Tilting at Windmills
Peters, Charles
TILTING AT WINDMILLS S ummit conferences like the one held in Venice in June are becoming like the conventions American businessmen hold. Nothing really happens, but everyone has a nice...
...Hinckley is the kind of criminal I would keep in confinement for life...
...He can hardly run against his friend and fellow Democrat, Tim Wirth, and he would have great difficulty defeating Bill Armstrong, the other senator from Colorado, who is a highly popular Republican in a state where conservative instincts are strong...
...I then checked with my agent in England who told me, "As a matter of fact, old boy, your man in California is absolutely right, the Jaguar is selling like hotcakes...
...The top four in California were all foreign...
...I mention weight because common sense tells you that there is only a certain number of pounds any given plane can keep in the air...
...I was reminded of all this by two recent articles in the Los Angeles Times...
...Another story is headlined "Press Alive and Well in Nigeria" because, as the author explains, it's about the only country in Africa where the press is not regularly censored by the government...
...Charles Peters...
...The one that delighted me most was the ubiquitous bus, usually painted in bright colors, and always seeming one step away from the junk heap, where the seat across the aisle often was occupied by some chickens or sacks of grain and sometimes even a squealing pig...
...But as of today, according to a GAO report, the EPA has placed controls on less than 10 percent of the wastes considered potentially hazardous...
...Have you noticed the fingernails of your Yuppie female friends...
...But to buy it because it impresses other people—because you don't want them to think you're an orthodontist—is absurd...
...This story, which was originally developed by KW...
...Colorado is the site of two of the government's most conspicuous white elephants...
...Sounds a bit like the FDA and those incubators doesn't it...
...THE WASHINGTON MONTHLY of Reclamation is forcing farmers to take water that will triple their crop yields...
...Why am I so intemperate you ask, how could I so depart from my customary spirit of reason and good will...
...Six years later the FDA still has failed to write safety regulations governing incubators...
...I am indebted to William Hines of The Washington Post for reconstructing the dialogue that followed: "Where's my baby...
...He overheated...
...Social security funds have also been used to finance trips by these union officials to a "conference" in Las Vegas and a "seminar" in Acapulco...
...Where is he...
...Tama Jackson of Washington went to the Washington Hospital Center to see her baby who was in an incubator...
...Now, at most, 50 percent of the benefits are taxed...
...It cannot, the report continues, "even say if it is regulating the worst wastes in terms of potential impact on human health and the environment...
...When she asked one man why he was willing to pay $69 a bottle for Dom Perignon champagne-56 percent more than a year ago—he replied, "I noticed the increase but I got it anyway...
...The Navy uses a TDU-34 flying target and its lowest altitude is said to be 250 feet compared to the 15 of the Exocet...
...The top four makes in terms of new car registration nationally were all American last year...
...By the way, if, as seems probable, our means test isn't adopted for the payment of social security benefits, the next best thing is to tax the benefits fully...
...What is the reaction of the crusading reporters...
...He shot in cold blood, seriously wounding people he didn't even know...
...Since my taste buds aren't sensitive enough to tell the difference between Dom Perignon and a domestic champagne costing a tenth as much, I buy the domestic brand and try not to worry about my status...
...Evidence in a suit the Jacksons brought against the hospital showed that the incubator had a faulty off-on switch, a broken thermostat, and an inoperative alarm...
...Navy has nothing to simulate an Exocet...
...What car are people who don't want to be mistaken for orthodontists buying these days...
...ew people realize that while the income tax is going down, or at least is supposed to, the social security tax has increased to the point where, according to a recent article in The New York Times, "in a majority of cases now, workers pay less in federal income taxes than they and their employers do in social security taxes...
...Hinckley has been corresponding with him...
...My greatest regret about the Hart tragedy is his probable permanent removal from public office...
...For pure sell-out the FAA remains the champion agency in Washington...
...And if his employer is in a marginal business, making little or no profit, he may have to let the worker go...
...An Air Force officer says of the building, "Other potential uses are under review...
...Since California is the trend-setter in automotive purchasing, I asked a friend out there what they're driving along Rodeo Drive...
...More important are intelligence, humor, and the willingness to work long hours for low pay...
...Applications should be accompanied by a list of at least three references and by writing samples, not necessarily published but designed to demonstrate fact-gathering and analytical ability...
...Even though the dollar's decline has made imports more expensive than ever, Kathleen Hughes of The Wall Street Journal recently found Californians flocking to buy luxury products from abroad...
...Let Hinckley Go" was the title of a column that Charles Krauthammer recently wrote for The Washington Post...
...An offduty IRS agent and an offduty policeman each driving his own car got into an argument at a traffic light...
...Whether we like it or not, the purchase of the wrong vehicle can mean social disaster or worse," writes Brock Yates in The Washington Post Magazine...
...When James F. Kelly, a senior security inspector for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, discovered incidents of drug and alcohol abuse at the Cooper Nuclear Station in Nebraska, he turned the evidence over to the utility that owned the plant...
