LETTERS

...We would like increases in benefits awarded for specific injuries (i.e., loss of an arm...

...Sullivan the $500,000 and wait for another case to make your point...

...DANIEL W. HART Des Moines, Iowa Tribal Tribute For want of a mandate to make Gordon Rayfield’s “The Tribal Trap” (April) required reading for every student aspiring to political science (including, 1 hope, politicians), I extend my heartfelt thanks for his lucidity and pledge my continued support to help galvanize the ideology of common sense...

...Prior to STAA, only 14 states did not allow twins...

...If “the fact remains...

...Weather has a far greater impact than truck traffic...

...The earlier article Constance Holder remembers (“The Conflict-of-Interest Craze,” November, 1978) was written by Kinsley, not Taylor Branch...

...If it had been followed 20 years ago, 1 can imagine Herbert Wechsler saying to the New York Times, “I’d love to help you reverse that Alabama libel verdict, but my sabbatical doesn’t come lip for another three years...

...The squib on Alan Dershowitz in the April issue (“Tilting at Windmills”) is, however, a rather glaring exception...

...Cheers to Michael Kinsley for his Cockburn article...

...This says nothing of the cost to business to cover sick leave taken by smokers, for which 1 must pay the higher costs companies must charge to cover their expense...

...I’ll be on leave then, and would love to argue your case in the Supreme Court when I get the chance...

...And, in November 1983 he appointed a blue-ribbon task force composed of representatives from labor, the business community, and insurance companies along with attorneys and government officials to investigate the possibility of workers’ compensation reform in Massachusetts...

...The trucking industry has put highway contractors and engineers on notice that it is tired of taking the blame and picking up the tab for roadways that fail to hold up...

...CONSTANCE HOLDER Washington, D.C...

...Why don’t you pay Mr...

...Juries are told that repairs can be considered on these other issues but not on the issue of negligence...

...Railroads, on the other hand, don’t pay a federal diesel fuel tax...

...Despite the rule that repairs cannot be used as evidence of negligence, lawyers usually manage to get evidence of repairs to the jury...

...Ohanian...

...The editors reply: “Cockburn the Barbarian” was intended to be ironic and also intended to be funny...

...Attorney General (“Who’s Who...

...If the devisers of these policies could go back to their fundamental intent-which in both journalism and government amounts to non-deception of the public about an individual’s interests and motivations-a lot of this foolishness could be cleared up...

...However, if-as you suggest-trucks should be given these median strips without cost, much as the railroads received land grants, we assume you would also grant the trucking industry alternating mile-square sections of land such as the rails were given...

...Since that time the task force has made preliminary recommendations for an improved Industrial Accident Board (the board is the body that hears workers’compensation cases), for worker and employer education and for speedier processing of claims...

...LETTERS Kinsley the Barbarian Nowhere in Michael Kinsley’s article (“Cockburn the Barbarian,” April) on journalistic ethics does the author use the word “barbarian,” nor does he imply that Cockburn is a lesser human being or even a lesser journalist...

...Though repairs cannot be used as evidence of negligence, they can be used as evidence on other issues, such as who owned the thing repaired or whether repair was possible...

...Don’t you want a disciplined, well-behaved, law-abiding, unimaginative citizenry in this country...

...Surely the professor of theoretical physics, toiling on paper and blackboard, deserves the title of intellectual, there being few pursuits so cerebral...

...The reason I think so clearly is thanks to an article you published some years ago, by Taylor Branch, I think, pointing out that much of what is called “conflict” of interest is actually “confluence” of interest...

...After all, “intellectuals” feel sure that, even when fashion dictates the prole look, they won’t be mistaken for workers once they open their mouth, so there’s no need for anxiety...

...In suits based on the theory of strict product liability some courts have held that evidence of repairs is admissible without restriction on its use because the issue in such cases is not “negligence” but whether the product was “defective...

...How else can you get them if you don’t select your teachers by their sheepish willingness to follow the rules...

...In 1982 we were able to secure the promise of newly elected Governor Dukakis that he would support this reform...

...LARRY LEBLOND Youngstown, New York Tobacco Ruse I am angry-very angry...

...I couldn’t agree more about the fatuousness of some editorial ethics policies...

...Certainly anyone who finds it uncomfortable to do exactly as he or she is told is not fit to be a teacher of children who must grow up to do exactly as they are told...

...Kinsley’s article is, in fact, a serious discussion of a serious topic...

...In most states and in the federal courts, the repair of a problem cannot be used as evidence that there was negligence before the repair...

