Tilting at windmills
Tilting at windmills I f you doubt that our leaders take seriously the relationship between government and the arts, attend to this news. President Carter has appointed James E. Barnett to the...
...Commission on Arts and Humanities...
...They're likely to bet on that horse . Each such bet increases the total amount or "pool" available to be divided among the less innocent, and that means there will be better odds on the better horses...
...The art form to which Mr...
...They were, as you can imagine, a challenge to figure out...
...Originally it wasn't...
...This in itself will save you the fortune you would otherwise have to spend for a room in a Louisville hotel, where the rates during Derby Week would stagger the Aga Khan...
...In past years, it has been considered a triumph when they managed to count a third of the ballots within a week after the election...
...Ralph Sampson, the University of Virginia's freshman basketball star, recently turned down an offer from the Boston Celtics to leave college and accept a $500,000- a-year contract...
...Did you know that some hospitals charge you not for the actual lab work, drugs and other medical supplies used in your treatment but for an average daily amount of those items consumed by all patients...
...He says he would have weekly cabinet meetings, "actual working sessions" which would result in "meaningful decisions...
...Ball has correctly cautioned Ed Muskie to resist becoming a globetrotter-advice commonly ignored by those who either don't understand how power is acquired in this town, or who forget, at their peril...
...This idea could easily be extended to federal service generally, and should be...
...Despite some reform, taxes are still too much of a burden for people just above the poverty line...
...The Marines get new assault vehicles and vertical takeoff fighters...
...John Tierney, writing in The Washington Star about his experiences 8 as a census-taker, recalls a confrontation: " 'That dog,' the neighbor said, 'he's big enough to tear off the chain and go after you.' I decided to enumerate eisewhere...
...Now there must be at least 20...
...To buy off the four little empires within the Pentagon, RDF has been organized like a Faculty Review Committee...
...I found that my new boss, Sargent Shriver, and three of his most important aides had departed on an extended trip around the world, leaving the agency in the hands of a lower-ranking subordinate...
...The truth is, few of us think so clearly that we can't be improved by having our thinking challenged...
...Sounds reasonable, doesn't it...
...We carry forward our coverage of the Justice Department's Occupational Health and Physical Fitness Program Facilitya place more commonly known as a "gym"-with this bulletin: Purloined documents reveal that antiquated showerheads in the OHPFPF leak constantly and that "$2,000 has been budgeted to OHPFPF in fiscal 1980 to purchase and install new showerheads...
...Mayor Barry found these credentials so compelling that he hired Vass two weeks after ordering a hiring freeze throughout the District government...
...Suppose you're unconscious on arrival...
...I think argument supplies another important ingredient of responsible editing, and I wish more editors would try it...
...They spend even more time with The Daily Racing Form than he spent on his back on the scaffolding of the Sistine Chapel...
...The Army provides most of the armor, and the Marines supply most of the troops...
...Several years ago, we ran an article on polling calied "The German Shepherd Factor...
...President Carter has appointed James E. Barnett to the National Council on the Arts...
...Don't bet them to finish first-"win" betting is only for those who can afford to lose...
...The base comes under the jurisdiction of the Readiness Command, an existing unit responsible for reinforcing NATO...
...On the other hand, if you're losing after the third race, disregard my advice, save $2 to bet on your own choice for the Derby, and devote the rest of the day to enjoying the spectacle...
...Here's the secret: Next year, go to Churchill Downs in Louisville on the day of the Kentucky Derby and bet on every race...
...Units from the four services will be "designated" as·RDF "candidates...
...the more conscientious publications also double-check facts...
...Only joggers need apply...
...Perhaps a horse's name reminds them of an almost-forgotten fling, or a violin solo, or just has a comfortable sound...
...He published a questionnaire asking readers' opinions of a proposed cutback of cost-ofliving increases-a modest cutback from twice a year to once...
...For instance, few troops will be permanently assigned to RDF...
...We try to use that approach at The Washington Monthly with every article we publish...
