When I read about Bernie Ebbers getting the WorldCom board to grant and then forgive all those millions in loans, I just sort of laughed it off.

When it was revealed through divorce papers that Jack Welch, retired CEO of General Electric, was living the life of a Saudi prince at the expense

And when I read that Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski was expensing $6,000 shower curtains, my only reaction was to ponder if that price also included the little rings that attach the curtain to the shower rod. Throw in the rings; I'm thinking the guy got a bargain.

OLD TRICKS

The point is that while these abuses of extravagance by corporate executives are contemptible, they are certainly not without precedent.

The early years of any industry--railroad, steel, automobile--are accompanied by a fresh crop of robber barons, individuals who believe that their contributions to the world are so great as to exceed any amount of compensation.

So, while the Senate and the media and much of the country might be outraged by the actions of these egomaniacs, I've pretty much filed these acts under standard operating procedure.

When it comes down to it, most of these executives are of the same evolutionary strain as telemarketers or used car dealers. When your expectations are low, it's hard to be shocked or disappointed.

HIGHER STANDARD

It was with a deep sense of shock and disappointment, however, that I read the nasty details of the alleged fraud committed by scientists within Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs.

When academics and scientists, who have always made up for a lack of fashion sense with a deep commitment to integrity, stoop to fraud and fabrication, then I know that the rot that appeared to be contained at the top of the telecommunications industry has spread further than anyone expected.

It's one thing for the CFOs of Enron, Qwest and WorldCom to fabricate billions in revenues that weren't actually generated, but when a research lab starts to take shortcuts with the scientific process, that's another story. It fills you with a sense of fear that perhaps many of the things we take for granted as being fact in the telecommunications space will turn out to be lies when subjected to examination.

It seems that if you look hard enough at anything in this space, you'll eventually find out that things are not as they appear.

How about the widely held illusion that the Internet was doubling in size every two to four months? That harmless "exaggeration," and the failure to recognize it as fabrication, only resulted in carriers building new and expanding old networks at a pace that created a bandwidth glut that may take a couple of more years to thin out.

TA-DA!

I don't know about you, but I don't like surprises. So, I've taken it upon myself to lift up the covers, so to speak, on a few other long-held beliefs in the telecommunications space. Considering the recent revelations at Bell Labs, I had to extend my search to technological "truths," as well. Here's what I found.

Moore's Law: Despite the fact that this axiom has long been attributed to Intel founder Gordon Moore and concerns the evolution of semiconductor technology, it turns out that the law is based on a theory once uttered by Mary Tyler Moore and has to do with the statistical likelihood of having a neighbor named Rhoda.

Lucent's logo: Long believed to contain some sort of spiritual reference or to signify an inflamed portion of the human anatomy that is best left unmentioned, the logo, upon close inspection, actually turns out to be the outer portion of a bull's eye. Considering that the company has been target practice for investors for the past 10 quarters or so, Lucent finally got something right.

Optical switches: It's a good thing carriers decided to pass on this 21st century marvel, which had more money thrown at it than the Trevi Fountain. Incredible as it sounds, the technology relied on highly trained hamsters to rotate the tiny mirrors.

IP telephony: Believe it or not, you can't carry voice reliably in an IP packet.

Oops, you already knew that one.

Joe McGarvey is the former executive editor for The Net Economy and a senior analyst at Current Analysis. He can be reached at jmcgarvey@currentanalysis.com.