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Show Al5 The Salt Lake Tribune OPINION Friday, July 25, Washington D.C.Isn’t Just Another U.S. City byists and the way Congress has of suggesting a confederacy of dunces;as city, Washington barely functions. The Washington Post published a se- DONALD KAUL . CHICAGO TRIBUNE SERVICE WASHINGTON — They opened the new, improved Washington National Airport this week; we should all be grateful. If an airport is a modern city’s way of announcing itself to the world, the nation’s capital has gotten itself a spectacu- lar announcement. Some have called the design, the internationally famed archifectsGear Pelli, “Jeffersonian,” in that it incorporates a series of domes that emit a faint echo of the Jefferson Memorial across the Potomac river, butit is more Arabian Nights than neoclassic temple. It has a series of domes,yes, butits outstanding feature is the control tower, which resembles nothing so much as the prayer tower on a mosque. You half expect an air controller to come out at sunset and begin to chant. Theterminal itself is a big, airy building, a 1,500-foot-long, five-story structure whose glass wall looks out across the airfield to the Federal Mall and the Capi- tol in the distance. Its marble floors are decorated with handsome mosaics by distinguished artists; theue and balconies are festooned with m It is first-class taclltya building that says: “Hey! You are entering one of the world’s greatcities, a fitting capital for the greatest country in the world.” Unfortunately, it lies. Washington,D.C., is a mess. Forget the troubles of the president, the sleazy lob- ries‘on the District's troubles this week. Thestatistics are simply appalling. The city has the highest rates of tuberculosis, new AIDS infection and infant mortality in the nation. Its homicide rate is three and a half times that of New York, two eo eee phia’ Its school system, when it’s not falling apart physically, produces students who, when they don’t drop out, achieve abys- mal test scores on national exams.I won't even mention the condition of the streets. The city is ranked at or near the top among majorcities in almost everything that is bad, near the bottom in everything that is good. You might think —as I once did — that D.C.’s problem is money, that if Congress would just be a little more generous, all of these problems would disappear. Not so. Washington spends more money per capita, and has more employees, than any othercity in the country. And by lot. For example,it has 7.18 police officers per 1,000 residents, compared to New York with 423 and Los Angeles with 2.66, yet has not produced the lowering ofcrimerates those other cities have.It's in many ways, the classic liberal city. It has long embraced the idea that governmentis a force for good. Whenever a social ill has appeared on the D.C.scene, the city has rushed to confront it. It operates a college, a law school, hospitals. The benefits offered the unemployed, injured workers, welfare recipients are all among the highest in the nation. Given a choice,it has always chosen proactive government. And it doesn't work.It is a city trapped in a self-perpetuating funk of dependency. The citizens, many if not most of whom are on the public payroll, vote for Politicians not because they will govern efficiently but because they. won't. me can just hear the conservatives crow- : “See! He admits it! Liberalism doesn’t work.” doesn’t mean it can't. (Where would Christianity be if you ee it solely on the actions of Christians?) Whatwe need is a shrewder approach to_solving social problems, not an abandonment of them. Why notstop pretend- In the meantime,it's got a terrific airport. tion in the world. herself, the refusal to take “no” for an answer. Butthe strongest“survival signal” was theinstinct the woman felt when she first Workplace Sexual HarassmentStill Confuses Us thymes with a female body part. The cast offriends guesses various unlikely possi- JOANNE JACOBS bilities that rhyme with various sexual parts. After the woman dumps Seinfeld, KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS SAN JOSE, Calif. — Let an employee make sexual jokes at work, and you could lose millions of dollars in a lawsuit. Fire an employee for making sexual jokes at work, and you could lose millions of dollars in a lawsuit. Dinged if you do, dinged he remembers that her nameis Dolores. Mackenzie was determined to make sure Best got the joke. To avoid saying the rhyming word, he showed her a pho- tocopied page from thedictionary with if,you don’t. “clitoris”onit. She considered that sexual harassment, and also complained to managementthat men and two men awarded $26 million to he'd left a “freaky” voice mail message on her phone and told her about a dream Last week, a Milwaukee jury of 10 wo- a Miller Brewing Co. executive fired for telling a female co-worker about a sexy “Seinfeld” episode. Jerold Mackenzie, 54, had sued for a measly $9.2 million. The jury gave him nearly three times more than he asked for, including $18 million in punitive damages. They also ordered Patricia Best, a secretary who complained about the “Seinfeld” joke, to pay $1.5 million of the total amount. The award will be reduced or thrown out, legal observers predicted. But it won't be forgotten. It may just reflect a jury that went goafy, as juries sometimes do. But it could be the harbinger of a backlash against sexual harassmentclaims. Mackenzie worked for the beer company for 19 years. By 1993, he was $95,000 a year. Then he told Best about he said he’d had about her. Mackenzie had been reprimanded by Miller in 1989, after his secret charged sexual harassment. He denied the charge, and the case was settled outof court. This