REASON Express
January 31, 2000
Vol. 3 No. 5
1) Pentagon Goes Hollywood, But Hollywood Goes AWOL
2) Ben & Jerry's: About to Change Its Flavor?
3) OSHA Says Hands Off Home Offices! (Really?)
4) Those Filthy, Awful Leaf-Blowers
5) First Hubby Backs Hillary's Media Rating Plan
6) Quick Hits
- - Silver Screen or Silver Stars? - -
Oh, now we see why Defense Secretary William Cohen had to attend the People's Choice Awards and spend in taxpayer money $10,000 for a four-night stay at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. He had to meet with the likes of Julia Roberts and Steven Spielberg to lobby for their help in Pentagon recruiting.
Cohen says he solicited about a dozen celebs for help in a media campaign to boost enlistment. In addition to Roberts and Spielberg, Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford might be involved, Cohen suggested.
But Cecil B. Cohen better take a few more meetings before he rushes anything into production. Roberts' people say that while Cohen did meet the actress at the People's Choice Awards, she has no plans to be in a recruitment commercial. Similarly, Ford's people say recruiting public service announcements are not in the cards and Spielberg's people report he has no plans to direct recruiting ads.
Meanwhile, Cruise's publicist says his client was unable to take Cohen's phone call because Cruise was out skiing.
Cohen, who never served in the military, explained that "we are just looking at people with that status in society who might be willing to say positive things about the military."
Incredibly, Cohen's Project Hollywood began percolating after the former Republican Senator from Maine saw Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan." But it is wishful thinking on the part of someone comfortably into middle age to believe that the film's horrifyingly realistic portrayal of war could motivate boom-time teens to enlist.
Worse still is the possibility that Cohen thinks a little Hollywood magic is all that is needed to glamorize today's cynical little geopolitical gambits, which inevitably entail extraneous military deployments. Military service shouldn't mean serving such narrow political and self-defeating interests as policing Haiti or Kosovo, or bombing Serbia.
The absence of the Spielberg touch isn't the only thing that separates these conflicts from the beaches of Normandy. Even star-struck defense chiefs should know that.
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-01/29/039l-012900-idx.html
- - Delicious Irony - -
Ben & Jerry's Homemade Holdings Inc.--the brand that traded on hippy-trippy feelings and baby-boomer guilt--is in the midst of merger talks. That has some Chubby Hubby huffers mighty upset.
Protests have sprung up outside Ben & Jerry's stores in Boston and San Francisco, and Vermont politicians like Rep. Bernard Sanders (Ind.) have jumped on board to denounce any move to sell the operation.
But the company is at a crossroads. It hasn't been a quaint little operation for quite some time. Annual sales top $230 million, and namesakes Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield no longer play a day-to-day role in management. Still, the company is dwarfed by potential suitors like Unilever Corp., Nestle SA, and Diageo PLC, better known for the Haagen-Dazs brand.
Should any one of those outfits offer an above-market price for the publicly traded Ben & Jerry's, board members of the firm would have an obligation to consider it. And rejection of such a sweet deal almost surely would bring shareholder lawsuits.
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-01/27/183l-012700-idx.html
Michael Lynch notes how Ben & Jerry's greenie ethos sometimes backfires against the company at http://www.reason.com/0003/co.ml.capital.html
- - Safety First - -
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration took another stab at assuring the public that it has no intention of regulating home offices. This time OSHA went further, but still left itself some wiggle room--enough to make members of Congress think that legislation is still needed.
Assistant Secretary of Labor Charles N. Jeffress announced that OSHA would not hold employers liable for home office violations and that his agency would issue a directive reflecting that soon.
Jeffress said, "OSHA does not expect employers to inspect home offices" and that "OSHA does not and will not inspect home offices."
"The bottom line is, as it has always been, that OSHA will respect the privacy of the home and expects that employers will as well," he added.
But Jeffress then turned right around and said that wasn't exactly so.
Manufacturing work done in homes will still be subject to review. The reason is that it could involve hazardous materials like lead solder used in electronics assembly. If OSHA gets a complaint about such a home-based operation, it will investigate.
So clearly the standard is whether something job-related in a home is hazardous. For now OSHA wants to assure everyone that paper cuts or printer cables don't meet that threshold. But it is not a stretch to imagine that reports of hazardous materials in copier toner or some such thing sparking a future move for greater oversight of non-manufacturing home businesses.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) and others are probably right to think that clear legislation stopping OSHA from home oversight is the best way to proceed, even now.
