Tilting at Windmills
Peters, Charles
TILTING AT WINDMILLS You may have missed the curiously contradictory editorials about Vernon Jordan that appeared on successive days in The New York Times. The first took a severe view of the...
...A gourmet meal complete with vintage wines was served by white-coated waiters in an elegant executive dining room...
...Each time they got the same recording...
...They proceeded to hang up and try again—and again and again for the next five hours...
...A 58-year-old man died when his car burst into flames shortly after crashing into a utility pole...
...Many items in this column have since been devoted to more TRAGIC MOUNTAINS THE HMONC, THE AMERICANS, AND THE SECRET WARS FOR LAOS, 1942-1992 Jane Hamilton-Merritt ?Hamilton-Merritt, scholar and photqjournalist, has followed the t plight of the Hmong, America's allies...
...Maybe the recent United Way scandal along with the revelations about Blue Cross will convince people that society should establish a system to scrutinize these organizations...
...The convention was held in—where else—Las Vegas...
...What they heard was a recording that said their call could not be completed, "please hang up and try again...
...Although this superintendent may be a dedicated genius worth every penny, the average American public school superintendent is a person of modest talent who has been recommended by other modest talents who are part of a network that rewards one another with jobs for which they also serve on the selection boards...
...fair and accurate...
...Why had he used the term, the officer was asked...
...It now seems to be accepted that the Kennedy forces stole the election with the help of the Mafia...
...A friend of mine who heads a government agency tells me of two astonishing discoveries during her first year on the job...
...The superintendent of a Long Island public school district recently retired...
...But the suspicious are finding they have a little problem in trying to prevent burrowing in...
...It is only true in one sense: I do believe if the election could have been bought, Joseph Kennedy would have tried to buy it...
...So, what are they doing...
...It seems that once a Bush appointee has applied for a civil service job, according to OPM rules, "political affiliation may not be used to discriminate against an otherwise qualified candidate...
...Here's what happened, according to an eyewitness account in The Washington Post: "The first guy to come with a fire extinguisher, it was empty...
...For years, we have been trying to persuade our fellow citizens that the federal pension system may be a tad too generous...
...Imagine piling the $60,000 it takes to keep a Peace Corps volunteer in the field for two years on top of the $100,000 cost of four years at Harvard...
...If you happened to see HBO's scathing portrait of Joseph Stalin—the one with Robert Duvall—you will be as delighted as I was to know that the Russian ambassador to the United States was the host for a special advance showing of the film at the Russian embassy here in Washington...
...Sometimes, to guard against lapses of memory inside the voting booth, they would hand the voter a slip of paper with the names of "slated" candidates...
...Garvey has written a page-turner, showing government from the inside...
...Gerald Garvey in Facing the Bureaucracy does for bureaucracy what Anthony Lewis in Gideon's Trumpet did for the courts and Eric Redmond in The Dance of Legislation did for Congress...
...To the best of my knowledge what actually happened is that he spent not more than $300,000 where the average gubernatorial candidate at the time spent $500,000____ A further observation on the subject...
...The victim was conscious after the crash and was trying to extricate himself from the car before the flames could envelop him...
...A possible solution: Make long-term loans for college conditional on having served...
...Top Blue Cross executives also receive, according to The Washington Post, "an annual allowance of $7,000 to $14,000 to use as they please for such things as health clubs, golf memberships, tax preparation, or health insurance...
...That was 50 years ago, but the sad fact is that similar attitudes persist in police forces all over America...
...fc/very time there is a change of the party in power in Washington, suspicions arise as to whether officials of the outgoing administration are trying to "burrow in" by getting civil service positions from which they can't be fired (as usually happens to officials of the departing administration who were political appointees...
...Although vote fraud by the Lever Brothers and others did occur in some counties, the most common use of money in West Virginia politics in 1960 was to pay for drivers to ferry voters to the polls on election day...
...They are refusing to sign a labor contract that is otherwise highly favorable to the union's members, until they are assured that all 550 days will be allowed as paid leave...
...The other emergency vehicle not only didn't have an extinguisher that worked, it didn't have one at all...
...During the trip, they would praise the candidates supported by the organization for which they 4 The Washington Monthly/January/February 1993 worked...
...First, she couldn't use volunteers, because of federal personnel regulations, even though they were competent and obviously less costly than paid civil servants...
...I am beginning to suspect history...
...The Mafia had no power in the county...
