June 2002 Archives

The actions or thoughts that constitute the ultimate sin depend on who you ask, but in the realm of government bureaucracy there is almost unanimous agreement that disagreeing with a superior and accusing him or her of being incorrect is the worst sin of all, and the most unpardonable.

A brave FBI agent has all but accused the top boss in the bureau of being wrong, and while she will pay the price for her honesty – when someone in the federal government asks for whistle-blower protection, they’re doomed and they know it – we’ve come a step closer to the truth about who knew what about 9/11.

I was thinking about this after seeing the film “The Sum of All Fears.”

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, and the others of his generation, do not fit in at the Central Intelligence Agency. Ryan is convinced that he is right about the new Russian leader, but the hierarchy isn’t persuaded. At one point, it looks like he has totally missed the boat, and someone reminds him that he really blew it.

Ryan’s efforts to get around the bureaucracy show how tough it is for a low-level person to get attention, and how ludicrous it is for the government to brag about how it wants to recruit independent thinkers for agencies that want no one to do any sort of independent thinking.

Bureaucracies, especially of the federal variety, are creatures of habit that resist change and have the means to stop it in its tracks. The country is littered with the wreckage of illustrious careers destroyed trying to pull off reform.

The Postal Service is the model for bureaucratic inertia, and more Postmasters General have taken on the organization than I have hair left on my head, and departed after a year or two shaking their heads in astonishment at how little they were able to accomplish.

Even now, in the current financial crisis, the postal bureaucracy is fighting to maintain the status quo, despite the full knowledge that it will only result in the end of the Postal Service and the loss of their jobs. They just can’t help it; they’re trained to fight change.

Unlike “The Sum of All Fears,” where Ryan has a top boss who sticks up for him, when you take on the federal bureaucracy, you take it on alone. The guardians of the status quo are ready, willing and able to destroy you to protect their turf.

Rowley did a brave thing, and published reports say she’s a level-headed agent who knows her way around. It requires a lot of guts to take a stand on principle in a world where keeping your mouth shut and getting with the program guarantees safety and job security.

She’ll pay dearly for her audacity, and there’ll be another round of “press-conference reform” at the FBI while Rowley gets the bum’s rush from the Bureau. If it’s any comfort to her, she did what she was supposed to do, if not by the standards of the FBI bureaucracy, then by the standards the rest of us aspire to.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.

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June 12, 2002

Mother always said never to discuss religion or politics at the dinner table, and I have always violated that rule.

Another rule, at least in Florida, is never to discuss economic development if your goal is to make a case for improving the employment base and the lives of the people who need well-paying jobs with benefits.

While life holds no guarantees, the future is a lot brighter for retirees than for working-age people. As more and more jobs shift to low-wage, even prison-labor countries like Mexico, Malaysia or China, and as it gets harder and harder to afford decent health care, the economic impact will be felt throughout our region.

This is not a Democratic, Republican or Libertarian problem, though people of those political stripes have their views on what needs to be done. It's an American problem. If we don't solve it, we run the risk of ending up a First World nation with a Third World economy and social system.

Indian River County may be part of that dismal future unless moves are made to halt the economic decline.

Government isn't the solution; the private sector is the key. Employers must show a commitment to employing Americans, paying them decently and providing affordable health insurance so that people can raise healthy families.

That's almost blasphemy in corporate America today, where the goal appears to be to reincorporate in Bermuda, launder profits through the Cayman Islands and move all production to Hanoi and customer service to Bangalore while flying the American flag over a headquarters in the United States.

So what's the answer? It's not always tax incentives, I'm sorry to say.

Ask the city of Boynton Beach or Broward County, which threw stacks of taxpayer money at Motorola and got layoffs in return.

Ask Palm Beach County, which has been flinging taxpayer money at companies for years to grow an "Internet Coast." Most of the companies formerly there have gone the way of XL Vision and Florafax.

The best way is to encourage the growth of local businesses to help them become bigger employers that can afford to pay better salaries.

Instead of hoping, usually futilely, that a large company will relocate here, politicians and the Chamber of Commerce should be doing more for local businesses, current and prospective.

Some people who have escaped from the counties south of us, though, don't want economic growth, even if the price is poverty for so many. Too many people means too many cars, they say, which means it's harder to get to the Indian River Mall.

If things don't turn around in a few years, however, the same wrecking ball that bowled a strike at the Vero Mall will be rolling toward the Indian River Mall.

How long do you think those shopping centers on State Road 60 will remain viable when they're half-empty, when the stores currently there can't turn a profit?

If anyone out there has a better idea, I'd love to hear it.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.
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June 4, 2002

If there's a constant in our universe, aside from the speed of light, it's that New York City is still and always New York City.

The city's a financial wreck but it's where I grew up, and it has a special hold on me, even after 16 years in Florida.

Most of my family still lives in the city and its suburbs, and on a recent trip I made the rounds to visit my brother in Greenwich Village, my grandmother in Brooklyn and my other brother, his wife and two daughters in Shirley.

A lot of negatives about New York City can be dredged up, but there are some positives if you know where to look. The public transportation system runs, and the MetroCard system means you'll never be out of exact change again. If you board a bus or subway and use the MetroCard, you can transfer for free within two hours.

