TILTING AT WINDMILLS

...Mary McGrory once said that Baker looks like Huck Finn and writes like Mark Twain...

...His father died with shocking unexpectedness when Russell was five years old: "That afternoon, though I couldn't have phrased it this way then, 1 decided that God was a lot less interested in people than anybody in Morrisonville was willing to admit...

...That seems to be the import of a recent story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer headlined "A Family Lost Its Fortune When Bank Sold Its Trust...

...Thus even such a high-minded liberal as Timothy Wirth recently refused his opponent's offer to limit their campaign spending to a figure under $300,000...

...We'll spend more this time if we have to...

...This would encourage businesses to use cheaper and more socially desirable means of dispute resolution such as mediation...

...Incumbents usually can attract much more money than challengers...

...During that time Dr...

...Today most are stationed near ample shopping facilities and they are no longer underpaid...

...Still, medical faculties remain the long-time, year-inyearout champions of the outside income field...

...If you don't think you can make it, hail a cab...

...In the private sector, this same pattern of rising compensation without regard to the employer's ability to pay has been a central factor in our national economic decline...

...Shermans are isolated exceptions to the prevailing pattern of integrity in respectable medical circles, but consider the fact that last year the Stanford University Medical Center was caught double-billing...

...Have you always felt sorry for academics because of the financial sacrifices demanded by their dedication to the pursuit of knowledge...

...In New York, Ed Koch has instituted a hiring freeze on city employees while agreeing to a I 5-percent increase in salaries over the next two years...

...It would also eliminate an unfair advantage the corporation has over the consumer...

...Where is this kindly old physician now...

...To give you an idea of how they have come to think about their entitlements: When a New York State official claimed that the professors at state medical schools were seeking outside income ceilings that would permit them to make as much as $700,000 a year, John M. Reilly, representing the faculty members, replied in outraged tones that they were seeking "only" a $222,000 ceiling...

...In fact its executives and staff are among the best paid and cared for in journalism...

...He dismissed the contention that, while traffic volume might return to 100 percent, the goal would be met by spreading out flights to inconvenient hours...

...It has become so featherbedded that it now spends $11.15 for every 38 cents of earned revenues, with a loss of $5.32 billion this year, which is expected to rise to $6.3 billion next year, and a total deficit of $29.2 billion...

...Leavenworth, Kansas...

...for similar billing irregularities discovered in a state audit for the same period...

...We wouldn't dream of infringing on the candidates' right to put themselves on live TV and talk as long as they want to about any subject they want to discuss...

...In that sense he reminds me of Shakespeare during the period in which he wrote As You Like It and Twelfth Night, capable of seeing even the harshest reality, but always doing so with love and without ever becoming heavy...

...He tells about her efforts to get him to "make something" of himself...

...When the PostIntelligencer's Timothy Egan asked Judge Norman Quinn why the $200,000 price was fair when just a few years later the property sold for $7.5 million, the judge replied, "That's a good question...

...Then another says, "I have a masters in speech pathology," followed by, "I was a research chemist," "I have my masters in finance," and, finally, "I have a masters in art history and a Ph.D...

...Well, certainly not lawyers...

...I called the result "a lovely book" in our October "Booknotes...

...New York's legislature in 1981 established a fund for people victimized by dishonest lawyers...

...As further evidence that our concern about the proliferation of mindless snobbery in modern American life is not groundless, I call your attention to the "Flying Smart" commercial of Peoples Express Airlines...

...The local ambulance service is called MAST and here are two letters to the Kansas City Star describing the service it provides: "I was driven eight blocks in a MAST ambulance with no treatment and billed $277.50," and "I am a patient who was taken to a local hospital recently by MAST ambulance service and charged $328.10 for the trip...

...Understanding what happened to him that day was, I suspect, the key that unlocked the door to Baker's humanity—to the completely candid self-revelation that, together with his usual wit and the customary total absence of even one wrong word, characterizes every chapter of Growing Up...

...Newak had an impeccable on-the-job record and was scheduled for promotion at the time of her court-martial...

