By Michael Kaufman

A recent column in the Times Herald-Record took educators to task for allegedly using too much confusing jargon and too many unfamiliar acronyms befuddling to most other people. The writer, who covers education for the paper, cited “proficiency” as an example of confusing jargon. I don’t agree. I think most people know what proficiency means without having to turn to a dictionary. As for the acronyms, however, I concur, although her complaint applies to many fields of endeavor. It strikes me as a tad unfair to single out for criticism the beleaguered and too-often maligned people whose job is to oversee the education of children in our public schools.

Nevertheless, the column evoked more than a few memories that brought some smiles (and a scowl or two) to my face: I recalled the first meeting I attended after getting hired to write copy for a medical advertising agency. When they all started arguing about whether to use a “BRC” in a direct mail piece, I interrupted to ask what BRC stood for. …and was met by silence and bemused stares until someone finally explained that BRC is short for “business reply card.” Doh.

At another agency my first assignment was to work with a project manager who told me she needed a quick turnaround on some copy for a “chit card.” She was appalled when I asked her what a chit card is. I don’t remember the answer; only that it didn’t require  many words and she was happy with how it turned out. So if anyone reading this needs a quick turnaround on copy for a chit card…. I’m your man.

When I worked for a company that published news periodicals for medical professionals we had a “velox” machine that produced copies of photos and other illustrations. The “veloxes” were pasted with wax on to “boards” (actually cardboard sheets) along with the galleys of copy when the pages were laid out before being sent to the printer. (One time my assistant editor on Dermatology News put the boards on the radiator in our office and all of the veloxes and galleys peeled off. Another time he spilled his coffee on the boards.) In those days we would also talk a lot about PMS with the art director. (Not that PMS; this had to do with the color of ink used on pages that contained color.) We used a lot of PMS blue because that was what we used in the masthead (or maybe it was the flag) and it was cheaper to use the same color on other pages if they went on press on the same sheet.

We had a managing editor who liked to assert his authority by ordering us to add or delete hyphens willy-nilly (or is it willy nilly) even when our publications were in “blues” and making changes became more expensive so we were only supposed to make important ones. He ordered me to change a headline once when we were in blues: I had used the acronym EB instead of writing out Epideromolysis Bullosa above an article on the front page.  It was a one-column headline and the change would have meant cutting copy and remaking two pages because the story jumped to another page. But he insisted, “Nobody will know what EB means. They might think it means East Boston.”

I said dermatologists would know and even if someone didn’t they would soon find out because it was spelled out in the lead.”

“Change it.”

“Now, when we’re in blues? Why didn’t you ask for this before when you reviewed the Xeroxes of the pages?”

“Change it!”

“You’re a bully!” I said. When he didn’t blink I told him he was an AH and walked away.

You don’t have to be acronym proficient  to get the idea.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

More than a year has passed since Tea Party members of Congress and fellow Republicans forced the deal that some say has now brought the country to the edge of a fiscal cliff.  That was when House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) smiled like the Cheshire Cat and said, “When you look at this final agreement that we came to with the White House, I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I’m pretty happy.”

Boehner and the Republicans turned a deaf ear to a plea by 300 economists and policy analysts who had warned months earlier that the U.S. economy is at a crucial juncture. While acknowledging that public debt is mounting, they posed a choice of two different paths to address the country’s economic woes: imposing fiscal “austerity” (in the midst of the most serious downturn since the Great Depression), or investing in the economy with public spending over the short term to help grow our way out of the red ink.

“This is about a high road to recovery versus a low road to fiscal balance,” said Robert Kuttner, a senior fellow with Demos, a New York-based think tank dedicated to “a more equitable economy” with opportunity for all. “All of us want reduced deficits at some point. The question is: what is the proper sequencing, and what is the proper analysis of cause and effect?

“You get the recovery first,” he continued, and that requires increased public investment, and then the road to fiscal balance is much less arduous because people are working, businesses are investing and tax revenues go up because you’re in recovery.”

Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, agreed. “We live with falling bridges, collapsing sewers, decrepit schools, aged gas lines and much more,” he noted. “Everyone agrees we have to rebuild an aging and outmoded infrastructure, and there’s no better opportunity to do so than now—interest rates are low, construction workers are idled, and anyone with a whit of business sense would grab this moment to launch a major project to rebuild America.” Borosage might well have added that if business is not up to the task, there is precedent for the government doing so….and with great success at that. It was called the New Deal.

Borosage contrasted his view with Boehner’s goal of cutting billions of dollars in discretionary spending at a time when consumers are already “too maxed out” to create the demand needed to get the economy back on track.  “There can be no clearer statement of the divorce between ideology and basic good business sense.”

Kuttner pointed out that the public discourse around these issues has been skewed by conservative ideologues. “There’s been a huge investment in influencing public opinion on the part of fiscal conservatives who are also long-standing philosophical opponents of social insurance,” he explained.

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, agrees. The common storyline, he said, is that “we have an out-of-control government and out-of-control government spending.” But, according to Baker, “it’s very easy to show that this has almost no plausible relationship with the deficits we’re facing.” He attributed the deficits to President George W. Bush’s unfunded tax cuts, bloated defense budgets and an economic downturn that has the American economy operating at a level 10 percent beneath its potential capacity. That view, presented in September 2010, was repeatedly echoed by President Obama during his 2012 campaign for re-election.  Why do we even have to be talking about this now?

(Thanks to Joshua Holland, editor and senior writer at AlterNet, for the information presented here. Holland is the author of The 15 Biggest Lies About the Economy (and Everything else the Right Doesn’t Want You to KnowAbout Taxes, Jobs and Corporate America.)

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

The threat to democracy embodied by the United States Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in the Citizens United case extends way beyond the oft-discussed issue of campaign funding. Perhaps even more ominous is the way corporations have interpreted the decision to mean they can pressure employees to vote a certain way. After all, as Mitt Romney put it, “Corporations are people too my friend.”

As reported last week in an article in In These Times, Romney himself suggested the idea in a June 6 conference call posted on the website of the National Federation of Independent Business:  “Romney was addressing a group of self-described ‘small-business owners.’ Twenty-six minutes into the call, after making a lengthy case that President Obama’s first term has been bad for business, Romney said: ‘I hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections.’”

He also reassured them of the legality of doing so: “Nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you believe is best for the business, because I think that will figure into their election decision, their voting decision and of course doing that with your family and your kids as well.” Forget the last part of that sentence.  Of course it was never illegal for business owners to try to influence the vote of their family members. But the Citizens United decision overturned previous Federal Election Commission laws that prohibited employers from political campaigning among employees. Now, as the first presidential election campaign since the Citizens United ruling enters its final days, the ramifications are clear.

The Nation magazine reported last week that CEOs for Murray Energy, Koch Industries, ASG Software, and Westgate Resorts “have pressured their employees to vote for particular political candidates, like Mitt Romney.” Further, “the phenomenon appears far more wide-ranging than previously known.” At the same time, “lobbyists in Washington are working furiously to encourage more corporations to adopt these tactics.” Lobbyists for the National Mining Association, produced a voting guide website called “Mine the Vote” for its 325-member companies, to encourage employees to vote for Romney and other candidates favored by the mine owners.

The article quotes Cleta Mitchell, described as a “prominent Republican attorney,” who maintains that Citizens United opens the door for businesses “to educate their employees, vendors and customers about candidates and officeholders whose philosophies and voting records would destroy or permanently damage America’s free enterprise system.” Mitchell’s advice was picked up by lawyers for Koch Industries, which began pressuring its employees to vote Republican in the midterm elections two years ago.

Last week the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a campaign to have employers stuff payroll envelopes with explicit campaign propaganda, according to The Nation. The first political mailer, now being distributed in Massachusetts, proclaims, “Defeat U.S. Senate Candidate Elizabeth Warren.”

According to The Nation, DDC Advocacy, the company that helped develop Koch Industries’ campaign to pressure employees to vote for Romney, is led in part by Sara Fagen, former deputy of Karl Rove.  DDC Advocacy and similar firms “specialize in helping businesses activate their employees and customers into-mini lobbyists.” Current DDC clients include Boeing, Aetna, Altria, Humana, Ernst & Young, and other Fortune 500 corporations.

