In the Public Interest

Chicago: Strolling through the walkways and inside the giant United Center, where the Democratic Party convened last week to nominate the Clinton/Gore ticket, one has to recall Shakespeare’s title Much Ado About Nothing Fifteen thousand members of the media, hundreds of corporate hospitality occasions and a couple thousand Party delegates came together to observe a…

Corporate over-regulation of the daily lives of Americans is growing fast. With business lobbies focusing relentless attention on government regulation, which after sixteen years of Reagan, Bush and Clinton is in a state of slumber, isn’t it time to take a look at corporate regulation? Corporate regulation, as any small business franchisee knows, is imposed…

Can the late evening television news get any worse? I put this question recently to some television news reporters who rolled their eyes and together said “not much worse.” Three national consulting firms have convinced most local television news executives that the formula of pursuing tragedy (street crime and natural disasters) and trivia (chitchat, fluff…

The slash and burn approach of the 104th Congress has produced a long list of foolish, counter productive and, often, dangerous cuts in the federal budget. But, few top the irresponsibility of the budget cutters who have applied a blunt meat axe to the General Accounting Office (GAO), the only full-time non-partisan watchdog over waste…

Remember when the energy crisis was page one material and every politician had to take a position regarding this national urgency. Not any more. You hardly hear anyone in public life mention the issue. Certainly Clinton and Dole are not campaigning on any proposals. Well, except for gasoline lines, the reasons for the nation’s concerns…

The feisty British Safety Council (BSC) is not like its counterpart, the corporate-cowed National Safety Council in this country. There is and has been one reason for the difference — a World War II veteran by the name of James Tye. The focused Tye, the flamboyant Tye, the indefatigable Tye built, ran and inspired the…

Frosty Troy and his wife Helen B. Troy are the editor and publisher of the Oklahoma Observer– a long-time progressive, twice monthly newspaper that speaks the conscience and interest of the people against big business and their political toadies. Beyond matters relating to Oklahoma, this paper has about the best collection of progressive writing and…

The atomic power industries in Japan and the United States are drawing the Indonesian government into a radioactive trap. They are offering to sell Indonesia nuclear reactors from Westinghouse and Mitsubishi. Taking the lethal bait thus far, the Jakarta regime plans to build twelve reactors by the year 2015. Here they go again! There has…

Former citizen activist, Miles S. Rapoport, now Connecticut’s elected Secretary of the State, has produced an innovation worth the attention of all other government officials and people running for office. It is called “Report on the State of Democracy in Connecticut.” (available free from the Secretary of State, 210 Capitol Avenue, Hartford, CT 06106). In…

In September of 1993, Wesley J. Smith and I wrote a book titled Collision Course: The Truth About Airline Safety We made a large number of recommendations based on official crash investigations, technical specialists inside and outside the industry whom we interviewed and the many insights of pilots, maintenance workers and flight attendants. All their…