...Rest easy, America...
...What could be more natural-Zbig was meeting with the president every morning, after all, and you can hardly bring the government to a halt waiting for Cy to catch up with his messages...
...Everybody gets something-except a better defense system...
...And 4 the local school system is the District at its nadir...
...Add half of your previous winnings to your bets on each race...
...In 1960, there were maybe three mornings when you awoke with the knowledge that there would be an important primary-election story in the paper...
...This is not, as Washington Monthly writers will attest, an unmixed blessing, but its good side is this: In a law firm, you learn to argue a case with your partners before you present it in court, defending your facts and conclusions against the best arguments your associates can muster...
...Ronald Reagan says he wants to have cabinet government...
...With their own dedication to principle being what it is, Carter and Reagan will doubtless join him soon...
...After ascending to the university's presidency, he replaced himself with three provosts...
...Most of them freely censor movie ads, while printing, without hesitation or alteration, every cigarette ad aimed at luring young people into a lethal habit...
...Barnett has devoted his life is professional wrestling...
...This isn't a force, it's a filing cabinet...
...RDF is headquartered at Mac Dill Air Force Base near Tampa...
...But the typical voter didn't even get a chance to look at his cards until he had waited up to 45 minutes while election officials struggled to determine his eligibility from perforated computer printouts that were supposed to make the process smooth and swift...
...The Kansas City Star reports that a federal official accused of working on private business during working hours is seeking dismissal of the charge, on the grounds that such behavior is "generally accepted" in the bureaucracy...
...Your wife hurries to the hospital, and what does she find at the information desk...
...Charles Peters...
...I learned more about editing from lawyers than from journalists...
...I mean, who could suggest a trip to London without first seeing for yourself that London is still there...
...The Washington Post is segregated...
...How many presidents have come to office burdened by this idiotic notion...
...Can't be, you say...
...This trend has helped spawn a new racket similar to the group insurance scam exposed by Bonnie Goldstein in this magazine back in February...
...So here's what you do: Arrive in Louisville early on the morning of Derby Day...
...New York horseplayers bring the same devotion to the art of handicapping that Michelangelo brought to painting and sculpture...
...Not so...
...For example, "Going Places" lauds one woman for being one of the few blacks to break into the "Green Book" (the mostly-W ASP social register of Washington) and another for owning a Rolls-Royce, a Mercedes, and a Porsche...
...Any troops assigned to RDF are technically REDCOM troops...
...In addition to not commanding RDF's four elements, Kelly must report to REDCOM's commander, who outranks him...
...His stylistic weaknesses tend to mUltiply, but more importantly, his mind slowly turns into something resembling Cream of Wheat because nobody dares to argue with him...
...The Czech producers of the film struggled for years to get permission to show the movie abroad...
...They finally succeeded, only to run afoul of some gnome at the Post who objected to an ad showing the belly of a pregnant woman...
...Unfortunately, Brzezinski's most trusted source was the Shah's ambassador, Ardeshir Zahedi, a man as close to the pulse of the Iranians as Anna Chennault is to the Chinese...
...That leaves $336.91 per month for all expenses, suggesting that such things such as heat, transportation, electricity, and medical care would be classified as luxuries...
...Michael Sovern, former provost of Columbia University, is not content with sighing...
...Everybody gets a new layer of liaison and logistics...
...Paul Kelly, does not have final authority over how the various elements are to be assembled and used...
...The welfare workers, she writes, take refugees aside and explain to them that federal assistance money is theirs for the asking, and if they don't take it, "somebody else is going to get it...
...An Air Force colonel was in charge of the C-130 transport planes...
...Well, they are nice folks, but it's a fact that they mostly cover white social events in the "Style" section and black events in a column called "Going Places...
...Once that reputation is secure, the Good Writer begins to think of himself as beyond editing of any kind...
...The privacy laws enacted during the past decade not only jeopardize the government's ability to prosecute criminals, they may even endanger your ability to have a last word with your loved ones before you expire at a local hospital...