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-01/27/215l-012700-idx.html http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-01/29/069l-012900-idx.html
Jacob Sullum suspects OSHA isn't easily turned away from meddling in home offices at http://www.reason.com/sullum/011200.html
Lynn Scarlett says telecommuting is much safer than commuting http://www.rppi.org/opeds/osha.html
Reason Dynamic Visions Conference speakers include leading experts on the blurring boundaries between home and work: Christena Nippert-Eng, author of *Home and Work* and consultant to Intel and others on telecommuting issues, and *Fast Company* contributor Daniel Pink, who tracks the emerging "free agent" economy. For a full lineup of speakers and registration information, see http://www.reason.com/dynamic/dynamic2000.html
Not all federal regulation comes about over the bitter opposition of business. History shows that businesses often try to turn regulation to their advantage by lobbying for a certain ruling that will hamstring competitors. But rarely has that been so clear as the current blow up over small engine emissions.
For about a decade now the Environmental Protection Agency has been trying to tighten emission standards for engines that power hand-held lawn equipment. Now as the EPA gets down to specifics it has to choose between two different spins coming from business.
John Deere is pushing for tough emissions standards because--surprise--it thinks Deere's Homelite products will meet them while other manufacturers cannot. But the cleaner burning models would also be more expensive, and Deere fears it will lose sales if cheaper, dirtier products are allowed to remain on the shelves.
That is where Electrolux comes in. It argues that EPA should allow a longer phase-in period than Deere wants.
The EPA admits it is caught in the middle, but a final decision is still expected by March.
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-01/28/122l-012800-idx.html
- - Spousal Ratings - -
Last week President Clinton took up an idea floated by a certain neophyte Senate candidate to impose a broad, uniform content rating system on movies, television, music, and computer games.
In his State of the Union speech Clinton said the current separate systems are "too numerous, diverse and confusing to be really useful to parents." Why that doesn't suggest they should just be scrapped and replaced by nothing he never really explained.
Longtime movie industry flack Jack Valenti wondered out loud where the White House got the idea that the current system is too confusing.
"Where does he get his information that it's confusing? We have a Web site, a fax, an address. A PSA [public service announcement] that says, 'Tell us what you want.' " He added, "If you're going to say something isn't working, you ought to present some evidence other than your own personal opinion as to why it isn't working."
Valenti also denied the claims of a spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton that he had met with White House officials to discuss the proposal.
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-01/29/089l-012900-idx.html
- - Quote of the Week - -
"That's provoking people to be gay," Nate Magnusson, an Arizona State freshman architecture major on a bill in the state legislature which would limit opposite sex interaction in dorm rooms at state institutions. The bill would also ban alcohol, mandate random searches of rooms, and institute monthly inspections.
http://www.arizonarepublic.com/news/0126dorms.shtml
http://www.azleg.state.az.us/legtext/44leg/2r/bills/hb2594p.htm
- - Quote of the Week, Hair Scare Edition - -
"It was the consensus of the administration that her color of hair didn't meet a community standard we felt would be representative of Sheridan High School," assistant principal Ed Baker explaining why 16-year-old Erin Godby was kicked off the Indiana school's cheerleading squad after dyeing her hair with Nutrisse "True Red" hair coloring.
http://www.starnews.com/news/citystate/2000/jan/0128st_cheer.html
- - Gene Team - -
Another international confab on genetically modified food, this time in Montreal but still pitting the U.S. against the rest of the world.
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-01/28/118l-012800-idx.html
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-01/30/283l-013000-idx.html
Check out the Reason Online Breaking Issue on the "Frankenfood Frenzy" at http://reason.com/bi/bi-gmf.html
- - Hard-on Patrol - -
Mississippi's legislature weighs whether to add "the showing of covered male genitals in a discernibly turgid state" to the state's public-sex-and-nudity law. Men could face up to a year in prison and a $2,000 fine.
http://news.excite.com/news/r/000121/17/odd-arousal
- - Don't Even Think It - -
The New Mexico Senate voted 37 to 4 to condemn Gov. Gary E. Johnson for supporting drug legalization. The body is Democrat controlled, but the motion originated with Johnson's fellow Republicans.
