Whistle & Fish Werewolf Tales

1

Second-year high school algebra class, my instructor was an iron-haired, iron-willed Conservative, hawklike in appearance, peering into the mysteries of higher mathematics and fidgety teen psyches. One day, in an effort to wrap the class’ mind around truly large numbers, he asked, “If you had a billion dollars and spent a thousand dollars a day, how long would it take to exhaust the fund?”

I bent to the task, tongue tip sticking out of the corner of my mouth, pencil flying over the page, scratching out graphite numerals, “Let’s see. One billion divided by one thousand. Now divide that by the days in a year. 2739.73. That can’t be right. Try again. One billion divided by a thousand. Divided by seven days in a week. Divided by 52 weeks in a year. 2747.25. Holy God. Maybe it is right. Say there are 72 years in a lifetime. That’s 38 lifetimes! To spend a billion dollars, a thousand a day. 38 lifetimes.”

The enormity of it staggered me, which, I am certain, was my instructor’s intention.

“Now,” he said. “Consider the current United States budget is more than $11 billion.”

At the time I was stunned: 11 billion was an astronomical figure. Now I’d be delighted if it were the national debt total.

I’ve often wondered, hearing the current budget measured in trillions, whether my former teacher is turning over in his grave.

2

For years I have been puzzling over the definition of “conservatism” as a part of fiscal conservatism. Wikipedia defines fiscal conservatism as “a political phrase term used in North America to describe advocacy of lower governmental spending practices and a lower federal debt….” If this definition is accurate, then Neoconservatism must exclude it from its philosophy, because the neocon Bush administration spends money as recklessly as a teenaged boy drives a turbocharged Ford Mustang while liquored up on Wild Turkey.

That isn’t entirely accurate. The White House has been parsimonious when it comes to healthcare, social programs, public education, veterans affairs, and humanitarian aid. Scrooge himself could not rival George W. Bush when spending might benefit America’s poor or working class. But corporate welfare and military spending has never known a more generous friend.

Consider the following from the New York Times story, Iraq Spending Ignored Rules, Pentagon Says”: “A Pentagon audit of $8.2 billion in American taxpayer money spent by the United States Army on contractors in Iraq has found that almost none of the payments followed federal rules and that in some cases, contracts worth millions of dollars were paid for despite little or no record of what, if anything, was received.”

Hmmm. 38 lifetimes X 8.2 = 311.6 lifetimes.

Perhaps I should be trying to define the word “obscene” instead.

3

The meme item reads, “Things I’d do if I were a billionaire …”

So I get to decide what sort of billionaire I’d be; I figure if I’m going for the brass ring, I may as well go all the way. I choose Warren Buffet wealthy, a net worth of $62 billion. That’s a billionaire. Everything else pales by comparison. At 38 lifetimes X $62 billion, I’d be reincarnated 2356 times before spending all of it. That is, if the money didn’t corrupt me.

Because when you control billions of dollars, there’s a good chance it will fundamentally change you, and not necessarily for the better. Unless a person had extraordinary character, the money would weigh constantly on his mind. He’d never be sure who was his friend and who was after his fortune. He’d be forced to associate with people like Bill Gates. He’d wonder whether his kids were looking forward to the day when he’d kick off so they could divide the spoils. He’d never have certainty in human relationships.

He could make and break people. Hell, he could make and break corporations. He could buy Senators and Representatives, private armies, whole Third World villages. He could affect the course of history. He’d have Power. With a capital “p”.

I couldn’t be trusted with it. It would eat away at my soul as the Ring gobbled up the soul of Frodo Baggins. I’d likely emerge from the encounter a venal, wicked man.

4

Here’s the problem: $62 billion can’t simply be spent, because you can only have so much stuff.

I could spend millions easily enough. Maybe even hundreds of millions.

I’d own a home where everything was six inches taller than standard. I’d never conk my head on a low-hanging cabinet door or stoop over another sink. There’d be big toilets like the ones found in handicapped stalls of public restrooms in every bathroom.

My den would be full of complicated stereo equipment, huge-screened televisions, and gadgets of every shape, size and color. My cell phones would have cell phones. Apple corporation would love me. I’d have dozens of computers. Jeff Bezos would call me “friend.” My library would be enormous — and wasteful, because I’d never have the time to read all the books I’d own, nor hear my entire CD collection, nor use all my software.

