In the Public Interest

My big red elementary schoolhouse is scheduled to be demolished after 88 years of faithful service to thousands of children. Big Red is structurally solid and architecturally of classic, many-window design. It needs renovation which is what many communities do so well these days. And as the Connecticut Department of Education architect put it: “Generally,…

On June first while reading the New York Times, I came across a full page advertisement by a group called “Alliance for New York City Business.” The large headline trumpeted: “one of the World’s Top Economic Powers Isn’t a Country.” I read on to learn that “It’s New York City.” The evidence for this eye-catching…

The other day the Wall Street Journal had an article with the headline: “Advertisers Put Consumers on the Couch.” It seems that Madison Avenue’s motivational researchers, says the Journal, “increasingly feel they must put consumers on the couch and play shrink.” Penelope Queen, director of research at the giant Saatchi ad agency, was more specific:…

The news from the Third World is so often dominated by reports of wars, revolts and famines that Americans can easily come to the conclusion that little else of note goes on there. But in the midst of the poverty and anguish of millions of human beings, there are strivings within a sprouting consumer movement.…

Washington, DC — I had occasion recently to cast an absentee-ballot. The town, where my vote had to he sent, left very little time for obtaining the application, returning the form, receiving the ballot and sending it back by the late Saturday election day deadline. Express mail service was in order. Which one to choose?…

On Capitol Hill when one thinks of the word “indefatigable” one thinks of Rep. Claude Pepper who, at 87 years of age, presents a mixture of strategic energy and perpetual motion on behalf of elderly Americans. As chairman of the House Select Committee on Aging, he holds shocking hearings and releases hardhitting reports on the…

The burgeoning pay of corporate chiefs is making news these days -­as on the cover of Business Week and page one of the Wall Street Journal. The news is not just the huge, record spiral of executive compensation but the contrast of these annual riches with their workers and what is happening with the economy…

Nature tends to boomerang on its abusers and the oceans are no exception to this historic principle. For decades humans have been pouring their wastes into coastal waters directly and through run-offs. And recently, the ozone depletion trend due to CFCs and other gases in the stratosphere is making usually calm scientists alarmed over the…

“American schools are going test-crazy,” writes the New York Times education editor, Edward B. Fiske. He elaborates: “The scores emerging from those sheets full of X’s and penciled-in circles are increasingly being used to promote and hold back students, hire and fire teachers, award diplomas, evaluate curriculums, and dole out money to schools and colleges…

Oftentimes, putting two and two together is obvious but never done. Putting the hundreds of billions of dollars of the taxpayers’ purchasing power together with the achievement of innovative national goals has been often obvious, but rarely does this potent combination of government procurement connect with the stimulation of better products and services. Government agencies…