History: The Year is 1980

I've uploaded year 1980 to the TSP Wiki...

http://tspwiki.com/index.php?title=1980

As always, Alex Shrugged's opinions are his own. Other people's work are their own. I include them here for the sake of completeness and to provide a second method of access to the material for the TSP history segment.


* The Washington Post Exposes an 8-year-old Heroin Addict and a Liar -- Contributed by Alex Shrugged

* Staggering Effects -- Contributed by Southpaw Ben

* Elected Officials Are Caught Taking Bribes from "Arabs" -- Contributed by Alex Shrugged

* Notable Births -- See below.

* This Year in Film -- See below.

* This Year in Music -- See below.

* In Other News -- See below.

===============================

The Washington Post Exposes an 8-year-old Heroin Addict and a Liar

Contributed by Alex Shrugged
There is a problem with the Pulitzer Prize winning story written by Janet Cooke. In summary she reports...
Jimmy is 8-years-old and living in Washington D.C.. He has been begging his friend, Ron, to give him some heroin, so Ron finally agrees. Now Jimmy wants to be a drug dealer, maybe buy a bike, and get a dog. His mother, Andrea is OK with it because drugs are just a part of life. Jimmy can't do the needle himself. Ron has to help him, but he'll learn. It's all a matter of time.
So what's the problem? Mayor Marion Barry wants to help young Jimmy, but cannot find him. The Mayor raises doubts about the story. After Janet Cooke is caught in some lies on her resumé she is grilled on Jimmy's story. She finally admits that IT WAS ALL A LIE! She explains that she was under terrible pressure to produce, especially after the Post had brought down Nixon a few years ago. She resigns and the newspaper returns the Pulitzer. She is done. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

My Take by Alex Shrugged
You'll be happy to hear that the Washington Post has a new slogan. I'm not sure it had an OLD slogan other than "Follow the Money", but the new slogan is, "Democracy Dies in Darkness." Yes. Well... that speaks for itself. Regarding Mayor Marion Barry, he was a crack addict caught in an FBI sting 10 years after Janet Cooke's article was published. After serving his time, he ran for Mayor again using the slogan, "He May Not Be Perfect, But He's Perfect for D.C." Very true. Very true. He won with 70% Democrat approval. On a sadder note, his son, Christopher Barry died of a drug overdose last year (2016). He was 36. As a chaplain, I work with heroin and crack addicts as well as alcoholics. I know that most of them are going to die, but a few can be saved if someone tries, so I try. ^{[4] [5] [6]}

Staggering Effects

Contributed by Southpaw Ben
The Staggers Rail Act and the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 were both passed as a means of deregulating transportation industries, removing many regulations and price controls from the train and trucking industries respectively. This allowed the creation of lower cost carriers, and helped the expansion of intermodal freight transport. This also helped usher in the age of just in time delivery, as now there were more carriers at better prices, meaning the cost of shipping food from a distributor to a store now cost the store less than having a large inventory of the items in the back, meaning a store had a lower overhead. ^[7][8]

My Take by Southpaw Ben
Many in the survivalist community demonize just in time inventory and champion free markets at the same time. While I agree that just in time inventory is an inherently risky endeavor, with little in the means of back up in case something goes awry, it also is a great example of how the free market won't always follow our ideals, and will seek to streamline and optimize modern technologies. However, this is not to say we should sacrifice free markets to shape the world into how we think things should run. Instead, we need to accept the way it takes things, push back where we can with our dollar, and where we can't, accept the risk by forming our own personal redundancies to the systems of concern.

Elected Officials Are Caught Taking Bribes from "Arabs"

Contributed by Alex Shrugged

"What have we come to if turning down a bribe is 'heroic'?"

-- US Senator Larry Pressler, (R-South Dakota), considered the hero of the Abscam bribery scandal.

