await the next arrival of "Halley's Comet" which was then pronounced, "Hailey" as in Barbour. Or Mills. When it finally showed, at the end of 1985, up we were informed it was pronounced "Halley" as in Edmond. Then there was the day someone started making lamp plugs which would only go in the wall socket one way. And the night someone started putting tail lights in the back windows of cars.

If you don't pay attention each and every day �

Over the weekend I went to see the movie, "Traffic". After an hour and 45 minutes I realized it was NEVER going to be a story about how a kindly, old crossing guard in a small mid-western town was a positive influence on the lives of several generations of school children.

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