“The real concern here is…the inherent power dynamics between employees and their employers,” said Adam Skaggs, senior counsel with the BrennanCenterfor Justice, in a recent interview on Current TV. An official e-mail from the boss saying something like “your job could depend on who wins the race” could be interpreted as coercion or intimidation. Could be? Countless workers all over the country are being told by their bosses that their jobs will be in jeopardy if President Obama is re-elected. How much more intimidating can it get?

We may soon find out. “Corporations are people too my friend.”

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

I’m glad the president showed up for the second debate. At the first one he reminded me of a boxer approached by a mobster before a big fight and told to go in the tank or else something terrible would happen to his children.  (I’m not joking: For the first time in years I thought of the chilling book Weigh-in: The Selling of a Middleweight  [1975 ] by former middleweight contender Fraser Scott.) Most people think Obama won this one, which is fine by me.  Romney’s bully-boy tactics, which served him well in the first debate, fell flat when Candy Crowley—unlike Jim Lehrer—refused to roll over and play dead.

I like the “Town Hall” format that allows audience members to ask questions directly to the candidates. I’m not sure how they decide who gets to be in the audience and who gets to ask the questions though. Some sort of screening takes place beforehand, which makes things a lot less interesting.  I would have liked to see an audience member ask Romney why he is afraid to show more of his tax returns, for example. What doesn’t he want voters to see?  Then the president might say, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

And I would have liked to see someone ask the president why on earth he is waiting until 2014 to bring the troops home from that futile and murderous war in Afghanistan? Have we learned nothing from history?

Surely someone should have asked Romney about the Sensata employees (and their families, friends, and neighbors in Freeport, Ill, now dubbed “Bainport”)  who don’t understand why Bain is closing the plant after a year of record profits and, yes,  moving production to China. Is this what you call job creation, Mr. Romney? How does this square with all your complaints about China’s “cheating” and “not playing by the rules?” Would you consider using your influence with your pals at Bain so they keep the plant in Freeport?

Mr. President, I liked your explanation about eliminating the “middle man” (private banks) so  student loans can be offered at a lower interest rate and at payoff terms more favorable to hard-pressed borrowers. Why not call for doing the same thing with health care? Eliminate the middle man (private insurance companies) and have a single payer system that comes out of the general tax fund? Healthcare costs will be lower and the onus will no longer be on employers, large and small, to provide health insurance to employees. Speaking of which, why do you let Romney get away with the spurious argument that “Obamacare” is responsible for the rising health costs that deters businesses from hiring fulltime people? This trend has been going on for all the years that healthcare costs have been skyrocketing. That’s why Walmart hires so many part-time workers; it’s a major cause of outsourcing.  You are right when you say that the cost has gone up by a smaller percentage since passage of the Affordable Care Act—but it was already too high, so  that isn’t exactly going to impel companies to start hiring again. (Don’t worry about being called a socialist: the opposition already has you pegged as a non-citizen, secret Muslim, Black militant reincarnation of Joseph Stalin anyway.)

Mr. Romney, how can you say you want to create “good paying” jobs when you and your fellow Republicans refuse to raise the minimum wage? It is so low now that anyone working full time for those wages cannot support a family. Won’t raising the minimum wage help achieve your goal of reducing the the number of families who have to rely on food stamps?

I can think of many more questions for the candidates between now and Election Day. But now, dear Zest readers, it’s your turn. If you were to have an opportunity to ask a couple of questions of the candidates, what would they be?

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

Twenty-plus years have passed since Charlotte Haley, a 68-year-old housewife in Simi Valley, California, launched a personal campaign to raise consciousness about breast cancer. Her maternal grandmother had died of metastatic breast cancer. Her sister had breast cancer and her daughter had also been diagnosed with the disease. Haley began distributing peach-colored ribbons attached to cards that read: “National Cancer Institute annual budget is $1.8 billion. Only 5 percent goes for cancer prevention. Help us to wake up our legislators and America by wearing this ribbon.”

