Tilting at Windmills
Peters, Charles
Tilting Windmills From our What Politicians Should Never Do department comes this report about a California city councilman, Vic Monia, who is in a hotly contested race for reelection. Driving up...
...Buried in a long Washington Post story about au pairs was this troubling insight from Ann Dotson, a coordinator for Au Pair Homestay, about the...
...This was done just as Humphrey, who had made an incredible comeback since the disastrous Chicago convention and the riots in the streets that accompanied it, had pulled even with Nixon in the polls in late October...
...As for Jacqueline Kennedy, her contribution to Humphrey's defeat was her marriage to Aristotle Onassis in October...
...Instead of worrying about promotions and perks, the new guys just wanted to get the job done and go home____ —Charles Peters...
...It contains details that can only be gained from firsthand experience—enough detail to give reformers evidence on which to base proposals for improvement...
...On a more serious note, I was troubled to learn that one of Columbia's greatest traditions—its core curriculum—belongs on the list of endangered species...
...Humphrey was planning an election eve broadcast that would place the magic mantle of Camelot on his shoulders by showing him walking on a beach talking to the pre-Chappaquidick Ted Kennedy...
...I was invited to speak at the 45th reunion of my class at Columbia...
...There is devastating inside detail about how teachers are wasted, even "yanked out of their programs to box or unbox books, to attend meetings...
...The catch is that they don't admit to themselves that they need treatment when they need it...
...It's also interesting that June opinions, because they are often rushed, are often less sound than others...
...He found only seven of 66 men in top positions had served in the military...
...This is the kind of journalism that can ultimately make government better...
...It's interesting to note that the justices continue to run late even though their caseload has been cut in half since the mid-1980s, meaning that reducing workload has no impact on the tendency to procrastinate...
...Some of the judgments are harsh indeed...
...It is considered unforgivably vulgar for a lobbyist to discuss the bribe with a legislator...
...Contrast them with Franklin Roosevelt, who served for eight years as assistant secretary of the Navy...
...It happened because a lot of people worked very hard to make it happen...
...Back for a moment to the sins of higher education...
...plight of children in a two-career family: "The au pairs come here expecting a warm, fuzzy family experience...
...It describes the incredible fact that New York City has enough public school teachers to provide a student-teacher ratio of 16 to 1, even though the actual ratio is nearly 30 to 1. The article explains that this happens because there are so many teachers in what are called "out-of-classroom" positions...
...On the other hand, the descendants of William Oliphant have been getting away with murder and clearly deserve disqualification...
...I saw a group that looked my age and joined them...
...It seems safe to assume that the event proved equally expensive for Hubert Humphrey____ If you're now in the mood for bizarre electoral theories—or at least are willing to indulge one more—I have still another explanation for the Nixon victory in 1968...
...It was Tricia and Julie...
...Onassis...
...After several minutes of pleasant conversation, I asked about when I was to speak...
...The way to do it is instead of judges making institutional commitments, they should order outpatient commitment, which would allow the mentally ill their freedom so long as they regularly came in for treatment...
...This leads me to some advice for Bill Clinton...
...And the Nixon forces saw to it that the daughters were on television repeatedly during the 1968 Republican convention, particularly when they were joined by Julie's fiance, David Eisenhower, who not only looked like a nice fellow but who carried with him the implied endorsement of Nixon by David's grandfather, who, to put it gently, had not been considered to be among his former vice president's most ardent boosters...
...And why not make alumni gifts conditional on these reforms...
...One of the beauties of the curriculum was that the courses were taught by great teachers—the Mark Van Dorens and the Lionel Trillings...
...They brought a focus on the mission objective and a freedom from bureaucratic rigidity that won the war...
...Everyone at the court dreads the inevitable memo that comes around from Chief Justice [William H.] Rehnquist saying it's time to stop dillydallying...
...At the Commerce Department, there were seven different assistant secretaries for trade development from 1981 to 1991...
...In Nixon's case, I don't refer to the fact that he defeated Humphrey but to the fact that he did so with a dirty trick...
...Something as important as health reform should not be entrusted to existing organizations if you can avoid it...
...When alumni gather for reunions, in the midst of the fun and fellowship I hope they'll devote an hour or two to putting the heat on teachers to teach and on administrators to de-proliferate...
...The Spring 1994 issue of Dames Dispatch, the society's newsletter, contains a list of ancestors who no longer make the cut...
...On the first of June, of the 84 cases on the 1993-94 term, 36 were undecided...
...It was about the dramatic decrease in drunk driving...
...The latest example of one of the worst and most widespread abuses comes from the Charleston Gazette, which reports that from 1972 to 1992 the number of administrators at West Virginia State College shot up twice as fast as the number of students, and the number of faculty dropped 10 percent...
...Kennedy married Mr...
...And where Clinton can't get away with establishing new organizations, he should take a look at what the military did during World War II...
...This means there has to be some kind of compulsion in picking them up and administering the drugs...
...They should all be required to read a book called Teacher in America that Jacques Barzun wrote in 1945...
