Tilting At Windmills

...But did you know that the number of state and local employees is also growing...

...I do not ordinarily believe in exulting in the misfortunes of others, but there are certain kinds of guys who have always gotten away with it who have, at least in the last year, been getting their just deserts...

...Because I grew up in West Virginia and understand how tough life has been for its people and how little they have shared in the prosperity that has been the rule in the rest of the country since 1940, I could only weep when I read this poll that appeared last month in The Charleston Gazette: "The mayor of South Charleston has said he would welcome a plant that makes toxic chemicals in his community because of the jobs and tax revenues it would bring...

...Or did they join the Conservative Book Club...

...Knowing the right restaurants has become so important that The New York Times now gives its restaurant critic $60,000 a year in expense money so that he can be sure to keep its readers up to date on this crucial information...

...This would be a good story for the Post to look into...

...for `medical' skiing seminars and large payments for phony `consultant work...

...There were no children...

...This time Washington came in second...

...Why, with so many well-paid employees, do District residents have to wait in line for four hours to get their cars inspected...

...Nor was there the slightest hint that a liberal arts graduate with a strong substantive major and teaching aptitude might actually be preferable to an education major...

...The problem with all this is that we're creating a social system in which consuming with good taste is the highest value...

...Marie Cuomo and Bruce Babbitt, whom I also admire, will probably encounter similar treatment as they, too, come closer to the presidency, which I think they will in the next few years...

...What happened to cause this dramatic change in political philosophy...

...Either, of course, may be the explanation...

...Craven was too strong a word...

...There were no people over 60...

...One fact most outsiders don't know about the government: federal job applicants who want to work as stenographers and secretaries are not given typing and shorthand tests...

...In Dallas, the Delta pilot was told to slow down so that he wouldn't land on the heels of the plane ahead of him...

...And finally, test passengers—unlike airline travelers—are all sober...

...The hell they are...

...Can't you hear what they would have said to you, "These dedicated men and women are entitled to their privacy—we just can't go around handing their names out to anyone...

...What kind of news is that, you ask...

...Joe Crowley's plane was landing around 5 p.m., the Delta jet around 6. Another possible solution— forgive me, Joe—is to forbid private planes to use busy airports at rush hour...

...For example, the FAA has certified that a Boeing 757 can be evacuated in 90 seconds in the event of an accident...

...If Fido has been lying around eating all day, you can send him to the Doggery, which will, according to the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, "take off extra pounds, build muscles, relax aching joints, and recommend an individually tailored diet...

...Why didn't Grayson hear something like that...

...At the same time, all states still allow unemployment compensation to be paid to people who don't need it...

...When I hear talk from my conservative friends about further tax cuts, I think they're out of their minds...

...You can do better than that...

...In Washington, Charles 0. Starrett, the boss who punished a whistleblower for telling the truth, has himself been fired by the Pentagon upon the recommendation of the Merit Systems Protection Board, which had investigated the whistleblower's case...

...I was flying into Washington's National Airport in a small private plane piloted by my friend, Joe Crowley...

...When we were about 500 feet from touching down on the main runway, the voice of an air traffic controller came over the plane's radio ordering us to switch to another runway...

...Neither can childless women...

...From time to time we have pointed out some of the quainter ethical practices of American physicians...

...An investigation of how this happened revealed, according to the Los Angeles Times, that almost any item in the military inventory can be ordered by anyone with access to the supply system's computers simply by entering a national stock number...

...The good news in a recent report is that there are now 6,056 black elected officials in the United States...

...Well, it seems he was working for the Reagan-Bush Campaign Committee in the 1984 election...

...My guess is that we're going to have to raise taxes, not just because of the deficit, but because of such vastly expensive tasks that loom before us as cleaning up toxic wastes and rebuilding the nation's infrastructure...

...In Chicago, a judge found three corporate officials guilty of murder in the death of an employee whom they knowingly permitted, along with other workers, to be exposed to cyanide fumes in their workplace...

...A test in which there was no smoke, no fire, no panic for fear of death...

...But there is also the slightest possibility that the change was related to the 1983 mayoral election in which the voters of Charleston chose the Republican candidate over the Democratic incumbent...

...As H. Josef Hebert of the Associated Press points out about such a test: "No one is fatigued after hours of travel...

...I f you have ever tried to get information from the federal government, you have probably invested anywhere from six months to a lifetime in the undertaking...

...I was scared, plenty scared...