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/xgr/1xgr01-27-00.htm
- - Code Blue - -
Lawyers for an entertainment industry trade group suing the makers of a DVD de-scrambling program inadvertently made the program even more widely available by including the source code as part of their filings with a California court. They later successfully petitioned the judge to seal the records of the case, but not after the filing was disseminated around the world via the Internet.
http://www.computerworld.com/home/print.nsf/CWFlash/000127E40E
- - Family Feud - -
Reform Party infighting has spread to the Web with competing "official" sites for the party. The old site is http://www.reformparty.org/ and the new site is http://www.rpusa.org/
For the latest on media appearances by Reason writers, visit http://www.reason.com/press.html.
REGISTER NOW for Reason's 2nd Annual Dynamic Visions Conference, featuring cutting-edge speakers from the worlds of technology, design, public policy, history, science, and more! The conference is February 19-21 in Santa Clara, California, and the deadline for pre-conference registration is FRIDAY FEBRUARY 11. After that, the price goes up. For more information and secure online registration, see http://www.reason.com/dynamic/dynamic2000.html
"On the Verge: Creative Mixing on the Frontiers of Business, Society, Art, and Technology," takes place February 19 - 21, 2000 at the Santa Clara Marriott in Silicon Valley.
Confirmed speakers and their topics include:
Jhane Barnes, designer - "Mathematics, Computers, and the Art of Textile Design"
Gregory Benford, UC-Irvine astrophysicist and author of Timescape, Deep Time, and Cosm - "Thinking Long in the Millennium"
Daniel Botkin, UC-Santa Barbara ecologist, president, Center for the Study of the Environment, author of Discordant Harmonies - "The Future of Nature: How to Have Both Civilization and Nature in the 21st Century"
Charles Paul Freund, senior editor, Reason, "Dark Verge? The Case of Vienna 1900"
Neil Gershenfeld, leader, physics and media group, MIT Media Lab, author, When Things Start to Think - "Things that Think"
Nick Gillespie, editor-in-chief, Reason - "Popular Culture on the Verge"
Lisa Graham Keegan, Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction - "Innovations in Education"
Grant McCracken, Harvard Business School, author, Plenitude and Culture and Consumption - "Verge of Verges: Sir Francis Bacon at the Gates of Gibraltar"
Christena Nippert-Eng, sociologist, Illinois Institute of Technology, author, Home and Work - "Home and Work: Drawing the Boundaries"
Dan Pink, Fast Company contributor - "Free Agent Nation"
Steven Postrel, UC-Irvine Graduate School of Management -"The Geek and the Dilettante: Sharing Knowledge Across Specialities"
Virginia Postrel, editor, Reason, author, The Future and Its Enemies, - "On the Verge: Exploring the Frontiers of Creative Encounter"
Adam Clayton Powell III, vice president, technology and programs, The Freedom Forum - "Culture and Collision"
Richard Rodriguez, author, Days of Obligation and Hunger of Memory - "Some Thoughts on the Burrito and the Browning of America"
Lynn Scarlett, executive director, Reason Public Policy Institute - "Can Industry Save the Planet? The Rise of Industrial Ecology"
Michael Schrage, columnist, Fortune, senior associate, MIT Media Lab, author, No More Teams! and Serious Play - "Serious Play"
Robert Zubrin, author of The Case for Mars - "Mars Direct: Humans to the Red Planet within a Decade"
For full descriptions and speaker information, see http://www.reason.com/dynamic/speakers.html
On 4 February Adrian Moore, RPPI Director of Economic Policy, will give an opening address to the annual meeting of the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He will be speaking on competition and management challenges in addressing the nation's wastewater treatment infrastructure needs.
On 24 February Wade Hudson, RPPI Economic Policy Analyst, and Adrian Moore, RPPI's Privatization Center Director, will be in Orlando, Florida, speaking at an all day session on managing employee transitions during privatization. The session is part of the 2000 World Outsourcing Summit.
Reason Express is made possible by a grant from The DBT Group (http://www.dbtgroup.com), manufacturers of affordable, high-performance mainframe systems and productivity software.
Current Circulation: 5349 We encourage you to forward Reason Express. If you received this issue from a forward, please subscribe.
Previous issues of Reason Express are available at http://www.reason.com/re/re.html
To subscribe visit http://www.reason.com/re/subscribe.html
Or:
To subscribe to the TEXT version just send a TEXT ONLY message to Majordomo@free-market.net with this in the body of the message:
subscribe Reason-Express youremail@yourdomain.com
For the HTML version the TEXT ONLY message would be:
subscribe Reason-ExpressHTML youremail@yourdomain.com
Your email and your domain would be something like gillespie@reason.com. To unsubscribe, use unsubscribe in place of subscribe.