gat

sobering facts are these: from 1991 to 1996 the percentage of managers among nonfarm
employees rose about 12 percent. For each fat cat kicked off the gravy train, 1.12 new ones
climbed aboard. All this is evidence not of generosity, I think, but of a growing fear of ordinary
people.
Is this all just more of the same scare talk you’ve heard until you’re sick of it? I don’t know; what
do you make of these figures? From 1790 until 1930 America incarcerated 50 people for every
100,000 in the population; for 140 years the ratio held steady. Then suddenly the figure doubled
between 1930 and 1940. The Depression, you say? Maybe, but there had been depressions before,
and anyway, by 1960 it doubled again to 200 per 100,000. The shock of WWII could have caused
that, but there had been wars before. Between 1960 and 1970 the figure jogged higher once again
to 300 per 100,000. And 400 per 100,000 by 1980. And near 500 per 100,000 where it hovers at
the new century’s beginning.
Has this escalation anything to do in a family way with the odd remark attributed by a national
magazine to Marine Major Craig Tucker, of Ft. Leavenworth’s Battle Command Training
Program, that "a time may come when the military may have to go domestic"? I guess that’s what
he was taught at Ft. Leavenworth.
Wendy Zeigler/Amy Halpern
How would pedagogical theory explain Wendy Zeigler—my prize student out of Roland’s class at
thirteen but fairly anonymous (as most of us are) ever after—springing into action in her fifth
decade, converting her flat in the funky Bernal Heights section of San Francisco to the day
school code through her own labor, and suddenly opening a magnificently creative place for
kids, two an one-half to six, called "Wendy Z’s Room to Grow," which did land-office business
from the first. How would it explain Amy Halpern devoting a substantial chunk of her life to
fine-tuning a personal film, "Falling Lessons," which she knew in advance would never earn a
penny and might not even be shown? What drives an artist like Amy to strive for an
noncommercial masterpiece? We have no business imposing a simplistic template on the human
spirit. That makes a mockery of Smith’s brilliant free market.
A Magnificent Memory
When I get most gloomy about this I summon up a picture of a noble British general with
powdered hair and pipe-clay leggings sitting astride a white stallion directing troop movements
across the green river Monongahela, his brilliant columns all in red stretching far behind him. "The
most magnificent sight I ever saw," said George Washington many years later when he
remembered it. Who could blame all those ordinary men for betting their lives on an invincible
military machine, all glittering and disciplined? All they had to do was to ride down naked
American savages from the Stone Age; all they had to do was take their orders and obey them.
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