...Yet as James Sterngold of The New York Times recently pointed out, "The Japanese government has engaged in one of the heaviest waves of market intervention in memory in an attempt to manage the value of the yen and keep Japan's exports flowing...
...One important factor in his climb had been growing optimism about the prospects for peace in Vietnam that was inspired by progress in Paris...
...In making the case I'm handicapped by the fact that so few journalists have done what I have recommended, which means I don't have a lot of models to cite...
...But in many cases, effective treatment can be given on an outpatient basis, often with drugs...
...I arrived at the building where I was scheduled to speak...
...The deals are to be made by staff members...
...The lesson I try to teach young journalists that they find hardest to swallow is that they should devote a few years to acquiring experience in the area they are to cover...
...But it happened...
...What has the legislature done to earn this windfall...
...It will explain to them why they're being stupid and selfish...
...But it would be unfair to say that the members were devoid of a sense of equity and fair play...
...At least 11 of its members and aides have been convicted of corruption since 1989...
...One aide testified that her job consisted entirely of extracting bribes from people who wanted Republican help in the legislature...
...The typical response, when the school employee finally sueceeds in getting the first parent out of a meeting and on the phone, is that the other parent should be called____ ^A/atching a May interview on the "MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour," I was astonished by the unusual candor of HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros' description of the homeless...
...My favorite example of how prayers can be answered is, as veteran readers know, what happened to anti-Catholic prejudice in America...
...And the car was not an inconspicuous Ford or Chevy...
...It is truly a sweatshop at the Supreme Court in June," one clerk told The Washington Post's Joan Biskupic...
...I am not at all certain (hat Hubert Humphrey, if he were still alive, would have mourned the deaths of Richard Nixon and Jacqueline Kennedy, as most Americans seem to...
...But we brought in a vast amount of fresh talent—people who had no interest in permanent military careers—at all levels...
...Don't ever try it...
...The legislator listens respectfully to the lobbyist, who then goes to the staff member's office where the deal is consummated...
...That would be bad for advocates of national reform, but it would be good news for most federal workers...
...When the Clinton administration ordered Japan to guarantee increases in imports of American goods, Japanese officials righteously refused because they say that would constitute interference with the free market...
...Legislative corruption has been so pervasive in Sacramento that, according to the San Jose Mercury News' Gary Webb, "standardized code words" have been developed...
...That the problem is not unique to West Virginia is suggested by the fact that nationally in the 1980s, while faculty has increased by 6 percent, administration grew by 45 percent...
...If they fail to appear, they would be picked up, taken to a clinic, and given the appropriate treatment...
...The article, though unsigned, was clearly written by someone who knows what he or she is talking about...
...People who work in elementary schools tell me that their most depressing and desperate moments come when they are trying to persuade parents to come pick up a sick child...
...and the North Vietnamese...
...But a recent front page story in The New York Times reminded me that we should never lose hope, that things can get better...
...I realized then that I need to change that 40-watt bulb over my bathroom mirror...
...The Republicans saw an opportunity to turn this plus for Humphrey into a mortal blow to his hopes by getting Thieu, the South Vietnamese president, to issue an angry statement that made clear he was not going to go along with the agreement that, ironically, was essentially the same deal the Nixon administration made with the enemy four years later...
...I'm delighted, therefore, to call attention to the item called "A Little Class" in the June 6 New Yorker...
...Instead of handing out the usual liberal line that the homeless are victims of economic conditions and a shortage of housing, he said that a third of them are mentally ill and another third are substance abusers...
...Actually, Humphrey was such a generous man that he might still have grieved sincerely, but there is no question that he would have been justified in holding a grudge against both of them...
...From the CCC and the WPA in the thirties, to the OPA in the forties, to NASA and the Peace Corps in the sixties, new organizations have brought vitality to important missions...
...With the post office, so much union and management stupidity has become the accepted way of doing things that change for the better will not come easily...
...During just one 18-month period in 1991-92, three different persons served as assistant secretary for post-secondary education...
...And the Republicans were similarly outraged when the Democrats got payments that were not also made to them...
...I have been amused—sometimes maddened—by a similar hypocrisy among American conservatives who proclaim their eternal devotion to the free market while demanding that the Federal Reserve intervene in that market to protect their bonds____ A couple of months ago, I wrote about how state legislatures procrastinate, postponing much of their business until the final day of session...
...He had Madame Anna Chennault, a Chinese woman who married an American general and became prominent in conservative Amerasian circles, arrange to have the South Vietnamese sabotage the Paris peace talks that they were carrying on with the U.S...
...It is no accident that the most effective president of the 20th century is the only one to have served long enough in the executive branch to understand its ways____ The California legislature, already one of the most generously compensated in the nation, recently handed itself a $20,000 raise, meaning that members will now receive $72,000 in salary plus an expense account of $21,000...
...But what conceivable military situation could develop that would require that many carriers...
...What they find is a situation where you have two attorneys, and they're never home by 10, and the au pair has responsibility for some very needy children...
...The real reason for the carrier is that each requires a large group of supporting ships that creates what is called a "flag command," meaning a job for an admiral...