Haley had no interest in starting a foundation or non-profit organization, notes Katherine O’Brien, magazine editor and blogger at ihatebreastcancer.wordpress.com. “If people offered her donations, she declined, instead urging them to emulate her work.” Haley, says O’Brien, was “strictly grassroots, handing the cards out at the local supermarket and writing prominent women, everyone from former First Ladies to Dear Abby. Her message spread by word of mouth.” Before long Haley had distributed thousands of her hand-made peach-colored loops and her campaign was drawing attention in the media.

Self magazine was in the midst of preparing its second “Breast Cancer Awareness Issue” when editor Alexandra Penney and guest editor Evelyn Lauder (senior corporate vice president of Estée Lauder cosmetics and a breast cancer survivor) called Haley to request use of her peach ribbon as a promotional tool. Haley, fearing commercialization of her concept, refused. Liz Smith, who had written favorably about Haley’s efforts earlier, wrote in her syndicated column in late 1992 that Estée Lauder was “having problems” trying to work with Haley. She also quoted Haley, who said Self had asked her to relinquish the concept of the ribbon.

Self and Estée Lauder consulted lawyers, who advised them to simply come up with a different color. Haley, interviewed in the recent documentary film Pink Ribbons, Inc. recalls how she was brusquely told the news: “They said “All we have to do if we want it is to change the ribbon.” Focus groups found pink “soothing,” “comforting” and “quieting,” and the pink ribbon was born. (Haley appears briefly in the trailer for the film, released by the National Film Board of Canada, which had a limited release earlier this year in the U.S.)
http://www.nfb.ca/film/pink_ribbons_inc/trailer/pink_ribbons_inc_trailer

“The corporate takeover of the pink ribbon has so narrowly focused popular attention on awareness that prevention continues to be overlooked,” notes Breast Cancer Action, a grassroots organization dedicated to Haley’s ideals. “Each year pink ribbon cause marketing generates hundreds of millions of dollars. In fact, the term ‘cancer industry’ is now frequently used by breast cancer activists and the media to describe corporations, organizations, and agencies that use pink ribbons to profit directly from breast cancer.

“Corporations profit hugely by linking their products to a pink ribbon— they profit financially, and they profit from the positive association of linking their company with a worthy cause. However, many of these companies, including cosmetic and car companies, are themselves contributing to causing breast cancer.

“Breast Cancer Action believes that instead of profiting from breast cancer, these corporations, if they want to make a difference, should be taking action to prevent women from getting sick in the first place. The pink ribbon will never get us as far as we need to go to end this epidemic, because pink ribbons are tightly bound up with corporate profits.” To learn more visit the Breast Cancer Action website at www.bcaction.org and as they suggest, “Think Before You Pink!”

Katherine O’Brien is one of the 150,000 U.S. women currently living with metastatic breast cancer. “I want people to know that incidence of stage IV breast cancer—the cancer that is lethal—has stayed the same over the past 20 years,” says O’Brien. “Screening and improved treatment has not changed this.

“I am not among the millions of people who subscribe to Self. If I were, I would rip out every page of breast cancer related advertising and return it to editor in chief Lucy Danziger and tell her I support groups that support research. I would ask her to write about people with metastatic breast cancer and help readers understand why it is different from early stage breast cancer. I would ask her to do an article on recurrence. I would ask her if she thinks we have enough awareness.

“I will return my pink ribbon in protest. That is the difference I will make.”

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

My mailboxes, traditional and electronic,  have been filled to the brim lately with communications from the AARP. I keep hoping they will contain information about how the organization is fighting tooth and nail to preserve Social Security and Medicare as we know it, for ourselves, our children and grandchildren. I look for information that exposes the lies suggesting these great social programs are on the brink of insolvency and must be “privatized” and/or replaced by “voucher” plans that will provide reduced, inadequate coverage. Of course, folks will have the “option” of purchasing additional coverage in the “free marketplace” (as Mitt likes to call it) but those who can’t afford it will be left to fend for themselves.

People will die if this happens but when Alan Grayson tried to point this out when he was in Congress the people who made up the story that “death panels” were included in the Affordable Care Act attacked him for being an extremist.  Now they are talking about moving up the “retirement age” to 70 when there is little or no opportunity for seniors to obtain good jobs as it is now. So what does the AARP have to say about all this?

