Letters
Letters Coked up I was, of course, pleased with John Shelton Reed's review ["Cokelore," June] of my new book, For God, Country and Coca-Cola. I am writing only to correct an error which slipped...
...I believe we owe it to our kids to work together to develop programs that meet their very real needs...
...Ground transportation pre-arranged...
...Los Angeles.CA The author replies: Since Mr...
...That's hardly surprising...
...Levant offers no specific instances of "factual inaccuracies and oversights," I can only point out that success in drug prevention programs is proven in longitudinal studies, not one-shot deals taken immediately after a program...
...How else to move staff and press from event to event to cover the President...
...you I am writing to express concern and dismay over the recent article, "Just Say Nonsense" [Jeff Elliot, May...
...In addition, I and the company I work for paid about $7,500 per year for five years' Social Security...
...A recent Gallup survey of D.A.R.E...
...The travel office—contrary to Cogan's assertion—does not exist solely to feed and care for the press...
...Does the retinue of reporters following the President make journalistic sense...
...For reprint rights for all or part of an article call Carey Jones at (202) 462-0128...
...Conversely, harsher treatment by the media of a presidential candidate may precipitate a much longer honeymoon with the media for the new president...
...Think how much money we could save then...
...It's true that news organizations pay for these perks and more...
...The author replies: My point is that in their stories about the firings, White House reporters repeatedly failed to explain the stake they had in the existing arrangement...
...air mail delivery add $32...
...Darby misunderstands the intention of my piece, which concludes that "there is much to work with" in TFA...
...Since I will continue to work after age 70, the net result will be that I will receive less than $700 per year in Social Security as long as I continue to work...
...MARK P. PETRACCA Professor of political science, University of California Irvine, CA receive, the next step will be to tax 100 percent...
...It also arranges travel for the Executive Office of the President...
...A recent study of Time, Newsweek, and U.S...
...4 The Washington Monthly/September 1993 Out of service That Charlie Peters continues to press for national service is no surprise, but even he should know better than to argue that "it may be the only way we can afford to do what needs doing in health, education" ["Tilting at Windmills," July/August...
...Schorr, I was an outstanding and successful teacher my first year in the under-resourced school where I was placed...
...In Paris, reporters stayed at the equally comfortable Intercontinental...
...Postmaster: Send change of address to The Washington Monthly, Box 587, Mount Morris EL, 61054...
...By bus...
...So reporters, in not writing about $100 flat fares for family members to go along to Santa Barbara or Kenneb-unkport, aren't swindling taxpayers...
...NW, Washington, DC 20009 (202) 4620128...
...LUCILE D. GREENWOOD Sedgwick, ME The media's treatment of a president may be inversely related to its coverage of the president as a candidate for office...
...But if he's going to make those arguments, he should first get his facts straight...
...Like Mr...
...In fact, even after Vincent Foster Jr.'s last note said "The press is covering up the illegal benefits they received from the travel staff," the major media glossed over the allegation so that readers were unclear what Foster was talking about...
...July/August] didn't do his homework...
...Now—to the real point...
...Press baggage is indeed dropped in one's hotel room by the porter, for a porter's fee tacked onto the bill...
...and possessions: one year, $35...
...Without this kind of research, you cannot truthfully claim that a program produces meaningful reductions in the use of drugs, tobacco, and alcohol by children, which was the point of my argument...
...Good Food is More than Food that Tastes Good...
...While I wholeheartedly support the thesis that drug prevention programs need to be held accountable, I have grave concerns about factual inaccuracies and oversights in this piece relative to D.A.R.E...
...Cogan suggests that the press uproar over the firing of the seven-person White House travel office was the whining of reporters with a vested interest in the people who enable them to lead a life of luxury on the road...
...Schorr...
...For Nora and a growing number of chefs around the country...
...If saving money is the key, perhaps we should conscript postal employees, cops, supermarket clerks, and magazine editors...
...The Washington Monthly is indexed in the Book Review Index, Political Science Abstracts, Public Affairs Information Service, the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, the Social Science Index, and Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory and may be obtained on microfilm from University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, MI 48106...
...I was voted teacher of the year by the veteran faculty of the school where I taught...
...Class dissed I was disgusted when reading Jonathan Schorr's disparaging comments about Teach For America ["Class Action," June] and sickened that anyone reading his article could be misled into believing that Teach For America corps members are as ineffective as he suggests...
...Meacham also omits that many affluent seniors land way behind the eightball on Social Security while super-wealthy younger people pay at lower tax rates...
