In the Public Interest

To say that rapid change is confronting the $60 billion a year livestock and red meat industry is to put the case mildly. In no other major industry is there a faster trend toward concentration of power in the hands of a few corporate giants. Automation is revolutionizing many older labor skills out of existence,…

It makes a difference to millions of homeowners and businesses who use natural gas whether Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman, is a fighter or just a bully. For the past few months, Stockman has had an easy time picking on disabled people, victims of auto ac­cidents, poor people and undernourished families by slashing modest programs…

You’ve probably not heard of Tony Mazzocchi. But if you are a blue-collar worker, you have more rights and possibly safer working conditions because of Tony Mazzocchi. For 31 years as a rising member of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW), this union vice president has been doing quietly the hard work that…

General Motors is having serious quality control problems with its cars. The giant auto manufacturer’s recent lemon crop is so unsettling that the company’s chief executives have admitted their worries publicly. According to the Wall Street Journal, GM president James McDonald conceded that the X cars are plagued “with uneven doors, shabby paint jobs and…

Casualty insurance companies are usually a pretty bland bunch. But a few have stood out in the past decade. Allstate has crusaded for installation of automatic crash protection (such as air bags) in automobiles, much to the ire of General Motors. State Farm has battled for more competition in spare parts replacement costs. And Aetna…

Two Stanford University scientists have just authored a stunningly graphic book that Interior Secretary James Watt prob­ably will never read. It is too factual, too enlightening and too disturbing for his extremist brand of environmental pillage. Called Extinction, the Causes and Con­sequences of the Disappearance of Species (Random House, New York), the 290-page volume takes…

The Democrats in Washington—beset by indecision, incohesiveness and incredible amounts of corporate campaign finance slush funds arrayed against them—have a more immediate problem. It is Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, the portly speaker of the House. “Tip” can be as amiable as Ronald Reagan. The difference between the two politicians starts there. While Reagan specializes in…

You and all other Americans own that great national resource known as federal lands. Through the foresight of our country’s forefathers, these lands, mostly in the West and equal in size to about 150 Connecticuts, are held in trust for present and future generations to preserve and enjoy. A group of land grabbers, led by…

Father Joseph Karasiewicz, pastor of the beautiful Immaculate Conception Church in eastern Detroit, is wondering how this could happen in America. An entire neighborhood of 3,500 people—houses, small businesses, schools, a hospital and 16 churches—is under siege. General Motors is demanding that the city of Detroit buy the 365-acre area (with federal funds, of course),…

Well, motorists, get ready for higher auto insurance rates, higher casualty rates on the highway and more pollution, especially from trucks and diesel engines–all compliments of the Reagan administration. Notwithstanding the technical ease with which the auto company engineers could have produced cleaner, more life-saving and less damage-prone cars, the Reaganites have moved to dismantle…