...I was in high school, we held one of those events when high school pupils took over the offices of the city government for a day...
...The headline for the program for the Democratic Leadership Council's December dinner to honor its former chairman, Bill Clinton, was "Celebrate the New Democrats...
...In case you missed the recent revelations about how Washington's Blue Cross executives have been spending your money, let me help you count the ways...
...Charles Peters THE JOSSEY BASS PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION SERIES Gerald Garvey Facing the Bureaucracy LIVING AND DYING IN A PUBLIC AGENCY Gerald Garvey provides a fascinating look inside the federal bureaucracy and offers insights into the forces, personalities, and politicking that make changing governmental institutions so difficult...
...gripping...
...nt&iii...
...The real chief took me on a tour of the station and introduced me to the other officers...
...His severance pay was $960,000...
...The recipient would still have to repay the loan, but, if he's given 40 years to do so with a bearable percentage of his annual income, the democratic objective—making higher education available without regard to the student's or his family's wealth at the time he enters college—would be attained...
...The Humphrey forces gave $10,000 to the other...
...Today, for example, we are supporting Iraqi Kurds and Turkey's campaign against Turkish Kurds...
...If these are the new Democrats, my advice is head for the hills...
...engrossing...
...The first took a severe view of the conflict between his duties as co-director of the Clinton transition and his role as a director of RJR Nabisco, manufacturer of Camel cigarettes...
...Last year the fellows took a total of 550 days off...
...If we did buy the election, it certainly was a bargain...
...The latest example comes from Peoria, Illinois, where a local cop was found to be using the word "nigger" in handling a dog that was a member of the police department's canine program...
...Although the state's politics were far from pristine—in one county the Lever Brothers were identified not as the detergent manufacturers but as a local family that was especially adept at manipulating voting machines—I never heard any knowledgeable local politician contend that more than a few percentage points could be bought on a statewide basis...
...Between the third and fourth floors, the elevator stopped...
...Over the years, America's policy toward the Kurdish people has been characterized by contradiction and betrayal...
...Donald F. Kettl, La Follette Institute of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin February 1993 ISBN 1-55542-502-X About 240 pages $25.95 (tentative) At better bookstores or order from Jossey Bass Inc., Publishers 350 Sansome Street • San Francisco, CA 94104 415...
...Kennedy won the clean precincts by a substantial majority, having gotten little better than an even split in the organizations' precincts...
...Two emergency vehicles, which are required to carry fire extinguishers, arrived...
...John P. Burke, department of political science, University j|f Vermont "Exceptional exposition 6%theoretical issues...
...Those factions controlled the precincts where unsavory practices sometimes occurred...
...When we returned to his office, he said, "Son, would you like to see how we take care of niggers...
...We gave $12,000 to one of the county's two main factions...
...For example, a recent study by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council shows that, in the case of coronary artery bypass surgery, higher costs do not necessarily produce better results...
...The book is crafted with uncommon care, in a style that is easy and approachable...
...One example is the West Virginia primary in 1960...
...Here's just a partial roster of the dinner's sponsors: American Bankers Association, American Trucking Association, Boeing, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Dow Chemical, General Dynamics, General Electric, General Motors, GTE, Martin Marietta, McDonnell-Douglas, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Occidental Petroleum, Pepsi-Cola, Philip Morris, Phillips Petroleum, RJR Nabisco, Texaco, and the Tobacco Institute...
...To "fire up" the dog, he replied...
...433.0499...
...fascinating and compelling...
...Nothing...
...Peter Arnett, CNN News 602 pages, 50 b&w photos Cloth $29.95 At bookstores or credit card orders may call: 1-800-842-6796 INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS January/February 1993/The Washington Monthly 5 serious misbehavior among these supposedly good guy organizations, and we published an article entitled "The Profits in the Non-Profits...
...The hospital that charged the least had a lower death rate for this operation than the one that charged the most...
...Their intellectual level is suggested by the main speaker they selected for one of their recent conventions, George Steinbrenner...
...John J. Dilulio, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University "A fascinating insider tale of attempts at organizational change...
...Bill Clinton's plan to give students a free college education in return for national service is, as we have pointed out, going to cost more than the nation can afford...
...Finally an operator answered...
...In 1960, those drivers were paid $25 for this day's work...
...I began to question my previous assumption of purity in the world of non-profits...