Well, there was the recent issue of the magazine with pictures of Mitt and Anne Romney on the cover and a folksy interview inside. There was the email from AARP Member Offers suggesting that I “race home with $100 cash back bonus from the AARP Visa card from Chase.” Another email announced, “Michael, You Could Win a $5,000 Dream Spa Vacation for Two!” Another blared, “Michael, Last Chance! Win $50,000 for Your Retirement.”

The main headline in the August 17 edition of the AARP Webletter said, “Slideshow: Marilyn Monroe’s Life in Photos.” I saw enough photos of poor Marilyn when she was alive, thanks. She would be about 86 now. I didn’t look at the slideshow but the headline made me want to see “The Misfits” again. 

A Jo Ann Jenkins from the AARP Foundation sent an email urging, “Michael, Get our 2013 calendar before it’s gone!” She said I could “reserve” my copy by making a tax-deductible donation to the AARP Foundation. And every other day (or so it seems) an envelope arrives bearing the AARP logo and containing offers for all kinds of insurance policies. All are from big-name insurance companies that pay the AARP royalties for its endorsement and use of the AARP logo.

Lately I’ve also been getting envelopes and emails reminding me to renew my membership in the AARP, something I have routinely done for the past 10 years, but which I am now reconsidering. I wouldn’t mind all the fluff they send if it was accompanied by at least some sense of urgency regarding the current state of affairs.

We are weeks away from a national presidential election that will be decided between candidates from two major political parties. Neither is any bargain when it comes to representing the interests of ordinary people versus corporate donors and lobbyists. But one has declared war on all social programs affecting seniors (along with the war on women’s health rights, public employees, Head Start, immigrants, trade unions, the environment and the voting rights of African Americans….to name a few). Yet the AARP refuses to make an endorsement.

Last week I got a letter from Michael Olender, associate director of the AARP in New York State, announcing an AARP-sponsored forum on Medicare fraud to be held Thursday, September 27, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., at the First Presbyterian Church of Monroe, 142 Stage Road. Experts from AARP and various agencies “on the frontlines of fighting Medicare fraud” will explain “the basics about Medicare fraud including how it is committed, how to spot it, and what to do if you think you recognize it.” Refreshments will be served. Admission is free but reservations are required by calling 877-926-8300.

I am thinking about attending if only to remind them that if Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and Nan Hayworth have their way, there will be no Medicare fraud to fight against….because there will be no Medicare.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.
 

By Michael Kaufman

We never called him Art. In our little house in Oceanside we called him Artie and sometimes my mother would refer to him as Arthur because that is the name Charlotte Heyman used when she talked about her son the basketball player during the weekly mahjong game at our house. I thought of Charlotte when I read the obituary in The New York Times under the headline, “Art Heyman, Star at Duke, Dies at 71.”

I was in junior high when Artie played on the Oceanside High School varsity team. As noted by the Times, “Heyman was one of the most highly recruited high school players in the nation in his senior year…” Not mentioned was the anti-Semitism he was often subjected to during high-school games in some parts of Long Island. He was often the target of Jew-baiting barbs from opposing players and he just as often responded….sometimes with harsh words of his own or perhaps later in the game with a hard foul or well-placed elbow.

I remember an away game in which Artie and a player for the home team exchanged punches and a bunch of people rushed onto the court from the stands. My father (ignoring my mother’s plea to “stay out of it Jack”) ran down too. He wrapped his strong arms around a larger man who seemed to be trying to get at Artie, and held him that way with his arms pinned until things calmed down. Then he helped the officials clear the court so play could resume.

Artie’s involvement in these sorts of incidents gave him a reputation for being ill tempered. The Times quotes an article in Sports Illustrated in 1961, his sophomore year at Duke, which described his playing style as “calculated to make points, not friends.” His nickname was the Pest. Earlier that season he and Larry Brown, his longtime rival since their playground days in Nassau County, had been suspended for a fight that occurred late in a game between Duke and North Carolina. A grainy video is available on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0RroAH4vwU. (The fight begins after about 23 seconds, as Brown drives for the basket.) Duke coach Vic Bubas told Sports Illustrated he had since been working to calm Heyman’s temper, “and he has improved 100 percent.”

