In the Public Interest

The message from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory confirmed that the domestic auto industry, except for maverick Chrysler, was losing interest in making their vehicles guzzle less gasoline. “For the first time since 1974, the overall fuel economy of new cars purchased in the U.S. was lower in 1983 than in the previous year,” the…

In the week before the Democratic convention’s opening sessions, a group of children, age 8 to 13, came to San Francisco to hold platform hearings on neglect and abuse of children. These youngsters were prepared, serious and diligent. They questioned experts in the fields of hunger, child abuse, health, nuclear arms, education, juvenile justice, employment…

The press conference room at the Department of Transportation was jammed with reporters, some of whom had an accurate sense of deja vu. Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole was announcing the automatic crash protection standard — commonly mis-described as the air bag rule — fifteen years after the Department’s first such proposal in 1969. The…

Lee Davis is an insurance agent in Tampa, Florida who one day last April picked up a ringing cordless phone at the home of a friend. As he put the phone to his ear, he heard a very loud shrill piercing noise. His ear has never been the same since. He has serious hearing loss…

The words were not circumscribed enough to be associated with a corporate executive. But on May 21, 1984 in a letter to Donald D. Engen, the new head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the chief of Pan Am, C. Edward Acker was blunt: “The Air Traffic Control problem,” he declared, “has gone from bad-to-worse-to-horrible-to-intolerable.…

What has been considered politically impossible for nearly two decades occurred in just a few days at the New York state legislature. A mandatory seat belt use law was passed, effective December 1, 1984. The precipitating event was the failure of legislation in May to enact a minimum 21 year old drinking age. A vacuum…

The Reaganites have found a new bugaboo and, together with a number of exporting corporations and right-wing ideologues, are whipping up a storm. The object of their hysteria is a mild set of consumer protection guidelines proposed by the United Nations Economic and Social Council for adoption later this year. These voluntary principles are, in…

Washington –So far the signs are not auspicious for much media coverage of Ben Bagdikian new book (released June 1) “The Media. Monopoly”, (Beacon Press, Boston). As the most penetrating, specific and reflective book on both the electronic and print media in many a year, the industry of journalism should be buzzing over its arrival.…

The fish processing ‘industry got away in the late Sixties when stronger federal health laws were passed regarding red meat and poultry products. Lively, graphic hearings were held before Senator Warren Magnuson’s Senate Commerce Committee on diseased and contaminated fish. But the result was a standstill between consumer advocates of mandatory inspection of fish plants…

Sometimes revolutions are neither heard nor seen; they are only felt. Looking at the placid processions during the graduation ceremonies of the nation’s largest universities in recent days, there is no hint of the convulsive changes going on at these institutions. But the American people will feel the consequences of the increasing corporate control over…