Uncle Sam

Rodolfo Skeete, a former Army paratrooper, vividly recalls the second time Uncle Sam came looking for him. Last April, Skeete, 51, jobless and nursing an injured leg, had spent his last $10 to rent a room at the Weingart Center downtown to avoid being mugged on Skid Row, where he had spent three homeless months.

--Uncle Sam has changed his mind--he doesn't want Nathan Matt after all. But the 78-year-old Miami man doesn't feel slighted, since he had not taken the letter from the Selective Service seriously. The letter began: "As a result of a computer match between government files, you have been identified as a man who may be required to register with the Selective Service." Matt said the government had his birthday right--Dec. 20--but "they had the year wrong. It's not '68. It's '08."

Uncle Sam spent an average of $4,599 for every American last year, handing out money for grants and benefits, to buy goods and services and to pay government salaries. That was up more than $200 per person from the year before. Overall, the federal government spent $1.25 trillion last fiscal year, according to new Census Bureau reports on federal spending.

Q: On Sept. 13 the Resolution Trust Corp. and American Savings took control of Columbia Savings, where I had a certificate of deposit paying 9.3% interest. On that date, the RTC liquidated my account and cut a check to me for $99,528.58. The check was mailed the following Monday from Irvine and took until Sept. 20 to arrive at my Beverly Hills home. I figure I lost about $25 per day in interest while the check was "in the mail." I want to take the RTC to Small Claims Court for $175.

The federal government may be the No. 1 enforcer of the nation's equal employment opportunity laws, but Uncle Sam still has a long way to go before becoming a model employer himself. When it comes to women and minorities, the federal work force shows many of the unequal characteristics that mark the American work force as a whole. Significant disparities exist in hiring, pay and opportunities for promotion, government statistics show.

A group calling itself Why Not a Woman? met recently in Boston, determined to try to find a way for a woman to become the Democratic Party's presidential candidate within the next 10 years. Good idea. Approximately 75 top Democratic donors and party organizers--all women--took a straw vote among themselves, just to see which woman immediately came to mind. The one who came to mind turned out to be Hillary Rodham Clinton. Not such a good idea. "God, no!" the first lady reportedly reacted.

Uncle Sam got out of the rock 'n' roll business Friday after auctioning off one of the top recording studios in the country. Robert Skye of Dover, Del., owner of Skye Labs Inc., a mobile recording unit, was high bidder at $585,000. Plant Studios had been seized by the U.S. marshal's office last year when owner Stanley Forbes Jacox was arrested on drug charges. Jacox had taken the studios from near bankruptcy to recognition as one of the top 10 recording operations in the nation.

Spider-Man and Uncle Sam have the same problem: They barely know their own strength. But as the movie "Spider-Man," which opens Friday, reminds us, "With great power comes great responsibility." That's the challenge faced by superheroes and superpowers. In the comic-book-turned-movie, Peter Parker is just an ordinary high school kid until he is bitten by a radioactivity-mutated spider. Thus, he is marked for destiny.

This summer, my daughter will emerge from graduate school with a master's degree in counseling and $25,000 in student loans. That's a lot of money--except that she may never have to pay it all back. Current rules allow her to make modest monthly payments for 25 years and then forgive the remaining balance with no adverse effects on her credit rating. Uncle Sam will, in effect, make her a $23,500 gift. Should I rejoice in my daughter's financial windfall?

Along this rural stretch of U.S. Highway 61, which for decades has siphoned off thousands of Sharkey County people north toward jobs in Memphis, St. Louis and Chicago, it seems like everyone left leans on Uncle Sam. A branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture serves as the county's dominant bank. The county welfare director says she handles its largest payroll. Nearly half the county's 7,900 residents receive food stamps. Federal farm programs pumped at least $14.