...Now, they are taught by young instructors...
...When Robert Kennedy was alive, he told Jackie, when she mentioned that she and Onassis were getting serious, that this wedding would cost him 500,000 votes...
...After all, they cost him the election in 1968...
...Why not encourage them with a letter...
...If you plan to cover Washington, for example, work for a while in a government agency and learn what it's really like and what the problems are...
...Two senators, Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, are, according to Congressional Quarterly, "questioning the need for the carrier and considering measures to block it...
...But it is harder to make progress using existing institutions...
...Even where, instead of answered prayers, we see the reverse, as in the case of the Chicago post office scandal described in this issue, we should remember that the institution can work because it did so at least through the thirties, forties, and fifties, meaning it can be made to work again...
...This attractive young pair, the casual observer felt, could not possibly belong to the family of a crook...
...One requirement for membership in The National Society of the Colonial Dames of America is an ancestor who lived in an American colony before 1750...
...They said, "What speech...
...Driving up to a meeting hall full of voters, Monia decided to park his car in a space reserved for the handicapped...
...For some this will require reinstitutionalization...
...In the interim, 15,316 American soldiers were killed and 111,016 were wounded...
...The society is cracking down on those who try to slip through the door with dubious forebears...
...But if the liberals want to be truly humane and actually help the homeless resume normal life, the need for mandatory treatment must be confronted...
...Even Miss Manners would be impressed by the standards of etiquette that are observed...
...The assemblyman was immediately suspicious and his aide told the agent, "Our members will not talk about money and legislation in the same breath...
...That change is no accident...
...It works this way: The lobbyist is ushered into the legislator's office where he makes his case...
...Democrats demanded that they be paid as much in bribes as the Republicans were getting...
...The joke among lawyers, observes Biskupic, is "that if an opinion is especially difficult to follow, it must be a June...
...My 1949 class was meeting down the hall...
...more than a few are ensconced in the district or central office and never see the inside of a school...
...Pity the plight of descendants of such now disqualified close cases as Benjamin Reynolds, born January 4, 1750, and Hugh Giles, born January 13,1750...
...Play the middle" describes the negotiation carried on by the legislative staff member who actually makes the deal...
...In fact, the book should be required for every professor in every university, because the problems at Columbia exist throughout American higher education____ The uncertainty of the Clinton administration on national security matters may be explained by a recent study of senior White House officials conducted by John Wheeler, a Vietnam veteran and West Point graduate...
...And finding suitable slots for admirals is one of the main unstated goals of the United States Navy...
...Help" means the bribe and "someone who has been helpful" is the payer of the bribe...
...Some years back there was a study that showed that during the 1970s, cabinet appointees at the assistant secretary level had been turning over at a rate of one every two years...
...The argument for the carrier is based on the theory that we need 12 carriers...
...One FBI agent nearly blew a sting operation when he asked an assemblyman if his $2,500 check was "big enough...
...A "player" is someone who makes or takes bribes...
...If you have doubted our repeated assertions that the Washington establishment is indifferent or hostile to health reform because its members are already well-insured and don't want to risk reform that would produce a better deal for the majority but a lesser one for them, please ponder these words from The Washington Post's "Federal Diary" column written by Mike Causey, the most authoritative spokesman for Washington's civil servants: "[Rostenkowski's] legal battles could slow the progress of the president's health plan...
...It was a Jaguar, and a red one at that, readily identifiable by his constituents as they left the meeting____ The largest single project item in the fiscal year 1995 budget, the one Congress is currently considering, is the new nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that would cost $5 billion, 3.6 of which would come from '95 funds...
...TTie reason is that senior professors don't want to teach, or don't want to teach introductory courses, or don't want to teach interdisciplinary courses that take them away from their cherished specialties...
...It went from vicious in 1960 to practically non-existent in 1963, because of the incredible combined impact of John Kennedy and Pope John XXm...
...The situation hasn't gotten much better since then, according to a recent report from the General Accounting Office, despite the fact that the Reagan-Bush years provided an opportunity for greater continuity...
...We had to use the old Army and Navy...
...And it can only be written by those who know what they're talking about____ As one grows older, the case for optimism becomes harder to make...
...A good part of that magic vanished on the day Mrs...
...They, it seemed, belonged to the class of 1969...
...In a single day in 1991 the Rhode Island legislature passed 122 bills, some more than 30 pages long...
...The Dames have learned he wasn't born until 1850____ I learned something about the psychology of the elderly this spring...
...In other words, most of the homeless don't need another housing project—they need treatment...
...Study the evidence from the Gulf War and you'll realize how small a role they played in the only major conflict in which we have been involved in the last 20 years...
...Obviously, these people don't serve long enough to learn the ropes...
...If you want important tasks to be done well, establish new institutions to perform them...
...This is why liberals have consistently opted for the housing solution to the homeless problem: They simply don't want to face the need for the seemingly illiberal solution that compulsion constitutes...
...In case you didn't know, the United States Supreme Court is guilty of a similar offense...
Vol. 26 • January 1994 • No. 7
