Tilting at Windmills
Peters, Charles
TILTING AT WINDMILLS The licensing game is one of the great modern American rackets. Groups of so-called professionals get together, hire lobbyists, and persuade a legislature to let them...
...Since Mississippi law permits a plaintiff to win in such a case, American Brands didn't take long to withdraw its defense...
...The aircraft is also unable to achieve its anticipated capabilities for angle of attack and stability in flight...
...We had conducted some tests on the B-lA, but before the B-1B was built, 41 tons were added to the plane's weight, and several new systems were added without testing, on the assumption that aerodynamic and flight-simulator data from the original test would still apply...
...When you see something that is seriously wrong—like an 0-ring that may fail at a crucial time—you have an obligation to yourself and to your employer to speak up...
...Elsewhere in this issue I apologize to John Lehman for having called him a "gutless" hawk—it usually turns out that the harsh word is the wrong word, doesn't it—so I wish I didn't have to criticize him again...
...Have you read OMB's reason for cutting federal money for distribution of surplus food to the poor...
...TILTING AT WINDMILLS The licensing game is one of the great modern American rackets...
...But I do, this time for persuading Caspar Weinberger to ask Congress for funds to build two more nuclear-powered aircraft carriers...
...Nothing is more destructive of military morale than blatant favoritism, and Lehman has been guilty of it in the case of both Robinson and Napoleon McCallum (see "Tilting," November...
...John Dingell has suggested that it be tested crossing the Detroit River on a cold winter day...
...One of the most common political mistakes is going over your boss's head to a higher-up, whether to complain or simply to communicate an idea...
...The American Medical Association recently announced that in order to "symbolize its own commitment" to fighting unqualified doctors, it will begin expelling any of its 280,000 members who have "engaged in serious misconduct or been found to be incompetent...
...Too bad...
...and ammunition stored inside the vehicle, when hit, was likely to be the major source of crew casualties and catastrophic vehicle losses:' The Army has modified the vehicle in an attempt to meet these problems, but whether it has been successful is not known because tests will not be resumed until the middle of this year...
...What do Admiral Poindexter and Colonel North do all day...
...One test, last October, showed that the Bradley was, in the words of the General Accounting Office, "highly vulnerable to all anti-armor weapons...
...It was miserable work, and she didn't waqt any part of it...
...Most supervisors jealously guard their relationship with upper management and will feel threatened by a subordinate moving in on it...
...Got a license for that easel, pal...
...By the way, fella, you ought to see a doctor about that ear...
...This is further evidence of the 20-year trend in this country toward reducing government services, such as street paving and library hours, in order to give higher salaries to government employees...
...It may cost you your job, but a life you end up being proud of is not going to be one that was free of risk and pain...
...When Burnette visited the site, he saw that the windows had screens...
...A few that were damaged or missing needed to be replaced, but the cost would be slight...
...therefore they want to help him...
...Ballard died of causes unrelated to coal mining...
...bile I continue to support very tough sentences, meaning 20 years or more, for cold-blooded violent criminals who are likely to repeat their misdeeds, I hope Mario Cuomo will reconsider and pardon Jean Harris, not because she is a celebrity, but because the crime she committed was a hot-blooded one...
...That's right...
...The reason Lehman gave for the action is that Robinson "is not physically qualified for unrestricted line officer in the United States Navy...
...OSHA's policy of not inspecting the plants with clean records invites this kind of deception...
...Unfortunately this assumption proved a bit sanguine...
...In case you get the fever, a word of caution: your winnings will be taxed on the basis of the manufacturer's suggested retail price...
...Bill, I decided I would have to iron my own shirts...
...And, according to The Washington Times, there are reports that the plane cannot fly above 20,000 feet, which makes it inferior in that respect to the B-29 of World War II, and that its defective radar-jamming equipment will take two years and $500 million to fix...
...As the IRS learned back in the days when it was efficient, you don't have to actually audit people to keep them honest, you just have to keep them convinced that they might be audited and that there are no tricks by which they can avoid it...
...I'm telling you about this because The Washington Post, in its crusading zeal for the consumer, placed this important story by one of its best reporters, Morton Mintz, on page K-2, where it was sure to have been seen only by those dedicated readers who plow their way through every section of the paper, including the obituaries and want ads...
...An example of the legal skill that is needed to bring this about was recently provided by the lawyer for a Mississippi plaintiff who, when confronted with the tobacco company's traditional defense that the victim had not exercised due care in starting to smoke and had assumed the risk of the results, asked American Brands, Inc., the parent company of American Tobacco, to explain "the specific factual consequences of cigarette smoking which you contend could require an ordinarily prudent person not to smoke...
...He is an outstanding athlete...