Granted, the subway is an alphabet soup of letters and numbers, but the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Web site is helpful and convenient, and maps are everywhere in the subway.

Advances in sound reproduction technology mean you can actually understand the conductor on the train. In the past, you'd hear "bzzzt bzzz bztztz" at each station. I was stunned to hear, as plain as day, "This is an E train, Eighth Avenue local. Lexington Avenue next. Stand clear of the doors."

They haven't changed the signs in the subway yet, so an uninformed rider might think the E train still goes under the Twin Towers.

I took the train on my last day in New York to Greenwich Village and saw my brother's place, a fourth-floor walkup in a 140-year-old building. The small apartment has a fireplace, a view of the river and the distinct impression that one side of the apartment is higher than the other. It is, Robert said, noting that the building is slightly tilted, but that the big bolts in the wall secure the place to the building next door.

We took a walking tour of Lower Manhattan and I kept looking up, expecting to see those towers that dominated the landscape for so many years. I wondered what people thought as they looked up and saw the planes fly into those buildings and the flames and worse spurting from what once seemed a symbol of strength.

We walked close to Ground Zero, and could see the work continuing at the former site of the World Trade Center. Nearby was a makeshift memorial to the brave and dedicated rescue personnel who died trying to save lives on Sept. 11. I photographed a little plaque honoring my former classmate, Lt. Kenneth Phelan, FDNY. Even at 40, he still resembled the Irish kid I knew at Our Lady of Hope in Middle Village, Queens, in the early 1970s.

With all the sadness and tragedy that have happened, it's sad that the politicians and hucksters see only opportunities to pass blame and cash in.

But New York City is still New York City. And that's all right.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.
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May 29, 2002

There's a principle in business that gets a lot of play in these days of disposable workers: One way to get rid of people is to make the job undesirable.

This has worked in medicine, where efforts to rid medical facilities of registered nurses worked so well that not only are nurses quitting in droves, but few people want to enter the field.

A few years ago, the crisis in public education was figuring out how to get rid of teachers, not attract them. In Palm Beach County, teachers and school administrators were offered all sorts of incentives to retire, and new teachers were lured to the area, then laid off.

This had a rather serious impact on the number of people who wanted to be teachers, and I worked in the news business alongside people who had been teachers but decided that they'd rather work in the private sector, with adults, not in the schools.

Today, we're recruiting teachers from just about every country on the planet, and maybe we'll be recruiting from Mars and the planets around Alpha Centauri soon, to bring teachers to Florida. Those who condemn the lack of competition in education forget that we're competing to attract the best teachers not only with other states but with other career fields.

Even those politicians who condemn anyone who works in the public schools as an "edu-crat" whine in the next breath about where to go to find 30,000 new teachers to criticize, condemn and blame for all of society's problems.

In an economic downturn, it's easy and tempting to treat people like dirt and offer them poverty wages, expensive health benefits that cover very little and working conditions that are dangerous, while telling people they're lucky to have a job.

That's the future in the private sector that most business leaders and politicians dream of seeing, but there are the hidden costs of such policies in jobs that are not as desirable.

Even when you discount the lack of tangible rewards for teaching, having to hear and read the negative rhetoric emanating not only from Tallahassee but also from people who only know about the schools from what they read in the paper or see on the news and never from actually visiting a school has to be disheartening. No wonder people avoid teaching, and no wonder so few people want to be teachers.

Sure, there are incompetent teachers out there, and those who are in it for the money, but there also are incompetent business leaders and politicians out there who also are in it for the money and the power.

What many people need to learn is to respect teachers, especially those who stick with the profession and try their darndest, in an era of standardized testing, mealy-mouthed politicians and massive funding cuts, to give students some measure of an education, even when the whole rest of society is working against them.

That isn't a substitute for money, which teachers also deserve, but it's a start to making the profession respectable and desirable.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.
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May 22, 2002

A zookeeper at Busch Gardens recently learned a costly and painful lesson when she looped one finger around a bar in a lion's cage, and the lion grabbed her finger and bit off her arm below the elbow.

If there's a lesson to be learned from this incident, and other incidents involving caged wild animals, it's that these are not house pets, and even the seemingly tame ones are capable of a great deal of mayhem.

A visit to a flea market in Viera reminded me of the importance of being careful around wild animals. A friend and I went to see a "wild cat" rescue presentation, and I noticed that one of the trainers was missing two fingers on his left hand.

Maybe he got his hand caught in a slammed car door, but most likely he got bitten by one of those "cats." It's easy to forget that while wild animals loll in seeming lethargy behind those bars or in those wildlife enclosures, they are killers if the situation calls for it.

Sure, they may look tame, and the babies are undeniably cute, but they are built to attack and kill, and can without warning.

Buried in the brains of these animals is a program developed over millions of years by evolution. If an animal feels threatened or hungry, that program can be activated in a flash, and the results can be tragic.

Even my cat, Garfield, shows evidence of that program. If I pet him the wrong way, he can bite me, and has. But he's a domestic feline with a small mouth and no claws, and has never even drawn blood. A lion or tiger can take off a limb or kill.

