RUST COMMENTARY: NEW NOTRE DAME HS IS MILESTONE IN 73-YEAR HISTORY

It was a massive undertaking for a good cause ... an educational option for children of the area. To paraphrase BISHOP JOHN LEIBRECHT, the completion of the new Notre Dame Regional High School facility is an inspiration not only for the area but for the "Cape-Springfield" diocese (as it's referred to locally by SISTER MARY ANN FISCHER, principal).

The Sunday afternoon dedication ceremony signified a major milestone in the 73-year history of the school.

Memories and thanks to past teachers, students, athletes and contributors were shared. Of special note however, is the modern, clean, safe and well-equipped classrooms, library, chapel, gym, "cafetorium" and soon-to-be-completed athletic fields.

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When someone wrote "take time to smell the roses," he didn't mean it for MARK McGWIRE, who deserves all of the plaudits received to date ... but unbelievably finds himself in a pressure-packed two-man race to see not only who will beat ROGER MARIS (both have) ... but who will end the season as the new home run champ ... or the 10 million-to-one odds at the start of the season for a new record TIE!

As SATCHEL PAIGE once said ... Don't look back ... someone might be gaining on you.

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Two men who were raised in Cape Girardeau had coverage in the September FORBES magazine.

RICH KINDER (another hometown boy who's made good) was featured in a stand-alone article. Some excerpts are as follows:

"Richard Kinder and Kenneth Lay were friends at the University of Missouri in the 1960s and dated girls from the same sorority. They climbed the ladder together. By 1990 Lay was chairman of Houston-based Enron Corp., and Kinder, as president, was second-in-command.

Two years ago Ken Lay signed on for another five-year term as chairman. That meant Kinder was unlikely to make it to the top. He quit.

"I was 52 at the time, and I had enough money that I was never going to have to work another day in my life," recalls Kinder. "I wanted to run my own show." He got his chance.

Another University of Missouri alumnus, William Morgan, had arranged to buy the general partnership that ran Enron's liquids pipeline. Price: $40 million. Enron saw a profitable but no-growth business. Kinder saw a chance to show what he could do on his own. Kinder Morgan Energy Partners L.P. was born.

Kinder slashed $5 million in costs, mostly by eliminating headquarters staff. This increased cash flow and allowed him to boost the dividend to the limited partners by more than 50 percent in less than six months.

As cash flow has increased, so has the general partners' take, which has risen from $700,000 in the fourth quarter of 1996 to $10.6 million in the second quarter of 1998. To keep growing, Kinder has made a series of acquisitions, the most impressive being the purchase last October of Santa Fe Pacific Pipeline Partners L.P. for $1.4 billion in common units and debt. Kinder Morgan Partners now runs a pipeline empire of over 5,000 miles with assets of $2.5 billion and revenue of over $300 million.

A lawyer and expert on pipeline regulation, Kinder has capitalized on a tax advantage inherent in the partnership structure that Kinder Morgan employs. Similar to a real estate investment trust, a partnership of this sort pays no corporate income tax as long as it distributes virtually all of its earnings as dividends. It avoids the double taxation of dividends that afflicts the ordinary corporation. This means that a partnership's entire pretax earnings go to shareholders, while at an ordinary corporation, federal, state and local governments skim off 40 percent and more of that earnings stream.

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RUSH LIMBAUGH was listed by Forbes in the top money leaders of the entertainment industry. One of Limbaugh's major revenue producers is the Limbaugh Letter, which is the most informative, interesting, funny and motivational private newsletter available. A supplement to the September letter included the following observations ... I reprint a partial listing here to help remind you that it's NOT JUST ABOUT SEX:

Total number of independent counsel investigations 1978-92: 13

Total number of independent counsel investigations of the Clinton administration: 7

Number of House and Senate witnesses in the Clinton scandals who have pleaded the Fifth: 72

Number of witnesses in the Clinton scandals who have fled the country to avoid testifying: 17

Number of foreign witnesses who have refused to be interviewed by U.S. investigative bodies: 19

Number of charges brought by Ken Starr in Whitewater probe: 19

Number of convictions resulting from Ken Starr's probe: 14

Number of imprisonments resulting from Ken Starr's probe: 8

Number of charges brought by the independent counsels in the Ron Brown, Henry Cisneros, Mike Espy and Clinton-Gore '96 campaign scandal probes: 6, 6, 20,4

Number of convictions in the Ron Brown, Henry Cisneros, Mike Espy and Clinton-Gore '96 campaign scandal probes: 4, 3, 10, 1

Number of imprisonments in the Ron Brown, Henry Cisneros, Mike Espy and Clinton-Gore '96 campaign scandal probes: 2, 1, 3, 0

Total number of charges, convictions and imprisonments (so far) in the Clinton scandals: 55, 32, 14

Number of confidential FBI files procured by the Clinton White House: 900 to 1,500

Number of confidential FBI files Nixon aide Charles Colson went to prison for having in his possession: 1

Number of Clinton supporters who were given overnight stays at the White House: 938

Number of presidents in U.S. history who wrote to his staff: "Ready to start overnights right away" while demanding names of all $100,000 plus contributors: 1

Minimum amount of money executives were asked to donate to the DNC in exchange for seats on foreign trade missions, according to testimony of Ron Brown partner Nolanda Hill: $50,000

Amount of money Democratic fund raiser Johnny Chung told Justice Department investigators he received for Democratic campaigns from Liu Chao-Ying, an officer in China's People's Liberation Army and executive with China Aerospace, Beijing's state-run rocket manufacturing company: $300,000

Years of Ken Starr's investigation: 4 years, 6 months

Years of Lawrence Walsh's Iran-Contra investigation: 6 years, 8 months

Number of convictions secured by Starr that were not later reversed: 14

Number of convictions secured by Walsh that were not later reversed: 3

Cost of Starr's investigation: $35.1 million

Cost of Walsh's investigation: $47.9 million

Cost of Clinton's trip to China: $40 million

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One senses the U.S. is at another intersection in its history. Rather than the guidance of moral principles and virtues of right and wrong ... the green lights or red lights of yes and no ... one sees chaos by those who want to run full speed with their own guidelines through an intersection with blinking yellow (caution) lights ... in all four directions. This is not only suicidal ... but irrational.

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Dying is no big deal. The least of us can manage that. Living is the trick. -- Red Smith

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An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure: The Federal Reserve must slash short-term interest rates and provide America and the world with badly needed dollar liquidity. The Fed is fighting the last war. Deflation, not inflation, is the core problem. That's why commodities, particularly gold, plunged long before stocks did.

The White House is incapable of leadership, so the ball is now in Greenspan's court. The dollar is a global currency. Like it or not, the U.S. must take the decisive lead to prevent this turmoil from turning into an old-fashioned panic.

Greenspan's supreme test is now at hand.-- Steve Forbes

~Gary Rust is president of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian and other newspapers.