...See, for example, Robert M. Kaus's article on Hart in September 1981 and our conclusion to the material on the 1984 campaign in this issue...

...Just recently there was the account of how the deputy mayor had approved a $500,000 lowinterest loan to finance the construction of a luxury hotel...

...Did you know that almost two-thirds of this country's unemployed receive no unemployment compensation...

...Why not take it away from them and extend the benefits of those who are in need...

...It will be performed on 1.2 million people this year...

...Charles Peters...

...Another million miles are rated only "fair...

...The results were: 59.3 percent agreed, 27.4 percent disagreed, and 13.3 percent were undecided...

...A recent study compared charitable giving in Washington with that in six other metropolitan areas...

...Instead the education degree was accepted as a kind of Good Housekeeping seal, guaranteeing quality...

...There should, of course, be work requirements so that people don't use the compensation to avoid working...

...California is full of health spas with saunas and jacuzzis...

...Washington came in seventh...

...Speaking of government employees, we've already told you that their number has grown under Reagan...

...Most of the "passengers" were Boeing employees...

...No one can type it...

...Today in Washington and New York it's better to know the right movies, artists, dance companies, and restaurants...

...Those Cayman Island banks are going to have to build bigger vaults...

...Approximately 210,000 miles of highway are rated as in "poor" or "very poor" shape by state transportation officials...

...Today 105 are registered as Republicans...

...It's punishing people for being poor, says one Georgia legislator...

...The Navy has not conducted a "wall-to-wall" inventory at its supply centers in more than 20 years...

...These have all been gratefully received by the American medical community...

...What was the basis for the certification...

...Accountability in such cases has been rare in American life...

...True, but this one is for dogs...

...no one struggles to save prized possessions...

...This is the sober warning of two thoughtful articles that appeared recently in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times...

...In 1983 112 were registered Democrats...

...The problem is that I admire Gary Hart and I tend to have high expectations of those I admire...

...Almost every day a story appears about some action of the District government that has a pronounced tip-of-theiceberg feel...

...This may explain why you haven't gotten that letter of apology the IRS owes you...

...Recently, it was discovered that Iranian agents had gained access to the Navy's $36 billion inventory of weapons and equipment...

...It didn't seem to me that there was nearly enough time or room to do what was asked...

...It should be the rule...

...Last month I pointed out that Robert MacNeil's implied endorsement of across-theboard salary increases would only encourage bad teachers as well as the good to stay in the system...

...The flight attendants knew where to expect every bottleneck because of special training they received in the three days before the test...

...When I read about the crash of that Delta jet in Dallas, I immediately recalled a similar experience of my own...

...Best, Gary...

...This is the most common surgical procedure paid for by Medicare...

...And that's just the civilians...

...No check is made on the legitimacy of orders received by the supply center...

...John Lehman has committed the Navy to a shipbuilding program of such a size that we will not be able to afford the bases, the manpower, the maintenance, and the munitions it will require...

...The speech was not as courageous as I would have liked, but it was still better than most politicians would have made...

...Inducements," according to a report of the House Select Committee on Aging, "have ranged from outright payments of cash to physicians in the form of $50 deposits in Cayman Island accounts for each lens purchased, to 'free stock' in the manufacturers, keys to resort condominiums, yachts, cars, and houses, trips to Colorado, Europe, etc...

...In terms of low quality employees, it is a close call in Washington as to whether the General Services Administration, the Labor Department, or the Small Business Administration deserves the prize...

...Another study compared nine cities in the amount of private money given to the arts...

...This means they sometimes come in for severe criticism in these pages...

...Grayson," according to Aaron Epstein of the KnightRidder papers, "said he turned the tapes over to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which he said paid $1,442 to cover government expenses—about one-fiftieth the cost of similar targeted mailing lists on the commercial market...

...Not long ago I got a note: "Dear Charlie— `Craven?' Really...

...The reason is that in both Washington and New York taste has become the dominant definer of class...

...Nowhere during the five-or six-minute segment was the intellectual emptiness of most education courses mentioned...

...But Joe managed to pull it off, and we landed safely...

...The reason for the change was that a jet was coming in behind us, and if we both tried to land on the first runway, it might have been a tight squeeze...

...Now comes CBS in the form of a report by Eric Engberg on Dan Rather's September 5 Evening News with another terrible idea: "The pool of education graduates...

...This means spreading out flight arrivals and departures so that they aren't all bunched between 8 and 9 in the morning and 5 and 6 in the afternoon...