...He also might make a good secretary of defense, but I'm afraid the next Democratic president won't be able to face the flurry of Donna Rice photographs that would accompany the appointment...
...If California is the trendsetter, things look bad for the American automobile industry...
...The most disturbing was the press, which was either for sale to the highest bidder, or dominated by the government, or both...
...That seems to me to be the point...
...And we should not become involved in aid for just one side as we are now doing in our plan to escort Kuwait's tankers...
...I just read a story headlined "FAA Puts Lid On Baggage in Airplanes...
...Just set a new production record...
...TILTING AT WINDMILLS S ummit conferences like the one held in Venice in June are becoming like the conventions American businessmen hold...
...I had just returned from a journey on British Airways which has limited carry-on luggage to one per person, so I knew a rational rule was possible...
...5 iron...
...Something happened...
...If so, since most men have advanced degrees in the art of housework evasion, who is going to wash the dishes...
...That would put a nice dent in the deficit...
...Then we can be sure that the event will not take place unless it is of truly vital importance...
...If you could put lunch at the Cipriani and dinner at the Gritti Palace on your expense account, you probably wouldn't either...
...In southwestern Colorado, the Bureau of Reclamation has spent $450 million on the Dolores River Project, which was intended to irrigate 62,000 acres of nearby crop land so that the amount of wheat, hay, and beans grown there would be tripled...
...That is what British naval experts told Peter Almond of The Washington Times shortly after the Stark was hit...
...I will explain...
...It is like the mutual failure to nurture I discussed in the June issue...
...Our reaction to the attack on the Stark puzzles me...
...A married worker with two children earning $8,000 a year will pay $572 for social security this year...
...On the one hand," writes Mark Obmascik of The Denver Post, the Agriculture Department is paying billions of dollars in subsidies so farmers grow less food...
...I was excited—at last the FAA was doing something about all the guys who stagger aboard with their golf clubs, electric typewriters, and three or four bags that look like they're stuffed with bowling balls, placing them in flimsy overhead racks, the doors of which you know would fly open at the slightest turbulence and expose you to decapitation by a No...
...It contained no powers of enforcement . . . . If you've ever been hassled by the police or the IRS, you may take some delight in an incident that occurred not long ago in Montgomery County, Maryland...
...The ultimate example may have occurred in May in regard to a statement made by S. Bruce Smart, the undersecretary of commerce...
...The officer arrived soon thereafter and grabbed the IRS agent by the shirt and began banging his head against a wall...
...There was no federal requirement, as I had hoped, of only one bag of a limited size and weight...
...The Washington Post is used regularly by this vital American industry to express the views of the Association of American Railroads (the voice of the freight railroad industry) to Congress...
...At last, Arlington County, Virginia, is doing what should be done...
...They are almost all carefully manicured...
...It is one thing to run an ad like the railroads...
...F or years I have been maddened by the hiring practices of the public schools...
...One is the Shuttle Operation and Planning Complex near Colorado Springs...
...Why...
...In this way, the social security tax acts as a disincentive to employment...
...What happened...
...The NRC proceeded to rush to action at approximately the same pace we have seen demonstrated by the EPA, the FDA, and the FAA...
...We have enclosed a reprint of the first ad in the Association's new 1987 campaign?' The letter is signed by Nicholas Cannistraro Jr., a vice-president of the Post...
...The shuttle business is not, as everyone knows, flourishing, and the Johnson Space Center in Houston can take on any feasible work load...
...By 1982, according to testimony before a congressional committee, it had become clear that there was a serious nationwide problem of alcohol and drug abuse at nuclear facilities...
...Bundy, you'll recall, is the one who specialized in murdering young girls...
...And the press doesn't object...
...At least two pacemakers have failed, one causing permanent brain damage to its user...
...That kind of person is so self-centered he has no feeling, for other people at all...
...The cold-blooded criminal like Hinckley will, like Hinckley's hero Theodore Bundy, shoot again and again...
...A Senate staff member recently sent us a copy of a letter that he thought our readers might find interesting: "Dear Senator Baucus: The Washington Post wants to thank the members of the 100th Session of the United States Congress for their continued support," it begins, continuing with a paragraph that deserves careful perusal: "It is because of your readership that The Washington Post has been selected as an important communications link between the nation's legislators and America's freight railroad industry...
...A year and a half later, the investigator, who was by then manager of the fitness-for-duty program, was arrested for possession of drugs and for being under their influence...
...Yet we respond by announcing that we will protect the tankers of Kuwait, an ally of Iraq, an action that seems to be directed against Iran, and is explained by us as really designed to guard against Soviet expansionism...
...He gave the material to the utility's district investigator who also was responsible for developing the utility's fitness-for-duty program...
...During my seven years of traveling for the Peace Corps, I was struck more by the similarities of the countries of the Third World than by their differences...
...If, on the other hand, The Washington Monthly's plan were adopted and social security were financed through the income tax, neither the low-wage worker nor the profitless employer would have to pay anything...
...So will his employer...
...One about the Mexican press: "A front page story favorable to a ministry can mean cash for the reporter...
