Tilting at Windmills

...Q V—" peaking of the need to recruit good people, it is important not only at the top, but as we have often stated, for jobs at the middle and lower levels of civil service as well...

...At Columbia, which I attended after the army, it seemed to me that a considerable percentage of the English department was gay...

...Sounds pretty awful, doesn't it...

...And although there is less fat in these top positions than in the middle of the bureaucracy, there is still enough to warrant a search for jobs that can either be eliminated or consolidated...

...We have had to continue to lament, however, the slow emergence of a similar approach to government bureaucracy...

...New directions in social legislation are often the result of leadership from the public at large...

...Wouldn't you be dancing in the streets if your health insurance covered everything besides these items...

...Sad scenarios like this are played out every day all over the United States...

...Pensions are even worse...

...T A wo Washington police officers were recently suspended for allegedly having collected overtime for court appearances they did not make...

...As for the media problem cited by Boggs, free television and radio time for both incumbents and challengers can be required of stations as a condition of the licenses granted by the public...

...The greater scandal, as any participant in our judicial system can tell you, is the tremendous waste of overtime paid to officers who legally spend hours waiting around courtrooms for appearances that are delayed because of the infinite variety of inefficiencies in a system that is run for the convenience of judges, court administrators, and attorneys, and with almost total disregard for the public interest...

...Or suppose you're a Virginian who read last month that legislators were debating whether it was unreasonable to limit handgun purchases to one a month...

...In addition to that story, there have been other causes for concern which have come to light in the last few months...

...I am delighted by recent headlines like "EPA in Sad Shape, New Boss Testifies" and "Clinton Study Finds HUD Mismanaged...

...Why else d^es the paper refer to David Owen as Lord Owen and Cyrus Vance as Mr...

...No sooner had I complained in our last issue that nothing had been done about excessive layering in the federal bureaucracy than Secretary of State Warren Christopher announced that he would trim as many as 40 of the 100 or so deputy assistant secretaries at the State Department...

...Incumbents almost always outspend challengers, not the other way around...

...Guess what sentence he got from the Japanese court...

...To those who think gays must undermine the masculine image of the military, all the members of the military who are Washington Redskins fans should know that Jerry Smith, one of our most valuable players from 1965 to 1977, was gay...

...Ask for Introductory Packet F. THE HEMLOCK SOCIETY U.S.A...

...But that the Post has not exactly gotten the whole story of what's wrong with the culture at the OMB is suggested by the absence of any mention that the budget agency does not encourage its examiners to do the kind of interviewing that would reveal, for example, that mid-level S&L examiners knew that inflated real estate appraisals were the basis of too many loans, which meant that the loans weren't going to be repaid and that the government would have to bail out the lending institutions...

...That some progress is being made is indicated by another recent Post headline: "Remaking a Culture at the OMB," which ran over an article that described the low value placed on truth at the agency under Richard Darman...

...But health care for government officials isn't the biggest way taxpayers are being ripped off...

...While I'm at it, I might as well grind my other axe, or to be more precise, discuss my other major point of advice to the Clintonites on how to make Washington work...

...ARobert McNamara gets a pretty good going over from John Ralston Saul in this issue (See page 50...

...We seldom have a kind word to say about congressmen, so I'm happy to report that House Democrats have finally answered our challenge to anyone who is conducting a conference or convention for an allegedly serious purpose to hold it somewhere other than a fancy resort like the Greenbrier or a glamorous city like San Francisco...

...Because senior executives will become eligible to receive much higher pension benefits beginning in 1994, roughly 3,000 of them—with salaries ranging from $92,900 to $115,700—are expected to retire...

...The State Department, the editorial said, "cannot be accused of having a do-nothing senior management," nor are Foreign Service officers "some kind of ineffectual 'cookie pushers' and action blockers...

...This headline dominated the left side of the front page of the Sunday, March 7 New York Times: "Patients Footing the Bill Amid Canadian Cutbacks: Spending Outstrips Government's Ability to Pay...

...By the way, you should know that the health insurance program for government employees covers pre-existing conditions...

...To the best of my recollection, these facts, or to be more accurate, possibilities, were a source not of indignation, but of amusement to us students...

...And IRS auditors, who in the sixties were covering 5 percent of all taxpayers, are now auditing only 1 percent...

...A well-informed study...