“As much as any other human being,” Bubas said last week upon learning of Heyman’s death, “Art was responsible for Duke University becoming a national power in college basketball.” In his three years on the varsity, Heyman averaged 25.1 points and 10.9 rebounds. He made the all-Atlantic Coast Conference team all three years and in his senior season (1962-63) was named NCAA player of the year by The Sporting News, and “most outstanding player” of the Final Four.

A first-round draft pick by the Knicks, Heyman averaged 15.4 points per game and made the all-rookie team. But, as the Times observed, his NBA career was short lived. In 1967 he joined the newly formed American Basketball Association, where he helped lead the Pittsburgh Pipers to victory over the New Orleans Buccaneers for the league’s first championship in 1968. Ironically, Larry Brown was a starting guard for the Bucs.

“By his own account,” according to the Times, “Heyman could be difficult to deal with, clashing with coaches, players and eventually his alma mater, which he resented for not retiring his jersey number, No. 25, until 1990.” That is when it struck me. I always thought it was anti-Semitism that caused Artie to be “difficult to deal with.” But maybe his mother had something to do with it too.

Charlotte Heyman was at the center of a controversy that nearly put an end to the weekly mahjong games. Before it was over, my mom and her friends were forced to choose between Charlotte and Muriel Rothkopf, who said she would no longer continue to play if Charlotte were present. Charlotte, for her part, said it was “no big deal” and she had no problem playing with Muriel. My mother and the other players were torn. All agreed that Muriel had good reason to be upset. But was she right to insist that Charlotte be banished?

“You hair looks nice today,” Charlotte had said. Muriel smiled and was about to say thank you when Charlotte added, “Not like last week. Last week you looked like a chicken!” 

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

A young woman who works at a nearby A&P supermarket told me recently about an interaction with the store manager. The manager approached her with a smile on his face and congratulated her for all the good work she has done since starting her job there. Then he handed her a reward—a piece of paper telling her she is eligible for a raffle drawing among those similarly commended. The prize: a free sandwich from the store’s deli department.

“I didn’t know how to react,” she said. She was thankful her work had been noticed and acknowledged by management. But if all they are giving is a sandwich from the store’s own deli department, she thought it seemed awfully cheap of them. Why not give a sandwich to all the commended workers? She hastened to add that she likes the sandwiches made by her colleagues in the deli department even though they are not on the same level as, say, Katz’s or Carnegie in New York. But the point was moot. Someone else won the sandwich.

“I’d have preferred to have gotten a raise,” she said. She has been working at minimum wage since starting the job but salaries are currently frozen and there is nothing her union can do about it because A&P is in bankruptcy and it was all it could do to hold on to at least some of the healthcare and retirement benefits previously won in contract negotiations. She is among the seven percent of workers in the private sector in the United States who belong to a union. Among them are many who work for companies that have also filed for bankruptcy and received court permission to make drastic cuts, such as American Airlines.

“My union, the Comunications Workers of America (CWA), is organizing 10,000 passenger service workers at American Airlines,” says Hetty Rosenstein, New Jersey director of the CWA. “The airline is refusing to provide the National Mediation Board with an employee list, flat-out defying the law. And they’ve gotten a Bush-appointed judge to block the election, at least temporarily.”

Before the government bailout of General Motors, tens of thousands of retired GM workers lost their benefits; some lost their homes as a result. Yet the bailout neglected to include restoration of benefits for retirees, and the United Auto Workers union had to make numerous concessions in contract negotiations with GM. These examples and many others illustrate the bogusness of the notion that “big labor” is on equal footing with corporate wealth in their respective ability to fund political campaigns as allowed by the infamous Citizens United ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In coming days we will be hearing and reading the latest news about negotiations between Verizon management and the CWA. According to Rosenstein, Verizon has made $25-billion in profits over the past five years. Its top five executives are paid in excess of $25 million per year. Company officials will rely on the corporate media (in which they advertise heavily) to convey their message that the employees have “outrageous” salaries and benefits (particularly healthcare and retirement benefits) that are “out of line” with industry norms (i.e., wages and benefits of non-unionized workers at competing companies).