...Of course...
...There is a Customs officer on board the press plane, but there seems to be a good deal worked out: Reporters don't declare, and the Customs official doesn't ask...
...As for baggage, most people don't have the choice of sticking a bellhop tab on a bill that someone else pays...
...Cogan never tells us—but it's all paid by news organizations: the press plane, the ground transportation, the filing room, the reporters' hotel rooms—yes, even their laundry...
...For more information about the nationwide CHEFS coalition and Public Voice's national campaign to reduce America's reliance on agrichemicals, contact us at: Public Voice for Food and Health Policy 1001 Connecticut Ave...
...Future steps will be to take away Social Security from more and more people in the upper middle class, eventually making it only for lower middle class and lower income citizens...
...In fact, it was $100 for that 1892 share, and it would be worth—no kidding—$2.5 billion today...
...Customs forms are handed out, and just as on regular international flights, the declaration is each person's responsibility...
...I have read it and reread it, taking comfort from the knowledge that I am not alone in thinking that Bill Clinton has been unjustly pilloried by the press...
...About those "first class hotel suites": For reporters and all but the highest-level White House staffers, they are ordinary single rooms (often in very ordinary hotels) at a rate negotiated by the travel office—always substantially less than the posted, or "rack," rate...
...Reprints of articles are available to individuals or schools at $2.00 each (prepaid...
...On overseas trips, a U.S...
...Reed wrote: "A $200 share of 1892 stock, with dividends reinvested, would be worth $500 million today...
...Drug Abuse Resistance Education) specifically and drug prevention programs in general...
...This was apparent during the uproar which followed the dismissal—and a further reason for the reporters' outrage...
...The easier the media is on a presidential candidate during the campaign, the harder it will be once the candidate has become president...
...My list of outstanding accomplishments goes on, but without belaboring my accomplishments, the fact is that I, along with hundreds of other corps members, experienced success with the same training as Mr...
...As the White House report on the incident clearly showed, White House staff members who argued for the dismissal of the travel staffers had myriad ulterior motives...
...Thus, Peters is really arguing that a burden too expensive for the entire society to bear should be borne by young people alone...
...occur to him that journalists might be upset that seven people who did their jobs well were summarily dismissed without any kind of due process, their reputations anonymously tarnished by White House staff members whispering allegations of criminal wrongdoing...
...Public Voice for Food and Health Policy and Chefs Helping to Enhance Food Safety (CHEFS) are working to ensure that this federal commitment is realized...
...Bringing energetic, well-educated young people into teaching is a good idea...
...They're swindling their bosses, who are charged excessive fares for the reporters in order to subsidize the bargain rates for spouses and kids...
...For most Americans, access to food grown with little or no chemicals is extremely limited...
...Because she values her patrons' enjoyment, well-being and concern for the environment, Nora works hard to find the finest ingredients...
...1993 The Washington Monthly Co...
...The "mugging" of President Clinton during his first four months in office illustrates the possibility of this hypothesis...
...two years, $66...
...And how about the charge that the travel office helped reporters evade customs duties—whisking their baggage "past customs agents...
...The Customs officer on board has the same authority to question the declaration as he or she would have if the traveler was passing through the "Nothing to Declare" lane at a commercial airport...
...The only thing the travel office ever did about reporters' dirty laundry was convince a hotel to take it in and return it during a five or six hour overnight turnaround...
...Unsolicited manuscripts must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope...
...For Canadian and foreign subscriptions, add $7 for surface delivery...
...farms has grown 125 percent...
...MARK PENDERGRAST Stowe, VT Press sore My heartfelt thanks to you for writing the article "The Bad News Bearers" [Christopher Georges, July/August...
...three years, $92...
...Just whose money is being spent for all of the amenities discussed above...
...How silly...
...All rights reserved...
...Just ask renowned Washington chef, Nora Pouillon...
...National service shifts rather than eliminates costs...
...The editor replies: I hope the burden will be voluntarily shared by men and women of Doug Bandow's generation, all the people who came of age after service went out of style in the late sixties and who have not performed any service at all, especially those libertarians and conservatives who argue that service should be voluntary but who never seem to volunteer...
...Published monthly except combined July/August and January/February issues by The Washington Monthly Company, 1611 Connecticut Ave...
...After all, in the last 25 years, pesticide use on U.S...
...Reproduction by any method whatsoever without permission is prohibited...
...Gray natter While Jon Meacham ["Myth Information," July/August] is intent on seeing that affluent senior citizens' Social Security gets taxed, he forgets that such a program is on a slippery slope that will eventually end up as welfare for lower income people...
