In the Public Interest

The other day I received a letter from Douglas E. Patty, chairman of the Board of the Heritage Bank in Irvine, California, complaining of a double standard in the banking industry. For the ten largest banks, declares Mr. Patty, such as the Bank of America, Citicorp, Chase Manhattan, Manufacturers Hanover, are allowed to have over…

London, England — “Lead-Free At Last!” shouted the headline of the Campaign for Lead-free Air’s (CLEAR) newspaper. The government of Margaret Thatcher announced on April 18th in the House of Commons its decision to eliminate lead from gasoline. Although it is not clear here when that decision will be implemented, the very fact of the…

When Chairman Roger Smith convenes the annual General Motors shareholders meeting on May 20th in Detroit, it is not likely that Jay Johnson will be on his mind. But Jay Johnson’s April 6th letter to Mr. Smith represents a problem that should be on the shareholders minds. GM’s quality control is in deep trouble with…

James Watt is Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of Interior and David Brinkley thinks he is the Administration’s leading fool. I think it is more accurate to say that he is the Reaganites’ leading decoy. For riot only does he take the heat off Mr. Reagan for what are clearly the President’s own anti-environmental and public land…

Unless millions of residential telephone users organize, their monthly basic telephone bill will skyrocket like a Roman candle, except that it will keep going skyward. From Los Angeles to Boston, these hikes will quadruple or quintuple by 1986-7 from what you are now paying. A few days ago, readers of the Washington Post learned about…

Santa Monica, Calif. — On April 12, 1983, a municipal election in Santa Monica, California, is attracting uncommon interest from powerful real estate and other corporate interests both near and far from that oceanside community of over 100,000 people. Fundamentally, what is at issue is whether the city is going to be run by its…

They are called “Meet the Press”, “Face the Nation” and “This Week with David Brinkley.” A journalistic acquaintance prefers to describe them as “The Yawn Shows.” But on Sunday, March 20, 1983 these interview programs were anything but dull; they were unusually vibrant and interesting. Face the Nation’s guest was Dr. Sam Epstein, a University…

Should airlines operating flights to or from points outside the United States be able to limit their liability to passengers who are killed or seriously injured in a plane crash? Or should crash victims and their families have a right to recover fully what they can prove to be their monetary losses? A few days…

Farmers paying special fees for frost forecasts? The armed services relying on a private corporate monopoly for weather information? The U.S. government selling its four weather satellites and one land surveying satellite for a pittance to a private corporation which then sells the weather information back to the government daily under a 15 year profit…

Often, magazine and newspaper editors describe the letters-to­-the-editors column as among the most widely read sections of their publications. What is therefore astonishing is the relatively small space that many large newspaper editors provide for publishing cogent letters from their readers. Unless there are too few letter-writing readers, why is it not considered advisable to…