Notes
Another journalism award has come our way. In October REASON was the recipient of the Free Press Association's Mencken Award for the best investigative report of 1981. The winning story was Eric Zuesse's "Love Canal: The Truth Seeps Out," published as our February 1981 cover story and the subject of an ABC Nightline program.
Other REASON articles continue to attract notice. Tom Hazlett's July cover story on cable TV was the subject of a hard-hitting editorial in the Amarillo (Texas) Daily News debunking the natural monopoly argument. The Washington Times and the Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph have published condensed versions on their editorial pages, and the article has been submitted to the Canadian Radio and TV Commission to guide their deliberations on cable regulation. Hazlett was interviewed on cable deregulation on San Francisco radio station KCBS.
Sarah Foster's September cover story on harassment of midwives has been reproduced by the Association of Texas Midwives and sent to all of that state's legislators. The association has also printed excerpts from the article in its quarterly newsletter.
Even earlier articles keep attracting attention. Rep. Jack Kemp (R–N.Y.) inserted in the Congressional Record D.G. Soergel's April article, "High-Tech Freeze-out." And Dina Rasor's April cover story on the flaws in military testing, "Fighting with Failures," continues to stimulate calls for reform. In a September 27 editorial the Washington Post advocated reform of military testing along the lines Rasor proposes. In addition, the conservative Heritage Foundation has taken to heart many of Rasor's findings on ineffective weapons. Its October 6 Backgrounder titled "What Price Defense?" recommends junking such losers as the Maverick missile, the DIVAD gun, and the M-1 tank.
REASON people continue making waves. Former summer research fellow J. Roger Lee had an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times (Oct. 13) arguing that prisoners should pay for their own keep by working in market-oriented prison industries. My own op-ed piece urging abolition of the postal monopoly appeared in the Wall Street Journal on October 11. Assistant editor Paul Gordon has been elected to the board of directors of the Santa Barbara chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization where a libertarian presence is all to the good. And Senior Editor Manny Klausner was honored in October as Lawyer of the Year in an award given jointly by the Constitutional Rights Foundation and the Los Angeles County Bar Association. He also won a Second Amendment victory in a Los Angeles labor dispute. Arguing that nonstriking workers at a printing plant beset by a violent strike have a right to self-defense, Manny persuaded a superior court judge to deny a union-sought injunction that would have forbidden the nonstrikers from carrying weapons. He was also active in the campaign to defeat a November ballot measure to impose statewide gun control.
My most recent trip to Washington was cosponsored by the Council for a Competitive Economy and the Heritage Foundation. Its purpose was to introduce my recent proposal for privatization of the air traffic control system. We had a whole raft of productive meetings—with House and Senate transportation committee staff members, at the Office of Management and Budget, with airline people and aviation consultants, and a breakfast meeting at the White House. I addressed CCE's Manchester Forum luncheon and did an interview with ABC Radio News. UPI did a story on my proposal that was picked up by a number of radio stations and newspapers, including the Washington Times. Heritage, CCE, and the Reason Foundation are all doing further research to flesh out the proposal in more detail.
Do you want to challenge the thinking of your city council and chamber of commerce? Give them a copy of "New Perspectives on Community Development," a 75-page booklet edited by Reason Foundation fellow Doug Den Uyl. It presents talks on privatization of local services, opening up job markets by ending licensing restrictions, the fallacies of metro government and public housing, etc., by Stuart Butler, Robert Bish, Oscar Newman, Alan Siegel, and me, given in 1982 in Louisville. Copies are available for $4.00 from the Reason Foundation, 1018 Garden St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101.