In the Public Interest

Think of the images associated with the modern semiconductor industry, most prominently associated with Silicon Valley in California. Workers with white gowns, head coverings and gloves manufacturing chips in a well-lighted, dust free workplace replete with the latest ventilation systems are the pictures which come to mind. Now a report has just been published in…

Senator Jennings Randolph (D-WV) has one more wish before he completes his four decades in the U.S. Congress at the end of this year. He wants to see the Congress enact legislation establishing a United States Academy of Peace. The burly lawmaker started in the House of Representatives in 1933. He has seen the effects…

All over the country the Bell operating companies want you to pay for your local telephone service on the same basis that you pay for long distance telephone calls. Instead of the “flat rate” monthly bill that most residential customers receive, these telephone companies are planning for local calls to be measured according to how…

The House Judiciary Committee is in the midst of hearings inquiring about the low quality of competition in the insurance industry. Forty years ago this powerful industry rushed through Congress a law called the McCarran-Ferguson Act, without any public hearings, to exempt the insurance industry from the federal antitrust laws except for actions of industry…

Owen Bieber, the new leader of the United Auto Workers (UAW), denouncing the huge bonuses which the top auto executives are receiving. He thinks such big bucks are going to make his members more demanding when the UAW opens contract negotiations the the auto companies in July. The bonuses are big — by any standard.…

There are over 12 million students at colleges and Universities and over 99 percent of the national television time devoted to them covers their athletic activities. A Martian visiting this country would conclude from the televised athletic contests that higher education is dribbling, throwing and batting and very little. But there is much more that…

David Grubb is one of those citizen advocates who does not give in easily. As executive director of the West Virginia-Citizen Action Group (1324 Virginia Street, East, Charleston, West Virginia 25301), this young lawyer has spearheaded a successful grass roots, legislative drive to contain the staggering increases in natural gas prices. West Virginia has the…

Standing before the giant cooling towers at Three Mile Island (TMI), first Jesse Jackson and later Walter Mondale declared their unequivocal opposition to the restart of TMI-1. This is the so-called undamaged nuclear reactor twin to TMI-2 which had the industry’s most serious accident five years ago. Unlike Gary Hart’s waffling on this question in…

The Senator dislikes trial lawyers. So this month, he, Larry Pressler, (R-South Dakota), helped vote out of the Senate Commerce Committee, S. 44, a bill that dislikes victims of hazardous products and chemicals. Another Senator, Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) says he doesn’t oppose victims’ rights; he just opposes the multiplicity of lawsuits. So he voted for…

Portland, Maine — This is a tale of dognapping and the emergence of a shadowy group calling itself the National Doggie Liberation Front. It all started with Tucker, a 140-pound bull mastiff getting into a fight with a neighboring poodle in Augusta. The poodle lost big. Tucker was charged with canine homicide and sentenced to…