...As a person who worked between ages 65 and 70,1 did not receive the over $20,000 per year that I would have had I stopped working...
...has helped them avoid drugs and alcohol...
...GLENN A. LEVANT Executive director Worldwide, D.A.R.E...
...BILL PLANTE White House correspondent, CBS News Washington, D.C...
...I was able to instill a sense of self-worth within my students that they lacked when I began my year with them...
...Mitchell...
...That means food grown with little or no chemicals...
...Many well-documented studies validate the general disparity in the "favorable" and "unfavorable" coverage given to the major presidential candidates during the 1992 primary and general elections...
...No reporter I spoke to denied that their colleagues have smuggled stuff in from overseas...
...For change of address, please provide six weeks' notice and include old address label...
...On presidential trips, the first priority of the travel office is not the press, but the White House staff traveling with the President...
...The Clinton Administration has promised a major new initiative to help reduce pesticide use and promote sustainable agriculture...
...News and World Report, by Emily Bach at the University of California, Irvine, shows that 75 percent of the coverage received by Bush in these three news weeklies was negative, whereas 60 percent of Clinton's and 49 percent of Perot's was positive...
...Printed in U.S.A...
...JOHN DARBY Teach For America New York, NY The author replies: I am sorry that Mr...
...About those "ordinary" rooms: During President Bush's trips to Houston, the press corps stayed in the four star Four Seasons Hotel...
...Do the pay and perks of Washington reporters alter our perspective...
...It never seems to 2 The Washington Monthly/September 1993 The Washington Monthly Editor in Chief Charles Peters Publisher Mary T. Beiro Editors Jon Meacham, David Segal Contributing Editors Jonathan Alter, Thomas N. Bethell, Tom Bethell, Taylor Branch, Matthew Cooper, Gregg Easterbrook, James Fallows, Paul Glastris, Christopher Georges, Mickey Kaus, Phil Keisling, Michael Kinsley, Nicholas Lemann, Suzannah Lessard, Arthur Levine, Timothy Noah, Joseph Nocera, Leonard Reed, John Rothchild, Jonathan Rowe, Walter Shapiro, Scott Shuger, Steven Waldman Editorial Advisory Board Graham Allison, James David Barber, Edgar Cahn, David Halberstam, Murray Kempton, Richard Reeves, Hugh Sidey Assistant to the Editor Pam Matthews Production Managers Carey Jones, Sridhar Tallapragada Advertising Directors Jennifer L. Schindeler, Seth Engel Interns Jennifer Elsea, Daniel Franklin, Spencer Freedman, Maia Garau, Alan Greenblatt, Elizabeth Karpinski, Jennifer Levitsky, Genevieve Murphy Proofers Nancy Ayala, Gladys Banta, Elise Berkman, John Kalajian, Linda Macintyre, Jack Shellenberger, Valerie Worthington Subscription rates: U.S...
...Laundry and dry cleaning "taken care of...
...That saved the Social Security system $100,000-plus...
...Send correspondence concerning subscriptions, undelivered copies, and changes of address to Box 587, Mount Morris IL, 61054...
...While the new law will tax 85 percent of the benefits, up from 50 percent, that affluent senior citizens Plante's punch Reporter Dan Cogan ["More Champagne, Ms...
...What we've yet to understand is why the media may overreact, positively or negatively, as Georges shows it has with Bill Clinton...
...NW, Suite 522 Washington, DC 20036 (202) 659-5930 Nora Pouillon, Chef/Owner Restaurant Nora, City Cafe September 1993/The Washington Monthly 5...
...Back issues, $4.50...
...graduates in all 50 states conducted just last month shows over 90 percent of students indicated that D.A.R.E...
...Cogan does raise some good questions...
...JERRY STEINMAN West Nyack, NY How D.A.R.E...
...DOUG BANDOW Senior Fellow, Cato Institute Washington, D.C...
...ISSN 0043-0633...
...Customs officer always travels on the press plane...
...Second class postage paid at Mechanicsburg, PA...
...I am writing only to correct an error which slipped through in the galley proofs upon which he based his review...
...Schorr, I was also a charter corps member of Teach For America, but unlike Mr...
...But a swindle's a swindle...
...However, the fact that fully one-third of the corps quit teaching before completing their two-year commitment suggests that my experience was not unique and that corps members could be better prepared...
...I aided my students in doubling their standardized test scores...
Vol. 25 • September 1993 • No. 9