...Yet you realize no one weighs carry-on luggage, and passengers have brought aboard, as Matthew Finucane, safety director of the Association of Flight Attendants attests, "truck tires, even a drive shaft from a BMW...
...On the other hand, the Bureau A JOB We soon will have an opening for a reportereditor...
...We could, perhaps should, help out on the basis that all nations have an interest in preserving the freedom of the seas, but we should not have to bear the whole burden and then have to endure more lectures from the Japanese and Europeans about our deficit...
...Both men were arrested...
...Is it possible that like the Chinese mandarins who used their long nails to communicate that they were above manual labor, these American women are telling the world that they are above housework...
...A few agencies don't pay bribes...
...Indeed I am told that these women often pay as much as $30 per nail for reconstruction to create that perfect look...
...Sometimes the public statements of government officials have to be disavowed by their agencies...
...But the baby was missing...
...n 1981, Mrs...
...The kind of criminal who should be let out after serving a reasonable time is, as I tried to point out when I wrote about Jean Harris a few months ago, the hotblooded killer, the one who acted out of passion related to one person, the kind of crime he or she will not repeat...
...To buy a foreign car or a foreign wine because you really like it is fine...
...In August 1982 it issued a proposed rule for fitness on duty...
...Desirable qualifications include practical experience working in or writing about politics and government...
...If Europe and Japan want to protect the oil being shipped to them, not us, from the Persian Gulf, let them do so...
...By 1990, he or she will have to pay $612...
...Ordinarily they select new teachers solely on the basis of paper credentials, with an occasional personal interview thrown in...
...I disagree completely...
...Social security would be paid for by the individuals and companies who could afford to pay for it and given not to the affluent but only to those who need it...
...And it's not just foreign cars the Californians are buying...
...In July 1984 it approved publication of the rule—but said the staff should first ask the utility industry if it would prefer to devise its own rules...
...He's not here...
...Smart was not speaking for himself or for the Commerce Department...
...Many," according to the Times, "try to avoid working a non-paying beat...
...The crewmen of the USS Stark had not been trained with a realistic simulation of an Exocet missile attack...
...Here's how The New York Times reported what happened next: "Desiree 'Ricker, a Commerce Department spokeswoman, said later that day that Mr...
...The cop pulled out his police badge and told the IRS man to "hold it...
...If they were all taxed the Urban Institute estimates more than $11 billion in additional revenue would be raised annually...
...He went directly to the police station where he lodged a complaint against the officer...
...They're auditioning, letting the applicant demonstrate whether he or she has the ability to teach in a classroom...
...Arturo Durazo, the former Mexico City police chief who is on trial on extortion charges is said to have asked reporters into which pocket they would like the money deposited, the right or the left...
...People like it because it's statusy...
...His weird side did not keep him from ranking among the top ten senators in both brainpower and originality...
...Nothing really happens, but everyone has a nice time in a nice place...
...There are 1,100 medical devices like incubators and pacemakers for which the FDA is supposed to write standards...
...But on closer reading, the story revealed that all the FAA had done was to tell the airlines that they had six months to establish their own limits on the size and number of items that can be carried aboard...
...His British sources told Almond that the U.S...
...It costs $70 million and it is empty...
...He is almost as unlikely to regain his seat in the Senate as he is to be elected president...
...it is quite another to give the paper's implied endorsement to the ad with a letter such as this...
...The child died...
...Nothing came of the investigation...
...The only solution I can see is for the UN to pass a resolution saying all future summits must be held in either Buffalo or Liverpool...
...This is too bad, because, while Hart as president may not have been a good thing, Hart as senator was a very good thing indeed...
...The burden is, of course, worse for those who can afford it the least...
...I think it would be a splendid idea to have European ships patrolling the Gulf with the Japanese paying the bill...
...Lee and Michael Otten of The Sacramento Union, has been confirmed by Isaiah J. Poole of The Washington Times...
...The cost to the social security fund was $4.4 million last year and will rise to $6 million this year...
...The IRS man, instead, made a U-turn and sped away...
...It is truly bizarre that other school systems don't do this...
...The answer was Jaguars...
...In August 1986 the commission finally adopted a policy statement on drugs and alcohol...
...And the figure is rising...
...Nobody wants to be MOM...
...The incubator had overheated...
...Did you know that social security funds are being used to pay the salaries of 74 employees of the Department of Health and Human Services who spend all their time working not for the government but for a labor union...
...The missiles that damaged it were launched by a plane belonging to Iraq, not Iran or the USSR...
...The industry liked that idea a lot...
...The man from the IRS pulled out his gun and said "I'm a federal agent...
...Yates warns that, while the Porsche 911 Carrera was "once the ultimate sports icon," it is now "beginning to fall into the gold-chained, divorced, orthodontist crowd...
...The FDA says it doesn't have the money to hire the staff to write the regulations...
...Ten years ago, the Congress told the EPA to regulate the handling of hazardous wastes...
...Intensive care...
Vol. 19 • July 1987 • No. 6