...I am happy to report that it is now changing the policy to require inspection of one plant in ten, regardless of how good its record might be...
...It's a great way to prevent unwanted competition, thereby permitting the original licensees, the guys who hired those lobbyists, to control the market and set prices...
...As this magazine has repeatedly pointed out, sometimes these increases have been justified, but far too often they are given to employees who are already overpaid, adequately paid, or not needed...
...Take the case of W.G...
...When I lived in West Virginia, Consolidation Coal was a company you loved to hate: indifferent to its workers, it was known for having its way with legislators and other public officials...
...The fact that he's seven feet tall may mean there is a submarine or two he can't serve on, but surely there are enough jobs in the Navy he could perform over the five years to repay the country for the free education it gave him at Annapolis...
...Unfortunately the last of the 100 bombers will be delivered in April of 1988...
...If you thought the Me Decade was over, consider this radio commercial sponsored by the American Floral Marketing Council: "Give Flowers to Someone Special—You...
...The White House has kept Brady on the payroll at a salary of $77,000 while it has reduced benefits to the children...
...We just launched another of these giant sitting ducks, the Theodore Roosevelt, and are building two more, the Abraham Lincoln and the George Washington, at a cost of $3.4 billion each, every dollar of which will be lost when they are sunk on the first day of any serious war...
...The B-1 bomber and the Bradley Fighting Vehicle testify to the wisdom of this approach to procurement...
...They know Brady...
...And if he happens to work for the government, it could be disastrous for the nation...
...Yet they are supposedly assigned to regular full-time jobs in their respective services, Poindexter as a "special assistant" and North as a "service planning and policy officer...
...There is no danger it will be repeated, so there is no need to protect society from her or others like her...
...Last fall, for example, Consol officials arrived in a black limousine at the office of James McDonald, the Buchanan County, Virginia, medical examiner...
...I can remember when I was a boy hearing my mother say she just wasn't any good at ironing, as she sent my father's suits and shirts off to the cleaners...
...Meanwhile, production continues fullblast...
...Everyone wants to get on and win...
...Burnette, the president of DeVille Aluminum Products, which was the low bidder in 1983 for a contract to put screens on 214 houses at the Quantico marine base...
...It's to provide money for pay increases for the civil service...
...Now we find that in tests of B-lBs, critical problems have occurred...
...About 2,500 of the 6,800 Bradleys that are scheduled to be built have already been delivered, and 5,000 will have been produced before the Army has completed testing whether they can survive attack by anti-armor weapons...
...Knoll contends, among other things, that when John F. Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country," he was "articulating the essence of fascism...
...This suggestion will undoubtedly receive warm support from the Association of Soviet Snipers...
...A few years ago Mike Causey of The Washington Post got together a similar list of titles in the civilian bureaucracy that seemed to promise a relaxed time at the office...
...It was part of a larger story about how companies throughout the country, knowing that OSHA did not inspect plants with good safety records, would conceal accidents and injuries to keep their slates clean...
...According to The Washington Times, they spend most of their time working on their legal defenses...
...I did, that is, until in the process of trying to get through Columbia on the G.I...
...Some punishment was necessary, but isn't five years in prison enough for crimes between lovers and family members where in many cases the remorse of the perpetrator is itself severe punishment...
...This is essential information...
...In support of his point, Knoll quotes a remark similar to Kennedy's by a Mussolini henchman...
...Derailing on the Fast Track" was the title of a recent article in The Washington Post about the way to get a career off to the wrong start: "Even a newcomer to the job often realizes it is politics, not performance that makes the key difference at promotion time...
...The Air Force has requested that testing of the B-1B be extended for 44 additional months...
...In other words, if American Brands was going to prove that the plaintiff was at fault for not knowing the consequences of smoking, it had to admit that it knew what those consequences were and was also at least equally at fault...
...The next month, he found another contract for the same job in his mail, this one for $22,320...
...One can't help suspecting that there are a good many other jobs in the military like theirs, where full-time means a couple of hours a day of passing around memos, with the rest of the time free for other pursuits, such as shooting the breeze, reading the paper, or taking care of one's private affairs...
...If the game shows really want to do right by their contestants, they should give each winner an extra spin of the wheel, with the prize this time being a check to pay the taxes...
...The instructions for the safe operation of the Bradley are likely to give pause to anyone who is acquainted with Murphy's Law and the Army's outstanding record for applying it day in and day out over the years...
...Groups of so-called professionals get together, hire lobbyists, and persuade a legislature to let them control admission to their own profession...
...Those television game shows, like "Wheel of Fortune," where you can win fancy cars, fur coats, and trips to exotic places are very hot...
...for every suit, a verdict of a million dollars or more...
...But national service in a fascist dictatorship is not what Noah is talking about...
