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Back in December 1969, several members of the tobacco industry filed a lawsuit against the three television networks to stop the showing of advertisements which state or imply that “cigarettes will kill people who smoke them.” The suit claimed each of these anti-cigarette ads “was false or made with reckless disregard of whether said statement…
Ronald Reagan played “brand-name politics” with the House of Representatives and his budget version won over the Democrat’s alternative. Legislators were asked to vote either for or against Reagan, Madison Avenue-style. Picture the scene. On Friday, June 26, the 435 members of the House of Representatives voted on the Reagan budget without knowing what was…
Rodale Press, Inc., a Pennsylvania company, is giving profit a good name. Last year this successful ‘publishing and research business grossed about $80 million. With that level of revenue, Rodale is increasingly able to get its message across to millions of people. The “message”—of preserving our agricultural resources, advancing nutrition and health and encouraging specific…
I had a suspicion that Victor Navasky, now editor of the Nation magazine, would someday revert back to satiric days of the early ’60s when he ran the Monocle-then America’s only publication of political satire. Victor is starting something called “The Institute of Expertology” whose first mission is to write a book called “The Experts…
To say that rapid change is confronting the $60 billion a year livestock and red meat industry is to put the case mildly. In no other major industry is there a faster trend toward concentration of power in the hands of a few corporate giants. Automation is revolutionizing many older labor skills out of existence,…
It makes a difference to millions of homeowners and businesses who use natural gas whether Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman, is a fighter or just a bully. For the past few months, Stockman has had an easy time picking on disabled people, victims of auto accidents, poor people and undernourished families by slashing modest programs…
You’ve probably not heard of Tony Mazzocchi. But if you are a blue-collar worker, you have more rights and possibly safer working conditions because of Tony Mazzocchi. For 31 years as a rising member of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW), this union vice president has been doing quietly the hard work that…
General Motors is having serious quality control problems with its cars. The giant auto manufacturer’s recent lemon crop is so unsettling that the company’s chief executives have admitted their worries publicly. According to the Wall Street Journal, GM president James McDonald conceded that the X cars are plagued “with uneven doors, shabby paint jobs and…
Casualty insurance companies are usually a pretty bland bunch. But a few have stood out in the past decade. Allstate has crusaded for installation of automatic crash protection (such as air bags) in automobiles, much to the ire of General Motors. State Farm has battled for more competition in spare parts replacement costs. And Aetna…
Two Stanford University scientists have just authored a stunningly graphic book that Interior Secretary James Watt probably will never read. It is too factual, too enlightening and too disturbing for his extremist brand of environmental pillage. Called Extinction, the Causes and Consequences of the Disappearance of Species (Random House, New York), the 290-page volume takes…