...He said the planned abandonment of flight quotas in most areas meant that operators would again be able to schedule flights at times of their own choosing...

...By 1973, the property was assessed for $426,000...

...But, you say, how can we do such a thing without infringing on free speech...

...So high are the claims in the first six months," reports The New York Times, "that officials are worried that the fund may go broke...

...The Times put the matter gently when it said that the story "rekindled public doubts about the ability of government agencies and medical organizations to identify and discipline errant members...

...That decline, along with some of its causes and some possible cures, is the subject of this issue...

...Television seems to heighten the impact of the news in the few days before the election...

...I kept hoping someone would say, "I know how to fly a plane...

...The armed forces are so concerned about the retention of capable people that they are offering reenlistment bonuses to 59 percent of their personnel...

...It sells AM-FM stereo radio and eight-track tape players, toasters, fishing rods, cameras, tennis rackets, waffle irons, and other military necessities at prices that, according to The Charleston Gazette, are 5- to 66-percent lower than those offered by local discount stores...

...Blackwell finally made his fatal mistake in the ninth inning...

...But unlike so many other men who have been scarred by such obsessive mothering, Baker is able to look back on his mother without the slightest sign of resentment...

...Sherman's record was filed with the Massachusetts Licensing Board...

...The effect was to leave the voters, particularly the liberals Humphrey needed to get to the polls, feeling the same kind of anger that 12 years later was inspired by the disappointment over the apparent failure of the hostage talks...

...The flaw in my character which she had already spotted was lack of 'gumption.' My idea of a perfect afternoon was lying in front of the radio reading my favorite Big Little Book, Dick Tracy Meets Stooge Viller...

...But this does remind me to alert our readers to the sources I rely on...

...There is a PX in the Coonskin Armory near my home town of Charleston, West Virginia...

...Speaking of the airlines, the FAA seems well on its way to undoing the good it did at the time of the air traffic controller's strike...

...During this recession year, state and local wage increases nationwide are actually higher than they were last year...

...I am indebted to Colman McCarthy for calling my attention to the case of Lt...

...It pays no rent and charges no taxes...

...Regular readers know that my blood pressure is adversely affected by the postal subsidy for the nonprofit National Geographic...

...Humphrey had been steadily rising in the polls throughout October and appeared to be overtaking Nixon by the last week of the campaign...

...I think Jimmy Carter would have lost but would not have been buried under the landslide of 1980 had not the anger and disappointment over dashed hopes for the release of the hostages dominated the news the weekend before the election...

...My favorite campaign reform remains the one suggested by Curtis Gans in these pages several years ago: outlaw manufactured TV spots...

...He had pitched a nohitter in his last sfart and now he was working on another, a feat that had been accomplished only one other time in the history of baseball...

...The lesson to learn from this is that bank trust departments are run for the benefit of the banks, primarily, and only secondarily for the trusts' beneficiaries...

...So with two pro-MX votes gone, sanity may prevail and the dense pack may be consigned to the oblivion it so richly deserves...

...A similar scam involves military booze...

...It serves 2,000 military reservists...

...Here's what Larry Speakes said in a recent dispute with the television networks: "You don't tell us how to stage the news and we don't tell you how to cover it...

...The bank continues to charge more than $2,000 a year to administer the trust...

...With teachers we should concentrate on raises for good teachers only—let the marginal ones quit if they want to—particularly the good math and science teachers whose salaries may have to be increased as much as 50 to 100 percent to keep them from seeking private employment In the state and federal civil service, the need for raises is even less—confined to the small minority, certainly not more than five percent, who could really make a lot more money elsewhere...

...According to Marketing and Media Decision the Geographic ranks high in the zip code clusters of "Blue Blood Estates," "Pools and Patios," and "Furs and Station Wagons" that are sought by advertisers who want to reach the wealthy...

...They don't have to give Lt...

...Six years' hard labor...

...This helps explain the radical decline in teaching hours at American universities—the teachers don't have time to teach because they are so busy consulting...