...Hemlock is the leadership group in the Death With Dignity movement...

...A reader recently wrote asking why there has been so little publicity about the General Accounting Office study that found we could save $67 billion by adopting the Canadian health system...

...I never felt threatened...

...The truth is that most challengers would get down on their knees and praise the Lord if they had the same amount of money to spend as the incumbents...

...All of which explains why you should ask your congressman why you should pay for his coverage when he's not voting to cover you...

...And some press reports about the Canadian system have been misleading...

...Aiwb Perspective "a provocative discussion of Arab phenomena...

...There are revealing insights into the current state of medical practice in America and the virtues of volunteerism in this comment from Leonard Olmstead, a surgeon who is doing volunteer work in Somalia, about his private practice in New Jersey and why he left it...

...After a year or so, once the new cabinet member has had a chance to put his stamp on the place, he's certain to become unwilling to acknowledge the slightest flaw in what is now his agency...

...The OMB was slow to find out about the scandal, and once it did, the White House was able—because the press hadn't been covering the story—to postpone giving the bad news to the public until after the 1988 election...

...Do you recall the 6 The Washington Monthly/April 1993 teacher who killed a 15-year-old girl by closing a heavy iron gate on her head when she was late for school...

...Box 11830 Eugene, Oregon 97440 TEL: 800/247-7421 the early forties, is now a retired admiral...

...And they should identify fancy titles that disguise self-aggrandizing sinecures and interfere with getting things done by requiring still another set of initials...

...A recent study by the General Accounting Office confirmed that government recruiting efforts at the nation's colleges "have been most notable for their absence...

...Write or call today...

...A candidate for the Illinois legislature spent $210,000...

...The same goes for Mothers Against Drunk Driving...

...Take their attitude towards tardiness...

...It's a scramble for money, it's competition with the next surgeon...

...The negativeness of the initial Republican response, totally devoid of constructive alternatives, was nothing less than shameful...

...Sometimes one detects in The New York Times an embarrassing combination of snobbery and Anglophilia...

...I said there was a girl in the living room I'd like to meet...

...Not bad...

...Legislative races should be run on shoe leather—getting out and getting to know the voters—instead of spending vast sums to propagandize with manufactured television commercials and junk mail...

...There is a Hemlock chapter near you...

...Medical technology works overtime, even when the body can't go on...

...For example, the taxpayer's annual contribution to each congressman's pension plan, according to Money magazine, is $26,289...

...You can learn more about Hemlock...

...You've saved lives...

...The reason I'm pleased is that many new cabinet members, in order to gain the loyalty of the civil servants under them and to protect their budgets, almost immediately become defensive about what's wrong with their new agency...

...That doesn't take into account your contribution to the Capitol Hill clinics and Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval Hospitals, where members of Congress are treated...

...That at least appears to be the lesson revealed by the news that self-employed physicians earn an average of $46,600 more than salaried doctors...

...A New Yorker could easily have fallen prey to that feeling when he picked up the paper and read that his fellow citizens were debating whether it was wise to limit medical residents to an 80-hour work week...

...a Florida candidate spent $880,000...

...Does your insurance, if you have any, do that...

...But this is such a company town that Christopher, instead of being hailed as a great hero of the people's struggle against the bureaucratic empire, was warned by an editorial in The Washington Post to proceed "with care...

...Some city detectives, according to The Washington Post, make more than $100,000 a year, mostly from court overtime pay...

...Barbara Aswad, President, Middle East Studies Association THE ARAB WORLD Society, Culture, and State by HALIM BARARAT $30.00 at bookstores or order 1-800-822-6657 University of California Press Clinton has a great opportunity to transform the public service...

...And two things are certain...

...Economic Aid Robert F. Zimmerman Zimmerman demonstrates that U.S...

...One of my favorite stories illustrates just how easy...

...When I ran for the West Virginia legislature in 1960,1 spent $400...

...Having taken a stand that is pro-gay, I'm going to take another that I'm sure many will regard as hostile toward gays...

...Not bad at all...

...As for franking privileges, they should be taken away from incumbents except for mail sent to answer letters from constituents, and not be allowed for the propaganda leaflets and brochures that now flood the mail, burdening both the taxpayer and the mailman...