An odd menagerie of animals would live on my estate; I’d rescue wild horses, burros, dogs and cats. There’d be fainting goats and pygmy goats, and if a stray lamb wandered up on my friend Kathy’s porch, she wouldn’t have to worry about who would take him in.

My kitchen would rival Emeril’s, and the larder would always be filled with good things to eat.

I’d tool around in a Volkswagen Beetle convertible, and I’d make long trips in a Lincoln or a Cadillac. I’d own a restored ‘57 Thunderbird and an immaculate ‘57 Chevy because I could.

I’d never have to scrounge for paints or film, guitar picks or strings, paper, canvases or Post-It Notes.

Each of my immediate family members would become overnight millionaires (and they’d bitch and moan that I should have made them billionaires).

A handful of friends would never want for anything. One would have a beautiful garden and decorate her house with cut flowers every day; her church would get its own building. Another would play with a roomful of computers while his wife ordered someone else to run all the errands she now runs. My longest online friend would bow a Stradivarius violin, and her husband’s business worries would end. My best friend for life would play the blues on a roomful of rare guitars, some made of woods aged by rubbing the bodily secretions of virgins into their grains for 20 years. We’d rent a recording studio and lay down the CD we always threatened to make. An artist in Kansas could choose from an endless supply of Golden paints, film stock, and odd plastic cameras; she’d drive a sturdy, unrented car. Jim would get a gymnasium. The manager of a bookstore in New Jersey would find all her stock sold in a single day; the books would wind up in libraries all over the nation.

I’d visit acquaintances and leave a few hundred thousand behind as a thank you for some small kindness.

A free medical clinic in Georgia and a Salvation Army outpost in Alabama would suddenly find they had a generous (and anonymous) angel.

I’d live a month in the Ritz Carlton in New York with my constant companion, and we’d gorge ourselves on culture and Nathan’s hotdogs. Then we’d take a trip around the world.

And I’d still have billions and billions of dollars to spend.

5

Jacques Ellul, the French sociologist, philosopher, theologian and Christian anarchist, once wrote in a book entitled Money and Power that money is sacred, and that people — especially those in capitalist societies — worship it. He claimed it was no accident that Jesus called money an idol, and he cited dozens of ways that people’s lives were ruled by money.

He said there is only one way to desacralize money: Give it away.

Would I have the strength of character to give away billions of dollars? Probably not. I am a weak man, and all that wealth would begin to represent my security and my great passion. It would become my god.

But maybe — just maybe — there is a shred of decency in me. And maybe — just maybe — it might grow until I would give most of my fortune away.

6

Not long ago in an op-ed piece entitled “Clueless in America”, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert lamented the state of United States education, citing the president of U.S. programs for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who said roughly a third of all American high school students drop out, and another third graduate but are unprepared for productive work or post-secondary education.

What they mean, of course, is two-thirds of the next generation is functionally uneducated. That’s scary.

It means No Child Left Behind didn’t leave children behind — it ran over them with a school bus.

So what has this to do with my $62 billion (minus several hundred million — a guy has to pay the electric bill)?

Simply put, my $62 billion wouldn’t begin to solve the world’s problems. It wouldn’t even come close. A thousand times that amount couldn’t bring an end to the world’s suffering.

But $62 billion would go a long way toward repairing the U.S. educational system, and it’s exactly where my money would go.

I’d endow public high schools willing to ditch NCLB in favor of a good, old-fashioned liberal arts approach to teaching. I’d reward schools that taught kids to think, and not merely pass tests, with the books and tools necessary to hold students’ interests and to stimulate their imaginations.

I’d give cash awards to good teachers.

I’d lobby Congress in favor of educational spending. I’d press them to pass legislation that would provide federally funded college educations to every student who made the grade and wanted to continue learning.

I’d create scholarship programs that rewarded students who stayed the course.

I’d hire an advertising firm to create engaging television commercials that promoted learning.

I’d bust my ass and exhaust my fortune in an effort to make the next generation of United States citizens the brightest and best in the nation’s history.

I’d put my faith in them, believing that while my fortune might not solve the world’s problems, those young minds might do what my money could not.

Instead of devising new and better ways to exploit young Americans, or new and better ways to use them as cannon fodder, I’d invest in their talent and their native intelligence, and I’d trust them to make the future utopian and not dystopian.

And if it didn’t work, I’d still consider the money well spent.

Especially if it turned out another teacher like the one who lured me into thinking seriously about how big a billion is.

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