Management hopes that people who work under less desirable conditions will be unsympathetic to the Verizon employees and that public opinion will help force the union to cave. They know that widespread hostility and resentment has already been created against public employees. “In Wisconsin, the Koch brothers outspent us by $25 million and Scott Walker did not get recalled,” notes Rosenstein, who describes Verizon as “a company that continues to rake in mega-profits while demanding an end to worker pensions.”

Rosenstein thinks labor organizers today should think of themselves as part of a “resistance movement” against the corporate power that threatens an end to democracy in the U.S.. She knows that won’t “turn around the corporate onslaught” and it will not deter the “corporate plan to deprive our movement of resources so that we can’t fight, or the repression of voting rights, or all the other depressing developments.

“Our enemy is big, rich, and bad,” she acknowledges. “But we can go at it like David goes after Goliath. Not like ‘big labor’ taking on ‘big corporate’ but like resistance fighters slinging a shot between their eyes.”

My neighbor up the hill, a CWA member who works for Verizon, has a sign on his lawn that says “Support a fair contract for Verizon workers.” It includes a powerful depiction of a handful of Verizon executives labeled the “one percent” standing above a large group of employees, the “99 percent.” Down the hill lives a young woman who works at the A&P and wishes him well. She knows a victory for the Verizon workers might hasten the day she’ll get a raise instead of a chance to win a sandwich.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

I had to smile when I saw the headline last week on the National Cancer Institute web site: “Multi-institution study finds high consumption of vitamin E may lower liver cancer risk” (http://www.cancer.gov/newscenter). I first started taking a vitamin E supplement in the 1970s after reading the book Vitamin E for Healthy & Ailing Hearts by Wilfred E. Shute, M.D. It seemed like a good idea back then and over the years several observational studies were published that associated lower rates of heart disease with higher vitamin E intake. As described in a National Institutes of Health (NIH) “Fact Sheet” on dietary supplements, for example, a study of approximately 90,000 nurses published in 1983 found that incidence of heart disease was 30 percent to 40 percent lower in those with the highest intakes of vitamin E, primarily from supplements (http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VITAMINE-HealthProfessional/).

In recent years vitamin E has been investigated in various types of cancer as well. Findings have been equivocal (as have recent findings of cardiovascular studies). The SELECT trial, which began in 2001 to determine whether long-term daily supplementation with vitamin E (400 IU), with or without added selenium supplementation, would reduce the number of new prostate cancers in  healthy men 50 years of age and older, was discontinued in 2008. Analysis found that vitamin E, alone or combined with selenium, failed to prevent prostate cancer. Furthermore, results from an additional 1.5 years of follow-up (during which subjects no longer received either supplement), showed that men who had taken vitamin E had a 17 percent  increased risk of prostate cancer versus men who took placebo. (No differences were found among groups in the incidence of lung or colorectal cancers or all cancers combined.) And in one one of the heart studies, participants taking vitamin E were 13 percent more likely to experience heart failure (and 21 percent more likely to be hospitalized for it) than those who took placebo.

So what are we to make of the latest findings published in the July 17 Journal of the National Cancer Institute with regard to liver cancer? Findings are based on two population-based cohort studies jointly conducted by the Shanghai Cancer Institute and Vanderbilt University evaluating 267 liver cancer patients (118 women and 149 men) at centers in China. “Overall, the take home message is that high intake of vitamin E either from diet or supplements was related to lower risk of liver cancer in middle-aged or older people…” said Xiao Ou Shu, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine at the Vanderbilt Epidemiology Center, Nashville, Tenn.

Have I increased my risk of prostate cancer by taking vitamin E all these years or decreased my risk for liver cancer? Have I experienced a cardiovascular benefit or am I at greater risk for some forms of heart disease, as indicated by findings of some recent cardiovascular studies? Frankly, I have no idea. I just continue to take 400 IU vitamin E daily and hope it is the right choice. But the example of vitamin E highlights some of the difficulties we all face in seeking to make informed choices about our own health. What are your thoughts on this subject and on the broader subject of regulation of dietary supplements?