...Two of the senators who bit the dust in November, Howard Cannon and Harrison Schmitt, were favorites of the MX lobby—to the tune of $21,500 and $17,000 respectively in contractor contributions...

...In general, by the way, I think the military's bonus policy is as stupid as the persecution of Lt...

...They simply would not have the assistance of clever producers, film cutters, tape-splicers, and audio engineers who can depict any candidate as an unblemished hero and his opponent as an unredeemable rascal...

...Helms said the rebuilding of the traffic system was, if anything, slightly ahead of the schedule laid down shortly after the walkout...

...It can deduct legal expenses...

...It begins with one young woman saying, "Before working for Peoples Express Airlines, I was a market research analyst...

...The office of the inspector general of the Environmental Protection Agency, Mathew Novick, has sent a memo to the staff entitled "Talking Paper on How and When to Purge Divisional Case Files of Material Which Could Prove Embarrassing If Released on FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] or Congressional Request...

...Fritz Hollings led a Senate charge in September that came within four votes of defeating the MX...

...The first example of this kind of television impact came in 1968, when it was, in my opinion, responsible for the narrow defeat of Hubert Humphrey by Richard Nixon...

...in archeology," and "I was a translator for the French diplomatic corps...

...I do know doctors who are both skilled and devoted to their patients' welfare, lawyers who are wise and selfless counselors, bankers who care about their customers, even bureaucrats who are dedicated to efficient public service—but their number is not as legion as I would like and 1 think I should share with you my concerns about the rest of them...

...How upscale...

...They are what the majority of campaign funds are spent on...

...You may think that the Dr...

...According to Dollars and Scholars, a new book by the former director of the Office of Institutional Studies of the University of Southern California, university professors make as much as their counterparts in the business world—if consulting fees are included...

...That day I decided God was not entirely to be trusted...

...This year the property, with a three-story building on it, was sold for $7.5 million...

...defense establishments around the world...

...What has to stop is the mindless pattern of raises that are causing decreases in public services...

...Quinn went on to say "that the sale was 'legally proper' but 'probably poor public relations.' " The bank made no public announcement that it was selling the property...

...The Japanese may continue to maintain trade barriers against our products and they may continue to refuse to pay their fair share of our mutual defense costs...

...He often struck me, as do so many witty people, as a very guarded person who used his wit for self-protection...

...I spent $560,000 in 1980," said Wirth, who, as chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications receives contributions from such public-spirited organizations as MCI, RCA, and Data System Corp...

...But we still may be able to win our economic competition with them—or at least pull even—if the Japanese National Railway Corporation represents the wave of the future...

...I have now decided it is a great book, one that I am certain will be read— and read widely--a hundred years from now...

...Instead of offering bonuses to 59 percent of all personnel—which is bound to include not only people you aren't that anxious to hold onto but also people in cushy jobs they would fight to keep—the bonuses should be concentrated on the skilled who are truly ham to .-etain, . . . The same principle should be applied to other areas of public employment...

...The central thread of his story is Baker's relationship with his strong-willed mother, Lucy Elizabeth, who drove him to achieve the success that had been denied her...

...The original idea of the PX was that soldiers in remote locations without regular stores should have a place to shop, and, because they were underpaid, it should be cheap...

...Another crazy subsidy is the one given the PXs of the armed forces...

...Robert J. Sherman was being allowed to practice in Virginia even though his license had been revoked in the District of Columbia because of his negligence in performing an abortion that led to the death of a 16-year-old girl...

...Losing a capable officer when the armed forces say they're short of capable people...

...My mother despised inactivity...

...By the end of the fourth or fifth chapter, I knew Baker was working on a masterpiece and I was rooting for him not to do something that would spoil it all...

...What I fear is that the average liberal Democrat will chortle with glee at this embarrassment to the Reaganites and not realize that the memo reflects attitudes deeply embedded in the bureaucracy, regardless of the identity of the occupant of the White House...

...One of the problems with campaign finance reform is that the present members of Congress have too great a stake in resisting reform...