...We would like these cost-of-living increases to be both retroactive and prospective We would like the “caps” of 250 weeks removed from our temporary total and temporary partial benefits (with this cap on, injured workers’ benefits automatically end after 250 weeks, without regard for whether the worker is ready to return to work-for seriously injured workers, this presents a problem...

...that this arrangement would indeed mean fairer competition between trucks and railroads...

...The Case for Moonlighting I usually appreciate your magazine and its cogent critique of the American legal profession...

...LANA R. BATTS Washington, D.C...

...The schedule for these specific injuries in Massachusetts is notoriously low...

...Technology is, after all, invented by engineers, and everyone knows what boring grinds they are...

...There are other areas in which labor would like to see reform where we are sure to encounter resistance from either the business community or the insurance industry...

...However, your comments on truckers (“Tilting at Windmills,” April) echo your days as a knee-jerk liberal...

...And, I am proud to say, the Massachusetts AFGCIO has been instrumental in bringing about this reform...

...If It’s Broke In his article “The Culpability Trap,” published in your February issue, Jack Cloherty recognizes the incentive for neglect created when the repair of a problem can be used as evidence that there was a problem...

...So you are basically suggesting building alternate roads, further destroying the natural landscape and creating additional costs for the consumer, who will ultimately fund the road building anyway...

...We would like to see cost-of-living increases for permanently injured workers written into the law...

...2)While it is doubtless true that people with great verbal and critical skills are sometimes unqualified to comment upon scientific pursuits, scientific discoveries of the basic sort come to be known, if only imperfectly, by the general public, and change human cultural life permanently...

...There are few hard facts to support your passionate illogic that trucks tear up highways...

...And in 1971, Alexander Bickel could have told the Times: “Hold onto the Pentagon Papers until 1977...

...The Supreme Court in February of this year refused to let Connecticut ban twins for alleged safety reasons...

...that “this mess” exists, why don’t you provide some examples that you know are true...

...In defense of the law’s fudging on this matter, I can only say that it is difficult to draw a line here: on the one hand we want to encourage repairs by assuring repairers that their good deed will not be used against them...

...That someone makes an offer to settle a claim cannot be used to prove the claim valid...

...Some Compensation Teresa Riordan’s article on the inadequacies of state workers’ compensation laws (“Adding Insult to Injury,” March) really rang true...

...After reprinting several damning paragraphs from James Stewart’s Wall Street Journal article, you note that “Dershowitz may be innocent, but the fact remains that a lot of law professors are raking in lucrative fees in private practice while neglecting the students they are supposed to be teaching .” It certainly diminishes the power of your argument to have as your only example a story which you openly admit may be inaccurate...

...I am not a smoker...

...That’s the reaction when trying to follow the logic of your item on twin-trailer combinations...

...Lana R. Batts is with American Trucking Associations, Znc...

...And, of course, such grants would also contain mineral rights which the industry could sell after abandoning the highway...

...Rather than a “blue-collar connotation” that leads to the disdain of tech, it is an unwillingness to be associated in any way with those humorless nerds who wear pocket protectors...

...WILLIAM A. HUNTER Cambridge, Massachusetts oops Some future historian will be awfully confused when he picks up a 1948 Chicago Tribune to learn Dewey defeats Truman, and a March 1984 Washington Monthly showing Edwin Meese Ill appointed the US...

...PETER HANAUER Berkeley, California Peter Hanauer is past president of Californians for Nonsmokers’ Rights...

...Some 89 percent polled said they think the truck driver’s overall safety record is as good as or better than the average car driver’s...

...If this were to come to pass, then perhaps we would agree with your final “tilt” in this item...

...The system is extremely litigious...

...Efficient distribution of goods and services is as much an element of national defense as moving tanks from Topeka to Washington, D.C...

...WILLIAM W. HUNT Dayton, Ohio Keep on Truckin’ I’ve always felt your views were reasonable and well thought-out, hence my ten-year subscription...

...B.J...

...3)The median strip does not exist in many interstate highways, especially in major metropolitan areas (viz., 1-295...

...I’m not a trucker, nor do I have interests in trucking, and I hate trucks on the highway as much as anyone else, but there are a few facts to consider before you suggest to the trucking industry that they go build their own roads and leave us passenger car operators alone: 1) Trucks pay substantial taxes for the privilege of using our highways, and, if the tax is not enough to cover the costs of their damage to adequately fund a replacement and repair reserve, increase the taxes...

...The law has also recognized other “culpability traps .” That someone pays medical expenses resulting from an injury cannot be used to prove the person liable for the injury...

...1 am happy to tell you that Ken Cummins’ April article on the cigarette makers and their accomplices in the press was quite simply the best piece of its kind that I have ever read...

