In the Public Interest

The ups and downs of consumer protection efforts during this century teach an important lesson. Reforms don’t last. They either get appealed, as have many states’ unfair interest-rate laws, or they go unenforced, as have many tenants’ rights laws, or they find their regulatory agencies tied up in the spider webs woven by corporate law…

Noting that “these days, the business of birth starts early with the cutting of the umbilical cord,” consumer advocate Ralph Nader has asked the American Hospital Association to urge member hospitals to keep commercialism out of the maternity wards. In a letter to AHA President Dick Davidson and Board Chair Fred Brown, Nader wrote that,…

There used to be a time when big corporations were worried about rebellious and anticorporate students on university and college campuses. Rallies, teach-ins, boycotts, and other forms of protest took on corporations for polluting, discriminating, exploiting consumers, backing military dictatorships, and other misbehaviors. In 1970, Earth Day events involving nearly 2,000 colleges shook and exposed…

THE LOCAL ARTICLES describing the life of George L. Sherwood, who passed away at age 82 on July 28, were accurate and kind but could not do justice to this remarkable resident of Winchester, Conn., for his profound contributions to local democracy. The civic fiber of local communities has always relied on a small number…

The virtual-reality marketplace of the Internet is booming with sales. Transactions between businesses are in the tens of billions a year. And retail revenues are also in the billions already. Economic forecasters are predicting that the first annual trillion dollars of sales will be reached in two or three years. If more and more people…

For years, consumer activists have asked Al Gore to reverse the U.S. policy of punishing developing country governments that tried to make essential medicines more affordable for sick people. And Gore ignored the calls. Matters suddenly changed on June 16 when a small group of AIDS activists began clamoring and demonstrating at events by Vice…

It’s a dream media world for Ralf Hotchkiss. When he travels around the United States, television crews meet and follow him. Hordes of reporters attend his events and press conferences. He is on the special invitation lists for the White House, Park Avenue and Beverly Hills extravaganzas, including the Academy Awards Gala and Presidential Inaugurations.…

Ever wonder why radio generally has become so canned, flat and insipid, bereft of local news, and stuffed with commercials, mercantile values, and the same old, tired junk? Not to mention the downright offensiveness of Howard Stern and the other shock jocks? First, for years, more than 90 percent of all radio time is composed…

The first-ever Congressional hearings critical of corporate welfare the hundreds of billions of dollars given annually in subsidies, bailouts, giveaways, tax escapes, etc. were held June 30th by House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich (R-Ohio). And most of the major media organizations did not show up. But C-SPAN did and relayed a remarkable array of…

It happens week after week in the nation’s capitol and often goes unnoticed by the media. After suffering a family tragedy, due to a preventable act of corporate negligence a group of Americans find one another in their grief and travel to Washington, hold a press conference with a supportive safety group, and visit their…