...As the fireman's wife said, "If you can't trust a trust, who can you trust...

...Joann Newak, who the air force has sentenced to six years of hard labor at Ft...

...Could this have had something to do with the fact that the rest of the block was owned by one of the bank's main competitors, whose chairman said his bank "would have prepared an offer that would have reflected our desire for ownership of the entire block...

...We relied on The New York Times, which apparently made the error in the process of editing a dispatch from UPI...

...The stories it inspired on the television news, like NBC's segment on November 6 about the despair of 70-percent unemployment in Renovo, Pennsylvania, would have changed the minds of at least that handful of voters— less than 50,000—who saved the Republicans' hide in the close races that determined Senate control...

...This, needless to say, does not stimulate local business...

...The answer is simple...

...Subsequently, the good doctor had to interrupt his practice to serve time in a federal penal facility, after pleading guilty to an indictment that said he had a "malicious interest in making more money, cutting his costs, and saving his time in disregard for the life and health of his patients...

...But the Humphrey surge, which had been helped by what seemed then like imminent peace in Vietnam, collapsed when Nixon's friend, Madame Chennault, persuaded the South Vietnamese to torpedo peace talks a few days before the election...

...And its readers are, in the words of the Geographic's own advertising to advertisers, "up-scale...

...Eliminate them and we will radically reduce the need for money in politics...

...Sherman's license was automatically renewed...

...When I was in charge of the Peace Corps's internal evaluation unit, nothing delighted me more than concealing from the Congress the reports that reflected adversely on my agency...

...Baker never made his...

...The $1.5-million payback is on top of a reimbursement of more than $300,000...

...But now the FAA is bragging that it will restore the old system...

...If so, you should weep no more...

...Charles Peters...

...I no longer have any reservations about the comparison made by Mary McGrory...

...Well, certainly not your bankers...

...It is, however lamentable, a fact that many of the positions taken by this magazine do not command widespread popular support...

...holding pattern—and a system that was cheaper to operate because it was no longer paying for controllers who really were needed only during the peak hours...

...It may be that the Reagan administration has succeeded in throwing away the one useful legacy of the Nixon-Ford years— the exploitation of the Sino-Soviet split that diverted our enemies' hostility from us to one another...

...It was June of 1947, and I was sitting in the upper deck of Ebbett's Field watching Ewell Blackwell of the Cincinnati Reds pitch against the Dodgers...

...The description delighted me but the Twain part didn't seem quite right...

...The beauty of this idea becomes even more apparent when one considers how few candidates, upon mature contemplation of the risks involved, would dare subject the voters to extensive exposure to their unvarnished selves...

...My guess is that the Democrats would have taken over the Senate had the unemployment rise disclosed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics the Friday after the election been published one week earlier...

...In the case of most of these publications, I see their sins as being largely of omission, and I try to point out from time to time examples of the blinders they wear, of the stories or parts thereof they don't tell...

...Don't call an ambulance...

...The result was safer travel—you were no longer terrified by the sight of several other planes zooming around yours as it circled endlessly in its 5:30 p.m...

...According to Robert Eringer, who looked into this matter for us, this subsidy means that, for example, a 1.75 liter of Bacardi rum that sells for $26.10 in London and $14.88 in New York can be purchased at an American PX in Britain for a mere $5.50...

...Did you notice that China's representative at Brezhnev's funeral, Foreign Minister Huang Hua, was the highest-ranking Chinese to visit Moscow in over a decade, and that Andropov singled him out for special attention...

...According to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle, "Stanford University has agreed to return $1.5 million in Medicare fees after a federal audit concluded that the medical center had billed the government for more work than was done, and, in some cases, billed different agencies for the same work...

...If you get sick in Kansas City try to walk to the hospital...

...According to a story on page Al8 of the October 6 edition of The New York Times, he is practicing medicine in Massachusetts...

...In our "Letters" section an FBI official complains that we attributed a quote to William Webster that should have been attributed to Jeremiah Denton...

