Dear Tim,
Are there any words in the English language more ominous than “close to the interstate,” I wonder? No, really: how bad can an interstate be in Vermont? In truth I was really happy to hear that you had nailed this down. Meet you at the Adirondack chairs with a book in my hand. (Perhaps your book had better be Ulysses. I think you concealed from me, before we got married, the material fact that you hadn’t read it.)
The Times did have the second-hand smoke ruling this morning (page A12 in my edition). The striking thing about the Post’s coverage today was that it seemed to walk back from its handling of the scoop yesterday. Yesterday, the ruling was described as likely to negate hundreds of local smoking bans; today, everyone’s coverage takes a more wait-and-see approach. I was glad to hear from you that the science has come along to buttress the weaker case of years past. Does anyone (except the tobacco companies) doubt, today, that all the indoor-smoking bans are a public good? I’m a great test case, actually. As you are all too aware, I recently started smoking some again after quitting for ten years. There’s an amazing difference between now and then. Under the old regime, I went through two and a half packs a day; I could actually smoke in the newsroom at the Washington Post, where Ann Devroy and I drove a poor allergic colleague mad with our smoke. Today I can’t imagine being allowed to do this. (And Alison, wherever you are, I’m sorry.) Now, there’s almost no place I can smoke, and between that fact and the fact that I have maintained this as a shameful secret from our kids, I never smoke more than six cigarettes a day. (And I promise I’m going to quit…almost right away.)
My other favorite story of the moment is the recommendation by a Pentagon committee that the military liberalize its adultery regulations. A panel appointed by the Secretary of Defense last year has recommended that the penalty for adultery be lessened from an automatic dishonorable discharge to the less-draconian “bad conduct” discharge, which may not mean the loss of all benefits; also that those charged with enforcing the rules use discretion, prosecuting only those cases in which an affair affected the participant’s military service. The wonderful irony: the Marine Corps, which objects to the proposed new rules, may actually save President Clinton’s bacon here. The commander-in-chief, you see, has to pass on any changes in the “Manual for Courts Martial”; and for Clinton, it may prove embarrassing to be in the position of approving Equal Rights to Adultery for those in uniform. If the Marine Corps objects strenuously enough to water down the changes, it may alleviate Clinton’s PR problems. (If, on the other hand, they only object strenuously enough to make a stink, but then lose the battle, they will accentuate Clinton’s dilemma.)
Why the Marine Corps objects is a question for our friend Tom Ricks of the Wall Street Journal. (Hey, if William Safire can plug his friends’ books all the time, why can’t I?) Tom’s recent book Making the Corps explored (among other things) the extent to which the Corps’ indoctrination of young men requires the inducement of their contempt for the many depravities of American civilian life. Thanks to Tom’s mixture of sympathy and objectivity, I feel a certain wistful admiration of their wanting to keep a higher standard for military life; but it seems completely hopeless–and, come to think of it, sort of takes me back to our earlier discussion of the Amish. Surely it can’t be healthy if we come to think of the Marine Corps as one more theme park?
That’s it for now. We’re off to give my sister’s giant Dobermans a run in the woods.
Love,
Marjorie