...This is so even when it is tested in a flat pond...
...There is a question as to whether there is room enough for everyone in the hatch if they have life jackets on...
...Not physically qualified...
...He had said that a local employee, Bruce Ballard, had been electrocuted in a mine accident...
...The Bradley is supposed to ford the rivers of Western Europe, but it has shown a regrettable tendency to take on water far beyond the capacity of its pumps to discharge...
...Among them were Social Priorities Specialist, Schemes Routing Specialist, Suggestion Awards Administrator, Fringe Benefit Specialist, and Confidential Assistant to the Confidential Assistant...
...The Defense Department, in its zeal to spend our money, has adopted a policy that might be called "Buy Now, Test Later," in which large numbers of widgets and gizmos are ordered before anyone has bothered to find out if they will work...
...They don't know the children and therefore don't care about them or imagine they are welfare cheats...
...The Army has not responded...
...We have now built 31 of the 100 B-1 bombers that we planned...
...Erwin Knoll, the editor of The Progressive, devoted his January column to attacking Timothy Noah's article [November, 1986] advocating national service...
...There's still uncertainty about whether they should wear seat belts and sit down or life jackets and stand up in the open hatch...
...Charles Peters...
...A comparison of the case of James Brady and that of children of disabled parents provides an excellent example of the way Reagan Republicans think...
...You're going to have a hard time finding another buyer in Arkansas, and, when you do, it is unlikely he will pay list price...
...Then the government sued him for $1,215.89 because it had to hire another contractor to do the job...
...I felt sorry for her, thinking the poor woman was embarrassed at her lack of skill...
...Will someone please tell me what public interest this will possibly protect...
...Gonna cost you an extra 20 bucks for painting at night...
...According to The Washington Post, the bomber "pitched up and down across the sky in aerial refueling tests, making operations virtually impossible...
...he supports national service in a democratic country where everyone doing the serving will have a voice in determining the nature and the purpose of the service, or whether to have it at all...
...If its choice of plant is perceived by industry as being , truly random, this may be enough to keep people honest...
...The most recent triumph of the licensing movement came last fall when the District of Columbia city council passed legislation prohibiting individuals without a license from practicing interior design or calling themselves interior designers...
...And even though McDonald stood by his opinion, in which, by the way, the only other doctor to examine Ballard's body concurred, Consol, according to the article, "ultimately convinced a federal agency that Mr...
...The catch is that it may be disastrous to the integrity of the employee and to the well-being of his organization...
...I would not care to be one of the soldiers included in this exercise...
...This is a new policy...
...Suppose you win a yacht, but you live in Little Rock and can't use it...
...Some day a great lawyer is going to break through the wall of judicial indifference to the harm caused by cigarettes and nail the tobacco companies with a judgment that will make them tremble with fear of the floodgate it will open: for every cigarette victim, a law suit...
...The manufacturer recommends that the soldiers ride on top of the vehicle as they cross streams...
...For example, one instruction now reads: "An inadequately engaged fitting could strip out of the Tripod leg and allow the water barrier to collapse and the vehicle to sink...
...While the parallel is less than exact I cannot help thinking of her when I hear Washingtonians say, "We just can't cope with the snow!' The result of this incapacity means that the streets are impassable—and everyone gets the day off...
...But in so doing it may have left itself defenseless and could very well turn out to be the first tobacco company to lose one of these suits...
...It is wise to respect this 'chain of command' at all times...
...Lehman is also allowing the star Navy basketball player, David Robinson, to evade his obligation of five years of active duty so that he can play pro basketball...
...It was obvious they would have liked the cause of death to be something other than an electrocution," McDonald told the Journal...
...The next step will surely be to license artists...
...The cost of doing right can, of course, be maddening...
...Alabama, Connecticut, and Louisiana have been restricting the use of the title of interior designer, but the District is the first to prohibit unlicensed people from working as designers...
...Its reputation has improved in recent years, but Bryan Burrough and Seth H. Lubove of The Wall Street Journal recently discovered that Consol, as it is known in mining country, was up to a new version of some of its old tricks...
...So he sent back, unsigned, the contract for $16,143 he had been awarded and told the Defense Department he could do the job for $200...
...A couple of steamy afternoons laboring over the ironing board told me exactly why mother decided she couldn't iron...
...The article also described an interesting videotaped deposition by Robert K. Heimann, who retired in 1980 as chairman and chief executive officer of American Brands...
...According to Mintz, Heimann said that he "could not recall the board of directors ever discussing the issue of smoking and health...
...This advice is probably sound most of the time in most organizations for people whose main aim is to get promoted...
...Obviously, thinking they must be crazy, he sent it back unsigned, too...
Vol. 19 • March 1987 • No. 2