...This year, they took a new tack...
...Not only does it pay more to its teachers in return for lower-quality instruction than the surrounding jurisdictions, it also boasts the largest administrative staff in the Washington areawith nine administrators per thousand students compared to five in Fairfax County, Virginia, and Montgomery County, Maryland, which have the best schools in the area...
...I discovered this phenomenon at work when I first arrived in Washington to work at the Peace Corps...
...Its absence is particularly tragic in the case of reporters who acquire the reputation of being Good Writers...
...The catch was that the assIstant made some bad decisions because he didn't travel, didn't know what was going on in the field, and relied too much on Zahedis to tell him...
...And the civilians at the Pentagon get a fresh supply of paper clips and staples...
...But not to be outdone by the White House, Washington's Mayor Marion Barry has hired Sarah Vass as Special Events Coordinator for the D.C...
...Lo and behold, when they returned they found that the subordinate had managed to make himself much more indispensable than they were...
...Elsewhere, it seems to me, the strong tendency is to limit editing to matters of style and organization...
...Why have the presidential primaries multiplied so dramatically during the past 20 years...
...Spend some time in the morning studying the racing form-but not too much time, just enough to learn the consensus picks of the experts for each race...
...There are lots of weighty theories around, but they all overlook the obvious reason...
...The real bargain goes to the executives of the associations providing the membership lists...
...Lest you think the Mayor has been singling out the arts for preferential treatment, you should also know that four days before he was compelled to impose the freeze by a severe budget crisis, he raised the salaries of five of his assistants...
...Nobody had overall responsibility on the scene...
...Instead of automatically jacking up salaries every year for everyone, regardless of need, the government could keep salary levels more stable while offering to pay the cost of children's education...
...In return for their kindness, the travel agents ship them off on free "inspection" trips to the places recommended for members...
...Presidents without that kind of experience don't understand the federal bureaucracy, and what they must do to control it...
...The Washington Monthfv will take care of you...
...A Navy officer was in charge of the fighter cover...
...According to David Wilson of The BoslOn Globe, a single person earning $6,812 a year in Massachusetts pays $1,225 directly to the state and federal governments in income and payroll taxes, and another $1,544 in indirect taxes...
...Because the odds are much better than you can get anywhere else...
...Mayor Barry, his wife Effi, and assistant Ivanhoe Donaldson had planned to take the same free flight, until it was pointed out to them that, what with Donaldson's new raise-he was one of the lucky assistants-and the austerity decreed for other District employees, the journey might upset the voters at an inconvenient time...
...The response from 22,000 readers (the most mail the Post has ever received) was 98 percent opposed...
...We have run so many articles (including two in this issue) attacking lawyers that I sometimes feel a pang of guilt, because lowe a considerable debt to my former profession...
...J ust can't for the life life of me understand why the Yugoslavs were upset that Carter sent Miss Lillian to President Tito's funeral last month...
...To help keep capable people from leaving the service, the government would offer to pay the costs of their children's college education...
...The hospital explained the averaging scheme, and said that insurance companies had agreed to be billed that way, but an individual not covered by health insurance could choose to pay only his actual costs...
...Trade associations sell their membership lists to travel agents, who fill the mails with colorful brochures advertising exotic trips available to members at "bargain" rates...
...Another helpful tip: When your friendly book club offers you a "bonus" or "dividend" book, pay no heed...
...According to my friend Fanny Seiler, of The Charleston Gazette, a patient at the Charleston Area Medical Center found she had been billed $542.62 for services she hadn't received...
...Robert Pranger of the pro-military American Enterprise Institute, who has consulted with Kelly on RDF command structure, told Toch: "It will require a lot of bureaucratic negotiation in a time of crisis...
...Remember RDF-the new mobile military concept designed to make us awesome in the Persian Gulf...
...Moral: Try to avoid becoming involuntarily unconscious in California, and do your part to resist encroachment of this particular plague on the rest of the nation...