...I remember having had many long arguments with its president, who was a friend of mine, over the relative merits of our two candidates...
...A grimmer example occurred recently here in Washington...
...It is a story of continuing courage, brutality, heroism, J|betrayal, resilience, and hope...
...Is it possible that this about-face is related to the fact that the chairman of RJR Nabisco is on the board of The New York Times'} I'm not that cynical, but I do think that the cigarette companies are evil and that neither Vernon Jordan nor The New York Times should be proud of their association with them...
...Where was Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly during all this...
...The four officials of the police union in Schenectady, New York, collectively get 450 days of paid leave each year to take care of union business and—you know you're in America now—to attend conferences...
...I was head of the Kennedy campaign in the state's largest county...
...His retirement pay will be $150,000 a year unless his severance pay is included in the retirement base, in which case, according to The New York Times, "it could double the pension to about $300,000 a year...
...Most of the time we think that the more we pay the more we get...
...The second, seemed to say that, on second thought, Vernon Jordan is a splendid citizen...
...The final Kennedy margin in West Virginia was 60 to 40...
...Often a leader in Clinton's position will use social recognition as a way to recognize those faithful supporters he does not intend to reward with important jobs...
...In addition to the X-rays and surgery you thought you were paying for, you are also subsidizing a luxury skybox at Baltimore Orioles games, courtesy tents at the Preakness in Baltimore and at the International Gold Cup in Virginia's hunt country, frequent trips on the Concorde and other jets to such destinations as London, Paris, and Singapore, and conferences and vacations at Palm Beach, Florida, Pebble Beach, California, the Greenbriar, and the Homestead...
...In the early seventies, I was invited to lunch at the National Geographic Society...
...The real reasons for Kennedy's victory in West Virginia were 1) the support of Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., which meant that God's son was saying it was okay to vote for a Catholic, 2) the mass distribution of the Reader's Digest article about Kennedy's wartime valor, which supplied convincing evidence of his patriotism, and 3) the fact that Kennedy was more impressive than Humphrey in their television appearances, especially during the crucial final week of the campaign...
...They picked up the emergency phone...
...He was receiving a salary of $220,000 a year...
...No, the AFL-CIO supported Humphrey...
...Such stories feed my anxiety that few of the things that are supposed to work when you need them will function properly when the time comes...
...Out of town on vacation...
...But such precincts were a minority in the county...
...But this is not always true...
...and the war in Indochina since the 1960s Tragic Mountains moves from the big picture of international diplomacy and power politics to the small villages and, heroic engagements in the Lao...
...He pushed the button and it just went pfffff...
...Here is a book for the professional, the student, or the concerned citizen who wants to know how bureaucracy really works—and why it doesn't...
...Incidentally, the response of the Peoria city government to this episode was gloriously typical of bureaucracies: They suspended the dog and kept the officer on active duty...
...jungle...
...He must have thought I nodded, for he proceeded to open a door revealing a closet full of bloody garments...
...I was chief of police...
...For those not yet convinced, we offer this evidence: Of the members of Congress who are retiring this year, three senators and 13 members of the House will, assuming they achieve their life expectancy, receive more than $2 million each in pension payments...
...I especially like the last one: Knowing their organization as they do, I bet they didn't waste their money on Blue Cross...
...a Thanksgiving Day, a family got on an elevator in a Baltimore office building and pushed the button for the fourth floor...
...In other words, the accepted version of history is wrong...
...Did it operate through the unions, as some suggest...
...What I mean is that history seldom gets right the events that I happen to actually know something about...
...He seemed to like me and his tone became increasingly confidential...
...William E. Colby, former Director of the Central intelligence Agency the untold story of a secret war fought for America by a brave uncomplaining people rewarded only by "ii: dispersal, defeat and humiliation...
...He had kept them there as souvenirs of the beatings he and the other officers had given blacks...
...As parties are being given by and for the members of the new administration, I have a word of caution for the people who scrutinize the guests and hosts to determine who are likely to be appointees of the new administration...
...Second, the General Services Administration required her to take office space through the GSA at a cost of $500,000 a year even though she had found a satisfactory building on her own for only $120,000____ In the same week, an independent budget analyst revealed that the District of Columbia would be running out of money within a year and might have to be placed under a federal receivership and The Washington Post published a harrowing account of the incompetence in the District's public housing program...
...433.1767 • FAX 415...
Vol. 25 • January 1993 • No. 1