...Newak...

...There was a reason for his wariness...

...Sometimes the professors not only consult but, as a recent article by William Boly in California magazine shows, they make fortunes out of the results of research that is financed not by them but by their schools or by the taxpayers...

...But when they do get a fact wrong, I'm likely to get it wrong, too, and you should know that...

...You've got no more gumption than a bump on a log.— Lucy Elizabeth never ceased trying to endow Russell with "gumption" until he finally freed himself by marrying Mimi, a union that definitely was not maternally blessed...

...Nevertheless the bank sold the property, without the fireman's knowledge, for just $200,000...

...Here's a solution suggested by three consumer groups: Abolish the tax deduction allowed business for the expense of litigation...

...I know that from time to time I sound cynical, but really I am not...

...Baker had the humor, the same instinct for the right word, but, I thought, he lacked the humanity...

...Biologists, in particular, are displaying world-class skill in reaping the rewards of the current excitement over gene-splicing...

...I 1977 we noted, with some wonder about the licensing practices of American medicine, that Dr...

...You will recall the FAA then dealt with problems of a radically reduced work force by eliminating the traffic peaks that required the old high staffing levels...

...As each inning went by and he came closer and closer, there was a palpable sense of a crowd united, even the Brooklyn fans, in rooting for him not to make the mistake that would spoil it all...

...Her sins were confined to her off-base apartment, where she occasionally smoked marijuana, had an affair with another woman, and possessed pills that were alleged to be amphetamines but by the air force's own tests turned out to be simple diet pills...

...I weigh under 100 pounds...

...A hearing was to be held on revoking his license...

...At the age of five I had become a skeptic and began to sense that any happiness that came my way might be the prelude to some grim cosmic joke...

...You've heard about our overcrowded courts and the explosion of litigation that's behind the problem...

...Seeing me having a good time in repose, she was powerless to hide her disgust...

...On matters of fact, I accept what is printed in the Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Charleston Gazette, and a dozen or so other papers I have come to respect for accuracy...

...It was scheduled 28 months after a complaint about Dr...

...He can't...

...He has found inner harmony or something very close to it...

...Can you believe it...

...A retired Seattle fireman who had bought a gas station in 1946 for $60,000 "put it in trust" with Pacific National Bank, now called First Interstate, for the benefit of his children and grandchildren...

...The number of county government workers decreased last year by 45,000, while county payrolls increased by 7.6 percent...

...So why do the rest of us subsidize either a wealthy organization or its wealthy subscribers...

...If you can't trust your doctors, who can you trust...

...Los Angeles has eliminated 1,995 jobs, reduced street repaving from once every 40 years to once every 120 years, cut down library hours to five a day, while increasing to 75 percent the proportion of its budget devoted to salaries and fringe benefits, including $98,908 to its police chief and $93,688 to its fire chief...

...Here's how the thinking of the administrator, J. Lynn Helms, was described by The New York Times: "Mr...

...I was not to experience that feeling again until a couple of months ago when I read Growing Up, the story of Russell Baker's life from its beginning in poverty in rural Virginia in 1925 through his marriage to his wife, Mimi, and his first job as a reporter for The Baltimore Sun in the late forties...

...He's going to try again and my guess is that his chances are good...

...Newak a bonus—just let her out of Leavenworth...

...Did you know that you pay for the transportation of American spirits, beer, and wine from the Norfolk, Virginia, exchange headquarters to U.S...

...Still, a Seattle judge ruled against the fireman when he sued the bank...

...I am delighted, therefore, to report this result from a New York Times poll conducted in October: Asked what they would do about prison overcrowding, 66 percent of the respondents said they favored giving criminals convicted of nonviolent crimes sentences, such as community service work, that don't involve imprisonment...

...The few who did would quietly learn from their polls that they were losing votes with every broadcast...

...Poor Carter—the day before the election was the first anniversary of the seizure of the embassy in Tehran—and thus an occasion for long features on all the networks vividly recalling all the frustration, humiliation, and failure of the preceding year...