time, Mackenzie was fired. The companysaid the incident was one of a series of poor management decisions by Mackenzie. Based on their post-verdict the jury apparently believed Miller wanted to dump Mackenzie for other reasons, and used sexual harassmentas an excuse. A decadeof downsizing has made Americans increasingly hostile to employers whofire employees without good cause. But they didn’t just go after the deeppocket defendant. They clobbered the secretary, too. an episode in which Seinfeld forgets his In sexualharassmentcases,the alleged girlfriend's name, but remembers thatit victim usually argues she was unable to We've got a hungry cat up there.” The man's words are loaded with what De Beckercalls “survival signals”: the aggressive offer of help that creates an instant sense of obligation; the effort to put his prey on the defensive by saying she’s not able to carry the groceries by CHRIS MATTHEWS in the solution of urban ills? €a would be wonderfulif we could make m an American Paris, a nation- fort to conservatives, for Washingtonis, bureaucratic disaster. All of which should give aid and com- proud, you know. We'd better hurry er and make it truly a federal experiment ¥ city that inspired pride in citizens throughoutthe country. one that actually was a fitting capital for the greatest na- ment, with everything. Humans HaveSurvival Instinct ing that Washington is a city like anyoth- What we are talking about here is a the samewith the schools, the fire depart- DP ereomcnes agpeaten Wrong. Liberalism isn't dead, it’s only sleeping. Just because D.C. doesn’t work heard his voice, the sense that something was wrong. CHICAGO TRIBUNE SERVICE speak up because the harasser outranked her. ‘There were 10 women on thejury, and cide how to protect ourselves. they just didn’t buy the idea that women Forthe Sylvester Stallones and Sharon in the workplace are helpless victims of Stones of the world, the smart responseis to hire bodyguards. For the rest of us, author Gavin De Becker argues in his gripping new book, The Gift of Fear, there’s an even more powerful defense. The instinct God gaveus. A woman carries two bagsof groceries back to her apartment. Shenotices that big bad men. If Best was offended, she should have told Mackenzie so before he gotto the punchline, a woman jurorsaid. Mackenzie doesn’t sound all that sym- pathetic. (For one thing, he’s a joke ex- plainer.) Why was the jury so incredibly angry? I think they were angry at the way sex- ual harassmentlaw has been used to harass workers who wantto talk about some- thing at work other than the latest production figures. If workers are entitled to a comfortable working environment,that means — for most people — an environment where they can chat with coworkers about what was on TV last night, There most tragically was. For three hours that young man terrorized the womanhe offered to help with her groceries. Only when hehad raped her, had a gun to her head and said he was in a hurry WASHINGTON — Gianni Versace is dead. Once again wetheliving must de- to leave did shefinally use the “gift” God had given her. “Hey don't look so scared, I promise T'm notgoing to hurt you. On hearing that unsolicited promise, another of De Becker's “survival signals,” the young woman knew with absolute certainty that the man who had finished with her was goingto kill her. “Don’t move or do anything.” he or- the front door to her building has been left unlocked again but decides to enter anyway. It will save her the trouble of dered. “I'm going intothe kitchen to get something to drink. Then I'll leave. But you stay right where you are.” He then digging for her key. As sheclimbs to her fourth-floor apart- closed the window — acan of catfood falls from her bags goes bangingits way down the stairs. seit, I'll bringit up.” It’s a young man’s voice, she. remem- Instead she headed for the door. Across the hall, she darted into the neighbor's apartment and locked the door behind her, saving her life. The young man had tell a joke, offer a compliment, maybe bered later, and something about it ment where they don’t have to watch every word. These jurors must feel more by workplace than said as he came up the stairs and into view for thefirst time. Again, there had been survivalsignals. Why would someoneclose a windowif he was going to leave? That $1.5 million ear against “No, no thanks.I've gotit.” “You don't look like you'vegotit,” he continued. “What floor are you going was instinctive, the same “gut feeling,” the same intuition the commuter uses even makea date. It means an environ- wo! boorishness. Best is wildly unfair, and may scare women silent about sexual harassment, even when they've got a solid case. For employers, the verdict makes a difficult issue impossible. What's a boss supposed to do to stay out of court? There must be a sane middle ground between the multi-million-dollar swings of the pendulum. Wehaven't found it yet. KLIK Oe)6 Hard See WOW ONLY s119” stabbed a previous victim to death sounded wro! ““Let me give you a hand,” the stranger But the woman’s most powerfulsignal working his way through the morning and to?” evening traffic. It is the one bodyguard, the author ar- “The fourth, but I'm OK, really.” “I'm going to the fourth floor, too, and I'm late — not my fault, broken watch — so let’s not just stand here. And give me that,” he said reaching for a bag. “Noreally, thanks, but, no, I've gotit.” “There's such a thing as being too gues persuasively, that we should never leave home without. “No animalin the wild, suddenly overcomewith fear, would spend anyof its mental energy thinking ‘It's probablynothing.’ ” Whatbetter incentive to buy AT&T? 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