...He must first obtain the consent of officers from each of the services...
...Such books were given to members free after two or three regular selections, just as bartenders used to bounce your third or fourth beer...
...The prevailing values of professional athletics were best expressed in the response of Celtics boss Red Auerbach: :'Give up well in excess of half-a-million dollars, to play college basketball...
...And remember The Washington Monthly in your will...
...The Navy commands RDF's ships...
...George Ball tells a revealing story of how Zbigniew Brzezinski wrested control of Iranian policy from Cyrus Vance...
...California has a law, passed in 1979, that says a hospital may give out no information about you without your permission...
...While we're on the subject of conceptual breakthroughs in academia, let it be noted that George Washington University has established a Department of Human Kinetics and Leisure Studies...
...Sad to say, the most scandalous of these rackets is conducted by newspapers, who would rail against the slightest conflict of interest inherent in the travels of public officials but think nothing of using their "news" columns to promote travel, in return for free trips for reporters, editors, and advertising salespeople...
...Vass has been a disc jockey at a local radio station and a parttime hostess on a local television show...
...The Washington Post has established new standards by refusing to run an ad for a film called "The Apple Game...
...Each voter in the Democratic primary was handed five different computer punch cards...
...But now you pay for the bonus or dividend books, and you pay too much-because most of them are "remainders," publishers' overstocks unloaded at below-cost and often available in bookstores (especially the chains) for even less than the book clubs charge for "shipping and handling...
...This may not represent the kind of quantum leap that marked the advent of the first Department of AudioVisual Education, but it does offer students a place to concentrate on the major preoccupation of America-the creation and use of leisure time...
...That's not all...
...So if you liked the Iran raid, you'll love the Rapid Deployment Force...
...Ludicrous...
...Some listless minion who punches the appropriate keys on the new video display terminal and finally, after coming up with four or five of the usual messages ("No record of this patiententer alternative spelling of surname") advises her that yes, they have you somewhere in their clutches, but no, they can't tell her anything, because you didn't give them permission...
...Although Shriver continued to speak for the Peace Corps, the agency remained in many respects under the effective control of the assistant who had humbly stayed behind...
...It's a con game...
...Beckwith was in charge of the commandos...
...That process may leave some bruised egos, but it helps to eliminate unexamined assumptions and sloppy thinking...
...On the other hand, Churchill Downs on Derby Day is thronged with tens of thousands of people who have never seen a horse race beforepeople who bring a charming innocence to their selection of a favorite...
...In the past I've chided newspapers for their curious standards of moral decency...
...If there is a serious challenge to the seemingly unsurpassable ineptitude of the people who run our schools, it will most likely come from the imaginative folks who run the District's elections...
...We made the point that people with large surly dogs were unlikely to be included in political polls...
...A Marine colonel was in charge of the helicopters...
...It's boredom...
...One listed prospective convention delegates, segregated by sex, with the injunction that the voter could select no more than seven from each sex...
...Street Journal, and whatever Howard Ruff is publishing these days...
...Instead of delaying the counting, they complicated the balloting...
...Anxiety about coping with the cost of college is the main reason dedicated people agitate for higher pay and think they must leave the government if they don't get it...
...The nominal "commander" of the combined force, Gen...
...Has anyone wondered why Col...
...Meyer suggests that such an offer should be contingent on 15 years' service-and I would add that the payments should continue only as long as service continues (barring death or disability, of course...
...The owners of German Shepherds have escaped sctutiny...
...The essence of political reporting is the story called "let's you and him fight...
...After all, she was the official representative to Frank Sinatra's birthday party in . Las Vegas...
...Even if Prague's censors are going soft, they're still on full alert at the Post...
...F or solid, practical tips on how to make your fortune, you probably think you have to subscribe to Business Week, The Wal...
...All those nice liberal folks over there...
...I'd guess that the average American office worker spends two thirds of his working hours contemplating plans for his off-hours and, .if his job description permits, converting 10 working into leisure hours through the simple device of official travel...
