LETTERS
LETTERS Power to us I read your magazine The Washington Monthly December issue, about Slum Behind the Sheraton, woman with 2,000 eggs in living room. It's my honor that my life was published...
...lbsting his urine would not...
...Savage is wrong about the danger of drug and alcohol abuse among air carrier pilots...
...Punks, as we all know, have no regard for truth in advertising...
...Paul Glastris makes many allegations that are best answered by the ACLU...
...In northern states those wages run higher than the $6 per hour that Mr...
...Dexterity tests can be a help but lack the deterrent value of urine tests...
...Savage is right that amateur pilots are exempt from drug testing plans...
...Glastris so approves will not apply to the amateur (and possibly drunken) pilot...
...Glasser argues that drug testing based on "reasonable cause" is sufficient, pointing out that the train engineer's supervisors could have known, or did know, of his drug problem...
...only to the professional pilot—where no use or abuse has ever been demonstrated as a factor in any accident or incident...
...Glasser is the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union...
...I hasten to say that, as a commercial pilot for a major carrier, I am horrified by the thought of some drunk Cessna pilot intruding in my airspace...
...Dorks I have a footnote to John Eisendrath's account of his brother Edwin Eisendrath's election ["I Was a Chicago Ward Heeler," March...
...Substance abusers think they can pass dexterity tests, but they know the chemicals in their urine won't lie...
...You can't base a winning coalition on "pure redistribution...
...More to the point, however, no provision of the Davis-Bacon Act requires the payment of "union-scale wages...
...He was trying to suggest that the ACLU supports the right to die in plane crashes and train wrecks...
...LETTERS Power to us I read your magazine The Washington Monthly December issue, about Slum Behind the Sheraton, woman with 2,000 eggs in living room...
...In fact, the policy has been dormant for years...
...JOCK SAVAGE Burlingame, California Mr...
...There is an approach to the problem that can satisfy both pragmatic populists and idealistic neoliberals...
...Redefining entitlements as social insurance, of course, will require time, skill, and creative political leadership...
...As a result, the ACLU has not been making a fuss about airport metal detectors...
...and "dork" on Eisendrath's signs...
...Unemployment, illness, disability, and homelessness are, as Suzannah Lessard points out ["Lewis Lapham's Lament," April], misfortunes that can befall even members of the middle class...
...But it does offer the opportunity for a pragmatic program of comprehensive social support...
...That, I'm afraid, is a weakness of drug tests we'll have to live with if we want to save lives...
...Thanks to my good friend writer, Jason DeParle for having a chance to wrote about me and my activities...
...Do we really need to sound the bell for another round...
...But the sad, and true, fact is that the planned drug testing of which Mr...
...Reading Glastris's long diatribe, you might think that active opposition to airport metal detectors occupies a major portion of the ACLU workload...
...JON-HENRY DAMSKI Chicago, Illinois...
...I hope that your readers liked it very much what I am, and what I did...
...Kuttner's recent letter ["Means tests are for meanies," April] restates the familiar argument that the only politically feasible way to provide for the poor is to distribute benefits to the "working class and nonwealthy middle class" regardless of need...
...Responsible reporting ought at least to have noted when the policy was passed and told the reader how often it has been invoked since...
...What about it, Peters and Kuttner...
...However, I must take him to task when he states that "the airline industy is also plagued [by drugs and alcohol...
...Again thank you very much and more power to your magazine...
...Glastris wasn't trying to analyze complex social policy issues...
...Glasser agrees with my criticisms of ACLU policy #270, then why leave it "dormant...
...It is to recast the issue of "entitlements," "conservative perquisites," and "benefits" as a question of social insurance...
...I live on Diversey, the borderline of the 43rd and 44th wards in Chicago...
...Glastris disagrees...
...Defending the ACLU Paul Glastris ["And One That Could Be But Isn't," March] lodges some legitimate criticisms of ACLU positions in a handful of particular cases he selected, but his overall assessment of the ACLU is misleading to a degree that borders on dishonesty...
...IRA GLASSER New York, New York Mr...
...It will not be nearly as easy as Kuttner's politics as usual...
...That's why random drug testing (performed by technicians who don't work with the employees) is such a good idea...
...Wright cites...
...But as a New York Times article reported on January 15, 1987, the engineer had previously been convicted eight times for speeding and had just been arrested by the Baltimore police for drunk driving and running a stop sign...
...Four days after he wrote his letter, federal investigators announced they had found high levels of cocaine in the blood of a pilot of a commuter aircraft that crashed January 19 in Colorado, killing nine people...
...B. VAN DER MERWE New York, New York Mr...
...lbsting people's urine (which in order to be reliable requires someone to watch) is very intrusive, as airport metal detectors are not...
...Testing everyone's urine without cause would have avoided that crash, he asserts...
...Glasser correctly points out that drug tests can't measure when a person indulged, or how his coordination has been affected—although these things can be inferred from the tests...
...With marker pens they scribbled "yuppie" across the face of the gay candidate...
...It's my honor that my life was published and be a famous in United States...
...fag" across Perkin's posters...
...Bringing home the Bacon In an otherwise competent article ["Stop Pandering to the Middle Class," March], Matthew Cooper reveals his lack of awareness concerning federal legislation designed to prevent "those at the bottom" from getting shafted...
...Yet policyholders seldom complain about "redistribution" from lucky drivers to unlucky victims, nor do I accuse my adjustor of applying a degrading means test when he demands receipts from the repair shop...
...My side of the street was plastered with the signs of Dr...
...To our knowledge, that doesn't happen much anymore, if at all...
...As much as I enjoy a good fight, may I suggest that Kuttner and Peters return to their respective corners...