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

I’m glad I struck a nerve with fellow Zester Bob Gaydos last week. His response to my tweaking him for his advocacy of the designated hitter (DH) rule in major league baseball inspired some of the best writing yet to appear in this corner of cyberspace. Too bad it was written on behalf of a foul cause.

Bob did not appreciate that I quoted Ron Blomberg, former player for Bob’s beloved New York Yankees and the first designated hitter to come to bat on Opening Day after the abominable rule was put into effect in the American League in 1973. “I screwed up the game of baseball,” Blomberg admitted in 2003. “I never thought it would last this long.”

I had hoped that quoting Blomberg, who was a fan favorite during the seven years he wore the Yankees pinstripes, might help Bob come to his senses. Instead, he responded with a scurrilous attack reminiscent of the Bush Administration response to people like Scott Ritter, the ex-Marine who was a weapons inspector for the UN and returned from Iraq with the news that there were no “weapons of mass destruction” to be found there. Well, sort of like that.

“First of all,” wrote Bob, “Ron Blomberg is one of those Old Timers Day ‘Oh yeah, he was a Yankee, too’ guys. He had a couple of decent years and faded fast. He was never big enough to screw up the Yankees, let alone the whole game of baseball.” Not content with simply dispensing with Blomberg, the wily Gaydos added, “But Blomberg and Kaufman miss the point.”

Blomberg and Kaufman! Do you see? By linking my name with Blomberg’s immediately after using words like “faded fast” and “never big enough” to describe Blomberg, Gaydos hoped to belittle me as well. Well not so fast, Mr. Bigshot Yankee fan and wonderful writer! First of all, let the record show that Blomberg’s career batting average with the Yankees was a robust .302 (with an on-base percentage of .378 and slugging percentage of .476). He joined the team, albeit just for a cup of coffee (appearing in four games) in 1969 when the Yankees were in a rare period of decline. (Mets fans remember that year quite well but I can understand why Yankee fans would rather erase the memory just as they don’t like to remember the 1955 World Series.)  Blomberg returned to the still-struggling Yankees in 1971 and played for the team for six years, including the “return to glory” period under the ownership of the late Geroge Stalin….I mean Steinbrenner.

Blomberg certainly contributed to that ascent with his bat. His glove is another story (the guy had hands like cement) but the point is that when it comes to the DH rule, neither he nor I are the ones who miss the point. Gaydos tells us that “next year teams are going to play teams in the other league every day. That’s not fair to American League teams whose pitchers will have to bat.” Awwwww, poor babies. How fair was it when the DH rule cost the San Francisco Giants the 2002 World Series? The Giants were a team “constructed around its bullpen, not its spare bench parts,” noted ESPN commentator Jayson Stark. Giants’ manager Dusty Baker “essentially had no DH. In fact, his Game 7 DH — Pedro Feliz — was a guy who had made it through the first six games without an at-bat. No other sport would tolerate a situation this farcical.”

For Gaydos the answer is simple: “National League teams will gladly find a guy on the bench to add some punch to their anemic lineups.” Stark doesn’t think so. “The only reason to have a DH rule is that fans allegedly like more offense,” he wrote in 2003. “Obviously, DHs are better hitters than pitchers. But how much more offense does this rule really generate? The average AL team scored one more run every three games than the average NL team last year — and got one more hit every four games. So we’re talking about two extra runs a week. That’ll pack ’em in, all right.

“The game is simply way more interesting without the DH than with it. Period. Ask any manager which is more strategically challenging — managing a game under NL rules or AL rules. It’s no contest. It’s baseball’s cerebral side that separates it from all the other games ever invented. And the game is way more cerebral with no DH than with it.”

I don’t understand why Bob Gaydos, whose middle name should be “Cerebral, doesn’t get it. Or why he doesn’t realize that rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for Bain Capital. But I’m glad we agree that dog owners shouldn’t let their dogs pee on other people’s mailbox posts.

michael@zestoforange.com