...I can't imagine such a memorandum- layered hierarchy deciding when to sound Taps, let alone responding smoothly and decisively to an emergency...
...The reason is this: there was no commander on the raid, despite all the publicity crediting that role to Beckwith...
...Before getting geared up for action, Kelly will have to "request" the commanders of the designated troops to assign them to him...
...These triumphant proceedings were presided over by an elections board chairman who has since resigned under suspicion of various crimes, and who, a week before the election, accepted a free "VIP" flight to Paris courtesy of TWA...
...This sin is compounded by the fact that "Going Places" is written like the old Tan magazine, in breathless awe of blacks who imitate the white upper crust...
...The Navy gets new ships for "pre~ positioning...
...Self-pity is one of the fringe benefits of hard work...
...General Edward C. Meyer, the Army's Chief of Staff, has a good idea...
...The Air Force commands its planes...
...Tilting at windmills I f you doubt that our leaders take seriously the relationship between government and the arts, attend to this news...
...Sadly, it was the prototype for future fiascos, the product of a blundering system which the Pentagon confidently plans to institutionalize with RDF...
...Instead, make "place" and "show" bets...
...Yet the Pentagon's fiefdoms are delighted...
...We now have an insight on the much-criticized omissions of the 1980 census...
...The gym has four showers...
...The Air Force gets a new cargo plane...
...Reporter Thomas Toch has been looking into RDF for The Washington Monthly, and what he's found suggests that the death in the desert of eight brave men was no fluke...
...At a critical period during the Iranian revolution, when Vance was traveling to and from the Middle East, Brzezinski took over...
...Sampson said he was flattered, but he was in no hurry to make a fortune, he was enjoying college, and he didn't want to turn his back on the university people who had been good to him...
...The fact is that those who really covet power are more than eager to stay here, chained to their desks, while the other fellow gets the glamorous trips...
...But if you did your betting at Off-Track Betting (OTB) in New York, your winnings would have been reduced to $14.80, $5.40, and $3.40, respectively...
...Alice z. Cuneo of The San Jose News reports that California welfare workers are subverting the efforts of voluntary agencies to put Indochinese refugees to work...
...The answer: Every one of them since FD R. He was the last president who took office knowing something about how the executive branch really worked, because he had served in it under Woodrow Wilson...
...The District government is not providing us with one of the more edifying chapters, in the history of public administration...
...I'm doing the work of three people," we sigh to ourselves...
...Charles Beckwith, commander of the Iran raid, said "it wasn't my responsibility" to destroy secret documents in the abandoned helicopters...
...Ike at least understood the military bureaucracy and did the best job of controlling it of any recent president...
...Those are the kinds of electoral tea leaves that Kennedy can read...
...How can anything not be the responsibility of the commander...
...Edward Kennedy has demonstrated the depth of his commitment to battling inflation by coming out for twice-yearly cost-of-living pension increases for retired federal employees . Since these raises are among the more obviously inflationary policies of the government, why does Kennedy support them...
...But a Presidential Commission on Fierce Dogs should be able to figure out the characteristics of the owners and adjust the census findings accordingly...
...He is the director of Georgia Championship Wrestling, Championship Wrestling of Florida, and Southeastern Wrestling Corporation of Knoxville...
...Not "order" -request...
...These days, political polls are rarely conducted faceto- face, but we are glad to report that The German Shepherd Factor is alive and well...
...For example, Genuine Risk, this year's winner, paid $28.60 to win, $10.60 to place, and $4.40 to show, if you placed your bets at Churchill Downs...
...Mike Causey, The Washington Post's civil-service columnist, may have the explanation...
...The Army gets more XM-I tanks...
...Political reporters wanted more of these stories to report, and readers wanted more such stories to read...
...This assumes the patient is alert enough to notice the fine print at the bottom of the bill...
Vol. 12 • June 1980 • No. 4