...A Davis-Bacon predetermined wage of $6.84 pe..hour for electricians (Davis-Bacon decision #GA88-14), the "prevailing wage" and obviously not the "unionscale wage," established for public housing projects in selected counties in Georgia, or a Davis-Bacon predetermined wage of $6.68 for laborers (Davis-Bacon decision #MN88-3), again the "prevailing wage" and most certainly not the "union scale wage," established for federal highway projects in selected counties in Minnesota, hardly makes it "impossible to launch programs that would help the disadvantaged ." ROBERT G. WRIGH.T Washington, D.C...
...His lack of candor is again revealed by the statement: "There have been no big commercial aviation accidents," etc...
...In fact, 1 have been the executive director of the ACLU for a decade and never once in that time has the ACLU challenged airport metal detectors in court or even issued a single public statement opposing them...
...While there have been no big commercial air carrier accidents attributable to drugs and alcohol, there are risks to the Americans who take 418 million plane trips each year...
...Cooper, "requires that public service workers be paid union-scale wages," stating that this "makes it all but impossible to launch a public works program that would help the disadvantaged ." The Davis-Bacon Act, in fact, does not address "public service" workers, but rather workers employed on federally financed construction projects (i.e...
...Wright is in the Research Department at the Laborers' International Union of North America...
...Why can't Social Security, AFDC, Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment benefits be seen in the same light...
...There have been no commercial accidents, period...
...The act instead requires the payment of wages which are determined to be prevailing on work of a similar nature in each respective area of the country...
...It is a real search, and no one ought to be subjected to it without cause...
...Policy #270 was passed by the national ACLU board in 1973, at a time when airport searches were, in some places, still highly discriminatory, singling out blacks, people with long hair, etc...
...Amateur pilots probably should be tested along with professionals...
...TITA P. COMODAZ Manila, Philippines Tita Cornodaz was the subject of the December article "The Slum Behind the Sheraton" by Jason DeParle...
...bland appeals to our social conscience need the seasoning of self-interest to pique the voters' palates...
...Those who work on government projects should get a fair wage, but those projects should not become the province of a few lucky souls...
...Glastris also fails to mention that urine testing cannot determine impairment or intoxication...
...In the last alderman election the posters of Edwin Eisendrath and his Opponent, whose name is Bob Perkins, were everywhere across the street from me...
...van der Merwe is a general manager for South African Airways...
...And this kind of redefinition may be the only practical way to avoid redistributing benefits and tax burdens between generations under the guise of "building community and social solidarity...
...Putting an airline pilot on a simulator a half hour before flight would test for impairment...
...Tutu's airline Thank you for the free advertising we received in your March edition ["Tidbits and Outrages...
...It may interest you to know that Bishop Tutu and the Reverend Boesak frequently fly on the International Services of South African Airways because they too, like so many Americans who write testimonials about our service, like to be cossetted in comfort...
...It distributes its payments only to those who suffer auto accidents...
...He cites as an example the Davis-Bacon Act, which, according to Mr...
...Kuttner and Peters: both wrong It's heartening to find that amid the turmoil of politics, at least one thing doesn't change: the Monthly's feud with Robert Kuttner over entitlements...
...He then goes on to state that alcohol was a contributing factor in 10.5 percent of general aviation accidents [emphasis added...
...federal buildings, interstate highways, etc...
...Ron Sable, the openly gay candidate who came within three whiskers of Abe Lincoln's beard of winning...
...To accomplish this, he had to oversimplify some facts and ignore others, a task for which he is apparently well suited...
...That review gave the ACLU the perfect opportunity to drop the policy, but they chose not to...
...for intrusive searches...
...They didn't need a urine test to identify this particular engineer as a problem, and they certainly didn't need to subject innocent people to this intrusive procedure...
...When I interviewed ACLU associate director Alan Reitman, he said that a couple of years ago the Union conducted a policy review of "warrantless searches," of which airport metal detectors are a classic example...
...It seems that Mr...
...Why not just get rid of the policy...
...As his key piece of evidence, he cites the Conrail/ Amtrak crash on January 4, 1987, which resulted in 16 deaths and 174 injuries...
...He begins by spending nearly three pages attacking ACLU Policy #270, which opposes "present and previous systems of airport searches ." He points out, correctly I believe, that the metal detectors through which we all have passed for years are only minimally intrusive, if intrusive at all, and he ridicules the ACLU for making such a fuss about them...
...Matthew Cooper replies: "Prevailing wage" is the correct term, but the GAO found that 57 percent of the time it was based on collective bargaining agreements...
...But Mr...
...We do have nonsmoking, aisle, as well as colored flight attendants...
...Just for the record, we are apolitical and will carry any passenger who is in possession of a valid ticket and visa...
...Was it ignorance or sophistry that led him to equate commercial pilots (where there has been no demonstrated use or abuse of drugs involved in any accident) with the amateur private pilot, general aviation group which has demonstrated post-mortem test results of 10.5 percent as a causative factor...
...But insurance against these catastrophes is not an "entitlement ." My auto insurance company doesn't pay my premiums to previous policyholders as lump-sum benefits...
...Savage is the editor of Bayliner, published by the Air Line Pilots Association...
...Not, as he tries to imply, some or any small ones, involving the use of drugs or alcohol...
...DAVID J. ZIMNY Lansing, Michigan Charles Peters replies: Whenever I spell out my views on this issue, I explain that we should combine all income maintenance programs into one program of insurance against need—with a work requirement for those under 65...
...What his example really proves is that reasonable cause testing often fails because supervisors purposely overlook their employees' drinking and drug problems...
...Paul Glastris replies: If Mr...
...At coffee counters and yogurt shops along Diversey, people are still trying to figure out which label properly belongs to which candidate...
Vol. 20 • May 1988 • No. 4