...Supreme Court, on two occasions in recent years, has ruled twins are safe...

...Finally, as to the facetious suggestion that the medians of interstate highways be used for truck roadways, it must be remembered that all highway vehicles-cars and trucks-have paid for the roads with their fuel taxes...

...A recent industry survey shows that 71 percent of automobile drivers are no more afraid of trucks on the highway than they are of cars...

...It wasn’t funny...

...on the other hand we don’t want to lose valuable evidence of negligence...

...The most seriously injured worker slips through the cracks...

...The American Trucking Association has proposed to establish a monitoring project to protect the trucking industry’s investment in highways...

...Nevertheless, Kinsley despises Cockburn’s stance on the Middle East because it rubs against the Kinsley/Peretz “Israel uber alles” ideology...

...In my three years as a student at Harvard Law School, 1 didn’t see much evidence of “this mess” or of any positive correlation between the teachers who can’t teach and are indifferent to students’ needs and those who take on outside legal work...

...The rest of the nation had allowed twins for decades, and federal statistics reveal that twins are just as safe as a typical tractor semitrailer...

...Twins” are mandated by the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982 (STAA), which also increased the federal fuel tax on motor vehicles (gasoline and diesel) and three other highway taxes paid only by trucks...

...I have seen in the Massachusetts workers’ compensation system many of the ills she mentioned...

...The law has also recognized this “trap...

...PETER K. ILCHUK Key West, Florida “Tilting at Windmills ” must make one dizzy indeed...

...In fact, the US...

...Yes, But Where Are Your Credits in Recess Management 101?’ ” April) You should have learned as an undergraduate that the purpose of the registrar and the bursar was to teach you to cope with the real world...

...2)If they are operating at an overloaded capacity and at excessive speed, then ask who is responsible for enforcing the law: Most truckers have historically been good drivers (and their stops have the best food...

...ARTHUR R. OSBORN Boston, Massachusetts Arthur R. Osborn is president of the Massachusetts chapter of the AFL-CIO...

...In Massachusetts we are attempting to reform our workers’ compensation system...

...HERMAN GORDON Falls Church, Virginia A Lesson for Teachers For shame, Ms...

...You owe Mr...

...If 1,000 deaths a day from cigarette smoking is a national tragedy, then surely the uncaring and (all too often) knowing acceptance of the economic and political power of the industry by so many civic, cultural, and political leaders is a national disgrace...

...1 also can’t see a thing wrong with Cockburn writing a book for Arabs, or with his not advertising the fact, although it might have been appropriate to inform his editor...

...3)Technology is another matter...

...Your simple solution that law teachers devote full time to teaching with an occasional foray outside the ivory tower is no solution, but it would have changed the history of American constitutional law...

...PIKE SEWARD Osprey, Florida After ten years’ involvement in the nonsmoker’s rights movement, I have more than a little experience in dealing with the tobacco industry and the media on the issue of smoking...

...So Kinsley suggests a headline, “Cockburn the Barbarian,” and you irresponsibly agree to print this slur on Cockburn’s good name...

...Trucking operations have more justification to claim their activity is part of the national defense than exists or cars used for Sunday cruises and trips to the hairstylist...

...LUBEROFF Summit, New Jersey The Misunderstood Techie Ted lsaacs makes a valid point about intellectuals in his letter on science and technology (“Letters,” April), but only with several qualifications: I)For intellectuals, substitute literati...

...Because of the impact of weather and the damage caused by freeze-thaw cycles, six Great Lakes states are seeking additional federal funds to maintain and repair their roads...

...Just look at the significant increase in potholes each spring...

...Not only does the government take a part of my tax dollar to subsidize the tobacco farmer, but also a part for health care provided for Medicare and indigent persons who suffer the many illnesses caused by smoking (“The Cigarette Makers: How They Get Away With Murder” Ken Cummins, April...

...AL DANIELS Washington, D.C...

...We’re sorry A1 Daniels didn’t like the joke...

...Cockburn and your readers an apology...

...Workers experience lengthy delays in the settlement of their cases because of insurance opposition and bureaucratic inefficiencies...

...It strains the imagination to link the use of twins with an increase of accidents on the Washington, D.C., Capital Beltway since there have been no accidents involving twins on theBeltway...

...4)The Interstate Highway System was built as a “National Defense” project...

...N.M...

...In fact, the best teachers 1 studied with were people who were very much involved in outside activities...

...In the years that I have been active in this area, what has saddened me even more than seeing the consequences of smoking has been realizing how many otherwise socially responsible people are either oblivious to what is happening or are apologists for the industry...