...It was Gary Hart complaining about my description in a recent issue of a speech he gave to the National Education Association...

...They are forced to work free...

...What none of the stories that I read about the event pointed out was that this wreck—and my close call— could have been prevented if controllers did not have to land so many planes so fast...

...It used to be that you could rise socially by giving charity balls...

...In the Department of Public Works of Charleston, West Virginia 120 people were employed at the beginning of 1983 who are still there today...

...All of you who have ever hired a consultant will surely feel the warm glow of recognition upon hearing these recommendations by a consultant to the University of the District of Columbia: hire more consultants, have more meetings, and engage a "facilitator" to conduct "workshops...

...The loan, according to a news story, "will come from community block grant funds that are supposed to be used to provide jobs, low and moderate income housing, and development in economically depressed areas of the city...

...There is no question in my own mind that Lehman has been wrong in his emphasis on giant aircraft carriers and battleships...

...If it were your community, would you agree or disagree with him...

...What does the Washington lawyer do with all that money he makes...

...I could not believe what I was hearing...

...The government relies on the applicant's "selfcertification...

...They're getting welfare payments, and, if they can work for them, they should...

...I n West Los Angeles, a new health spa, complete with sauna and jacuzzi has just opened...

...But in terms of sold-out cynicism, the Federal Aviation Administration is the clear winner...

...The Times article, written by Bill Keller, whose book . review appears on page 62 of this issue, also questions whether the Navy has neglected building some of the ships it needs, such as "amphibious ships to deliver marines to far-off battle zones, mine-sweeping ships, and antisubmarine helicopters...

...One of the leaders in the public employee field is the District of Columbia, which now has 762.9 employees— just local, not counting federal—for each 10,000 residents...

...Naturally, the manufacturers of these lenses have sought to persuade surgeons to use their products...

...I believe, by the way, that the same requirements should apply to all welfare recipients who do not have pre-school children...

...He buys the right car, vacations in the right place, and hangs the right paintings on his walls...

...A typical sentence from the consultant's report: "One of the most difficult tasks facing the unit is the determination of information needs, thus providing decision framework for deployment and evaluation analyses...

...But when Ellison Grayson of Arlington, Virginia, asked the Department of Defense to give him the names and addresses of 1.4 million servicemen, he got them in two weeks...

...The District's employees receive an average monthly salary of $2,338...

...Didn't anyone on the staff of the Evening News know better...

...The fact that people close to the mayor are crooks (his former girlfriend was getting out of jail as his exwife was going in, both for crimes committed while close to him) may not be conclusive as to his own guilt, but it certainly is suggestive of certain lines of inquiry that reporters might profitably pursue...

...This meant that when the wind shear drove him downwards he didn't have enough speed to remain airborne...

...The bad news is that this is only 1.2 percent of the total...

...Did everyone start watching The McLaughlin Report...

...New York was not included in either study, but my guess is that it would have scored much as Washington did...

...In Philadelphia, a federal grand jury has indicted a top General Electric official and two former high-ranking GE managers on charges of defrauding the Pentagon on a nuclear-warhead systems contract...

...It seems this kind of thing happens enough that, according the Journal, the Social Security Administration has instituted what it calls a "mass-loss procedure...

...Men who have exhausted their benefits can't get welfare in most states...

...Consider highways and bridges...

...Not long ago a friend sent me a clipping from the Atlanta Journal that began, "Social Security Administration officials in Atlanta now think as many as 4,000 July checks are missing...

...This means people, instead of giving, are focusing on acquiring...

...Indeed, it seems to me that the District's government is a veritable treasure trove of potentially revealing news stories...

...The total number of local, state, and federal employees now stands at 16,436,000...

...Either solution would, by the way, help reduce the strain on controllers who are most in danger of getting rattled when the traffic becomes fast and furious...

...This means there are a lot of desperate people...

...During the surgery, a plastic lens is implanted in the eye...

...Three-fourths of the country's bridges are more than 50 years old...

...I am appalled by the arguments against workfare...

...The result, according to the Associated Press is that "more than $2 billion the federal government will pay for cataract surgery this year will be wasted because of kickbacks to doctors, unnecessary operations, and overcharges...

...This could be as damaging to America as the British class system, by disparaging economically creative hard work, was to Britain...

...Pennsylvania, by contrast, has just 380.2 or roughly half the number of the District...

...must grow...

...The quaintest of all may be those associated with cataract surgery...