...What incumbents do now, with the dedicated assistance of the Tommy Boggses in Washington, is intimidate potential opponents by raising more funds in advance of the campaign than the challenger can hope to get...

...This year the Democrats held their annual retreat in Baltimore...

...Of course, there are some marvelous people in the Foreign Service...

...Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr., a.k.a...

...ne way to contain health care costs would be to put all doctors on salary...

...several in California spent more than $1 million...

...Admitting them not only risks spreading the disease but will also saddle this country with the bill for taking care of those who develop AIDS while they're here...

...Virtually all of those who stay will eventually get AIDS, and the cost of their medical treatment will not be insignificant...

...one for the Michigan legislature spent $348,000...

...You scramble and scramble to do a hernia or an appendix...

...The Japanese may not be the cruel bullies depicted in movies about World War JJ, like Purple Heart or The Bridge on the River Kwai, but they can be a tad severe...

...Three years probation...

...and its allies located with Iraq the responsibility for evil ¦ 1993 • hc/$26.so Dollars, Diplomacy, and Dependency Dilemmas of U.S...

...Vance...

...I trust the Republicans at this moment are making their reservations at the Days Inn in beautiful downtown Buffalo____ Speaking of congressmen, your annual contribution to each member's health insurance is $3,106...

...In the army, I spent considerable time in a hospital ward that had a gay sergeant on its staff...

...But there are also far too many mediocre officers whose primary interest seems to be protecting their own careers (See "Too at Home Abroad," Harry Crosby, September 1991), and who spend far too much time reading and writing memos and attending meetings of marginal importance...

...political and security objectives...

...The internal system does not work well...

...The S&L scandal illustrates both points...

...How can any rational person think that a doctor who is working more hours than that can possibly perform at his peak or anywhere remotely near it...

...Although I agree with most of what Saul has to say, I do want to express my admiration for McNamara's crusade against nuclear weapons...

...Do you sometimes suspect that you are the only sane person in the asylum...

...CO 80301 • (303) 444-6684...

...This system also includes the vast network of officials such as tax auditors, meat inspectors, and bank examiners, through which it monitors society's compliance with laws and regulations...

...I thought this was better than fighting for a few patients with an established surgeon...

...I don't recall any of us being angered by his tentative and easily deflected approaches...

...The Post and the rest of the Washington journalism establishment, instead of offering blanket defenses of government employees, should join in an effort to determine who really deserves encouragement and who should be fired...

...foreign economic assistance has largely failed to achieve its economic and social development __I goals, primarily because it has been used first and foremost as a tool to promote U.S...

...The percentage was even higher in the theater where I worked during the summer...

...Kirkus Reviews "This book will become a classic...

...One such sign is the news that traffic deaths have dropped to their lowest level in 30 years...

...The Clinton administration should start recruiting replacements now, identifying truly able people from all over the country who will be dedicated to making the president's programs work...

...Although he is generally a political moderate and voted for Clinton last fall, he's livid about the possibility of gays in the military...

...He said, "She's from Mt...

...M ore facts to support Jerry Brown's $100 limit on campaign contributions...

...Ending coverage of electrolysis used for the removal of unwanted hair," and "reviewing coverage" of "psychoanalysis, vasectomies, newborn circumcision, in vitro fertilization, and chiropractic, podiatric, and osteopathic services...

...She is incontinent, racked with pain, unable to drink, eat or even care...

...Bank examiners have been found taking loans from the banks they oversee...

...Sometimes they know about them but hope the public doesn't find out, and this is where the unofficial member of the oversight team—the press—has a crucial role...

...Charles Peters Lynne Bienner Publishers Politics Without Principle Sovereignty, Ethics, and the Narratives of the Gulf War David Campbell Campbell probes the discourse of moral certitude through which, in unambiguous ethical terms, the U.S...

...Ralph Nader, you have done something...

...Yet back at Charleston High, we had two male teachers who were widely assumed to be gay and a male janitor who was even said to have propositioned some male students...

...Although it sometimes seems that man can't get his act together and learn from his experiences how to act with wisdom, there are occasional signs that one or two of our collective dim bulbs have brightened perceptively...

...A proud moment for RJR Nabisco, the manufacturer of Camel cigarettes: A survey of 12- to 14-year-olds in Chicago junior high schools found that nearly 75 percent preferred Joe Camel ads and most of them said that when they smoke they will buy Camels____ One of my oldest friends, dating back to Charleston High School in When Death is Preferable To Life Someone you love is dying...

