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Malcolm Gladwell and Wendy Kaminer

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Re: Etc.

By Wendy Kaminer
Posted Thursday, June 11, 1998, at 1:47 PM ET

Years ago (in the early 80s maybe when I was living in New York) the Times went on strike and freed up Sunday morning. Its first Sunday back, there was a long line at the local newsstand in my neighborhood, filled with people commiserating. It was like the end of summer vacation. (Fortunately, the magazine section has since ceased to be worth reading much, and that does save some time.)

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The daily "Metro" section, however, has always been entertaining. In some ways, I appreciate it even more now that I'm in Boston. The Boston City Council isn't terribly interesting, (as far as I can tell, it doesn't do much), although the Councilors did make the front page of the Globe "Metro" section today by voting themselves a pay raise (that was somehow left off their agenda.) They also gave Mayor Menino a raise. I'm not sure what he's done to deserve it: The last notable act of Menino's that I can recall was a unilateral decision to install some rather primitive blocking software on every computer in the Boston Public Libraries. He retreated only a little. Now the BPL offers unrestricted computer access to adults (people over 18); but if you're under 18 and don't want to use a computer with a netnanny, you have to show the librarian a note from mom or dad. Unrestricted access to cyberspace is toxic, according to advocates of censorware - like cigarettes. ( I think it was Gore who said that allowing children to roam free in cyberspace was like letting them rummage through the medicine cabinet.)

Actually I think cigarettes are a lot worse for kids than anything they might run across in cyberspace, and while I share your irritation at smokers (or their survivors) who sue tobacco companies, I am more than irritated by the utter dishonesty of the industry. I'm not sure that the willingness of people to believe your lies, or ignore what they have reason to know is true, is a good defense.

I can't find any good guys in the tobacco wars. The politicians calling for a crusade against teen smoking are less irritating than ridiculous. Do they really believe that making cigarettes taboo will discourage kids from smoking? Still, there is something I like about the crusade against tobacco: it highlights the hypocrisy of our anti-drug policies. No one, after all, is proposing that we criminalize the use of tobacco as we criminalize the use of much less dangerous drugs, like marijuana. I like to entertain the vain hope that someday we will come full circle and treat drugs that are now criminalized the way we are beginning to treat tobacco - as a taxed and regulated substance that people are free to use, given full disclosure about their effects.

I do wish government would get out of the business of telling people what they can't do with their lives and get back to the business of enabling people to do what they can. So I think there's some value in Vallone's protests of municipal cuts in childcare, healthcare, and post-secondary education - even though the subtext of his remarks (and probably Guiliani's line item veto) is the New York gubernatorial race. Isn't Vallone in the running, and wasn't Guiliani at the Republican convention making up with Pataki a week or two ago?

Unfortunately, it's not just New York politicians who talk about social welfare issues. As you say, these are anti-federalist days - when it comes to welfare programs. None of the conservative proponents of a harsh new juvenile justice bill that would greatly increase federal control of state juvenile systems are talking about devolution. Considering the ideological make-up of this Congress, I often wish they would go out of business entirely. Lately I only feel safe when they're in recess.

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