One US Senator and six US Congressmen are caught selling their influence to the Arabs except that it wasn't Arabs. It was the FBI running a sting operation. The FBI had been looking into real estate fraud and caught a con-man. Instead of convicting him, they made a deal where he would continue his scam acting as a front for Arab money. The idea was to catch other con-men and shady businessmen. What they actually caught was the Mayor of Camden, New Jersey and a state senator attempting to sell their influence for an Atlantic City casino license. These two knuckleheads then proceeded to bring in other politicians which included the federal officials mentioned previously. It is all caught on video as FBI agents dressed as Arab sheikhs hand over tens of thousands of dollars to esteemed public officials. (Guess which political party is heavily represented?) There are a few who come close to taking a bribe, but the FBI runs out of time as word gets out that a sting operation is underway. The most notable of the unindited co-conspirators is Congressman John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania). He is able to convince the prosecutors that he was trying to steer Arab money to legal investments within his congressional district. He agreed to testify against his fellow Congressmen. ^{[9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]}

My Take by Alex Shrugged
Republican Senator Larry Pressler was also approached by these so-called Arab investors, but when the conversation turned to something that sounded illegal he balked. He confronted these Arab investors, and after the meeting was over he immediately called the FBI to report these guys... who were the FBI after all. He was caught on tape being honest, and for this he was called a hero. He couldn't believe it, and I can sympathize. I get praise sometimes for doing things that seem part of the general requirement of living like raking up the leaves that I KNOW are from my tree that the wind has scattered across my neighbor's lawn, and my neighbor two doors down. She came running out to thank me and give me cookies. For what? Raking up the mess my tree made in her yard? It's once a year. It's not that big a deal. I took the cookies. I can't seem ungrateful. I gave them to the kids across the street. Everyone is happy.

Notable Births

• Chelsea Clinton: Daughter of U.S. President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. (She has the rare gift of commanding large sums of money in exchange for mediocre talents.--alexshrugged) ^{[16] [17]}

• -- In Sports: Venus Williams (tennis player). ^{[16] [18]}

• -- In Movies: Channing Tatum (White House Down), Macaulay Culkin (Home Alone), and Christina Ricci (The Addams Family). ^{[16] [19] [20] [21]}

• -- In Music: Christina Aguilera, Michelle Williams (Destiny's Child), and Jessica Simpson (who played Daisy Duke in the new Dukes of Hazzard). ^{[16] [22] [23] [24]}

• -- In TV: Ben Foster (Flash Forward), Ben Savage (Boy Meets World, and brother of Fred), and Kim Kardashian (who parlayed her sex tape into a TV reality show.--alexshrugged). ^{[16] [25] [26] [27]}

This Year in Film

• The Empire Strikes Back: "Luke, I am your father" (I almost laughed out loud.--alexshrugged) ^[28]

• Airplane!: A slapstick comedy mocking the movie Airport 1975. ^{[28] [29]}

• The Blues Brothers: John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd are on a "Mission from God". ^[28]

• The Shining: Jack Nicholson plays an ax murderer. "Here's Johnny!" ^[28]

• Fame: Tracking the lives of students in the High School of Performing Arts. ^[28]

• The Gods Must Be Crazy: A bushman is on a quest to return a magic Coke bottle to the Gods. (Extremely weird and funny.--alexshrugged) ^[28]

• Urban Cowboy: Mechanical bull riding becomes a fad. ^[28]

This Year in TV

• The NFL Draft is televised on ESPN: Pete Rozelle thought no one would watch. WRONG! ^{[30] [31]}

• Magnum, P.I.: A detective drama set in Hawaii starring Tom Selleck. ^{[30] [32]}

• Eddie Murphy first appears on Saturday Night Live: His sketch is entitled "In Search of the Negro Republican". ^{[30] [33]}

• Closed captioning begins: A telecaption adapter is required. ^{[30] [34]}

This Year in Music

• (I am a) Woman in Love: Barbra Streisand. ^{[35] [36]}

• (Won't you take me to) Funkytown: Lipps Inc. ^{[35] [37]}

• John Lennon is shot dead: The murderer gets 20 years-to-life. His next parole review is in 2018. ^[38]

This Year in Video Games

• The first Arcade Awards prize goes to... Space Invaders: The award is called "The Arkie". ^[39]

• Nameco releases Pac-Man: It will become the best selling game of all time. ^[39]

• Infocom releases Zork I: A text-based adventure game developed by the folks at MIT. ^[39]

• Distribution of video arcade games is standardized: Each new game is uploaded to a standard game cabinet using a Data East DECO cassette. ^[40]

In Other News

• The rescue of American hostages in Iran fails: Mechanical difficulties and a helicopter crash force Special Forces to abort their mission. The hostages are then scattered to multiple locations. ^{[41] [15] [42] [15]}

• The USA boycotts the Summer Olympics in Moscow: President Carter is protesting the Soviet war in Afghanistan. ^{[43] [15]}

• Rubik's Cube is an overnight success: But it was invented in 1970. ^{[44] [15]}

This Year in Wikipedia

Year 1980, Wikipedia.