...Your campaign for safer cars with seat belts and airbags has paid off...

...It is to attend to what I call the System of Oversight, by which I mean the combination of OMB, GAO, the various inspectors general within agencies, and the congressional oversight committees through which the government monitors its own performance...

...One evening at a party given by Jack Kerouac, he took me into the bedroom and showed me photographs of Arab boys in various states of sexual abandon...

...Aiwb WorW ™X...

...You've changed people...

...Nor for that matter does it include the $1,100 paid by the member which, since it comes from his $129,500 salary, is also paid by you...

...That stock, even assuming implementation of all arms reduction treaties, is not likely to be reduced below 10,000 in the next decade...

...I felt my own version of his concern after watching CNN's Charles Bierbauer interview Senators Rockefeller and Chafee on health care reform for 30 minutes and only ask about the Canadian system in the last 30 seconds...

...Who needs to buy more than one gun a month...

...Tommy Boggs, long one of Washington's top lobbyists, recently argued in The New York Times against campaign spending limits on the grounds that they "would protect incumbents blessed with name recognition, franking privileges and free media time...

...Yet common sense tells us that all that is really needed is for the current nuclear powers to retain a total of 100 to 200 warheads to protect themselves against nuclear blackmail by nations developing such weapons secretly or against threats by one another...

...He should not bungle this opportunity as he did the chance to get his government off to a fast start by not having his sub-cabinet appointees ready on January 20...

...1993 • hc/$42.00 • pb/$ 17.95 An Institute for the Study of Diplomacy Book 1800 30th Street • Boulder...

...The grieving family looks to medical professionals for answers that may never come...

...But while our national leaders are soul-searching about what is good for the rest of us, why don't they offer the rest of us what they already have...

...In Oregon, whose Secretary of State, Philip Keisling, supplied these figures, a dozen candidates have spent more than $5 a vote, or the equivalent of spending $500 million in a presidential campaign...

...Of course, there are flaws in his plan—and this magazine will be busy pointing them out in coming months—but even with the defects, it is the fairest and most sensible economic program that has been offered to this country in a long time...

...Vance when consistency in the use of honorifics would require The Honorable Mr...

...William Avis of Hampton, Virginia, recently wrote The Washington Post's Mike Causey: "I don't begrudge good health coverage to anyone...

...As for external auditing and examining, the recent meat inspection scandal is just one example of its importance...

...I wanted to be where I was needed...

...The police do not rebel against the waste of their time because they profit from it...

...In fact, the overtures that were made were absurdly easy to turn away...

...I think Bill Clinton is wrong to lift the ban against HIV-infected aliens...

...Yet if you read beyond the story's scary beginning, you find that the Canadian system "is supported by 85 to 90 percent of the population" and that "95 percent of all Canadians reported receiving the care they needed within 24 hours" at a cost of $1,915 per person compared to the $2,868 spent in America...

...So this is the one time that the administration can feel free to come clean, and for the rest of us to ask questions that push it in the right direction...

...Airy, North Carolina, and works for the United Press," and escorted me into the living room and made the introduction...

...As the former secretary of Defense points out in a recent op-ed in The New York Times, worldwide there are about 40,000 nuclear warheads with a total destructive power more than a million times that of the Hiroshima bomb...

...Why take on this burden when there are so many others we have to bear...

...8 The Washington Monthly/April 1993 Having pioneered the application of anthropology to modern bureaucracy, we at the Monthly have been both proud and delighted to have much of the rest of the press join us in recognizing the importance of culture in understanding what goes right and wrong in private bureaucracy—a headline in The Washington Post, for example, declared "Anthropology Inc.: The Scientists of Culture Help Business Discern Corporate Rites and Wrongs...

...So to my friend the admiral and to all the other worried fellows in the military, I say, relax, it's no big deal...

...But the beginning of an administration, when the blame can still be pinned on predecessors from the other party, is about the only time problems can be frankly admitted...

...To disprove such charges, the editorial cites two notably skillful career diplomats...

...Too often, people at the top in the White House and Congress don't know about problems until it's too late...

...What are the cutbacks being proposed...

...The result is a $114 billion a year gap between what taxpayers are required to pay by law and what they actually pay...