A basic concept I learned from the nature TV shows when I was growing up was that wild animals can be hazardous to your health if they get out, and one of us could be their next meal if we got too close or fell into their lair.

This bred some fear, but also a healthy respect for animals taken from the wild and locked up, and I have made it a point to ensure there's lots of barriers between me and any wild animals out there.

To me, that's simple common sense.

Back in my community-college days, I covered the arrival of a Florida Panther (not the hockey-playing variety) at the campus. I was assured that this one had been trained for human contact and would not hurt anyone. In addition to my regular reporting duties, I joined the line and petted it.

Later, while it was being photographed, the panther began to groom itself and the trainer wanted it to stop, so he gave it a light slap across the muzzle. At that moment, I was worried that the panther would attack, but it merely stopped what it was doing. Maybe it was training that kept it from attacking, but with wild animals, even domesticated ones, you never know.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.
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May 15, 2002

The excuses and explanations for "eterna-lights" those long traffic lights that keep you sitting there seemingly forever get more and more comical all the time. Traffic engineers have more excuses than an Enron executive for keeping people trapped behind the red light while everybody else in the world gets to go, and since we can't do much, legally, to fight them, the only recourse left is to turn their abuse of power to our advantage.

My coping techniques started with shouted obscenities, but I've mellowed in my middle age. I roll down the driver's side window, then shut off the engine and leave the key in the "accessory" position so I can keep the tunes coming out of the CD player. This way, I save gas and help preserve the environment. I suspect that most traffic engineers own oil stocks, so this is one way to ensure they don't get excessively wealthy at our expense. And music has charms to tame the savage driver.

Another technique that can while away the hours at the light is to bring something to read. I have found that when I have a magazine or newspaper in the car, the number of green lights I hit is directly proportional to how much I want to read an article in a publication on the seat next to me. Books with short chapters make great reading at a long light, too.

There are disadvantages to traffic-light reading, though. For one thing, if, by some awesome miracle the light actually turns green and you don't notice because you're engrossed in an article, the people behind you tend to get somewhat testy. And if you're far enough back, you may miss that light and have to wait for the next green light, this time at the front of the line.

A neighbor of mine who was a Palm Beach County sheriff's deputy told me once that taking a shortcut across a parking lot to avoid stopping at a red light was the same as running a red light, so I never tried it, but at one light I always missed and ended up spending several minutes at, I found a way around it.

This was one of those left-turn signals that wasn't always triggered. Five minutes may not seem like a long time, but it's time you never get back, and I would continue through the green light for straight-ahead traffic, make a U-turn a half-mile beyond the intersection, and then turn right on the red light after stopping.

That time I saved added up over the years, and I wasted it on what I wanted, not what some traffic engineer wanted.

When it comes to traffic lights, small victories are the ones best remembered, like the times you get to a light just as it changes to green or you come to a green light and it stays green as you pass through the intersection. On those days, the sun's a little brighter and you can bask in the accomplishment that this time, in the eternal struggle of humanity vs. the traffic light, the humans won.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at vincent.safuto@scripps.com.
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May 10, 2002

Clothes, music and haircuts may go out of style, but if there's one constant in our world, it's political corruption.

I think most of us view political corruption as the Muzak of democracy. It's in the background, and as long as it's not too loud and doesn't affect us too much, we don't lose any sleep over it.

Elected officials realize that while they can get away with some graft, so long as it's limited to throwing an occasional contract to a friend or landing a well-qualified relative a job, no one's going to squawk too loud, except maybe the local newspaper.

It's when corruption hits on a grand scale that the public begins to sit up and take notice.

Recently, a Miami-Dade county commissioner, her husband and a top aide were charged with actions relating to the commissioner's election and misuse of her office. This person spent more than a million dollars to land a seat that pays a whopping $6,000 a year and gives her access to a budget of over a billion dollars.

Of course, Miami-Dade County has a tradition of corruption. If that county's government ever wants to hold a reunion, it may have to be in a prison.

Still, corruption and insider deals are the cancer of our political system, eating away at the people's trust. Honest candidates have to worry about being tarred by the same brush and the good people we need in public office may decide to stay in their current jobs rather than risk being considered corrupt by association.

It's easy to take shots at the media on this one, and maybe newspapers and magazines should do stories on elected officials who do their jobs and obey the rules, but someone has to watch out for the public interest.

Although I sometimes question the motives of a candidate, I have to confess that it takes a lot of guts to put one's name out there on the ballot. Even if I totally disagree with the opinions and views of a candidate, I have to admire their willingness to expose themselves.

But there are times when people should not run, such as when one knows that one cannot serve. A recent case involving a certain candidate now serving in the Navy is a perfect example. It's unprofessional to run a campaign and advertise one's candidacy when one has no plans of serving if elected. It's deceptive and unfair to the voters and the other candidates.

It's as if I had applied for and accepted a job at the paper, when all along I had no intention of reporting on the first day.

Public office is an opportunity, and I have no problem with an ambitious person who hopes someday to serve in Congress or higher starting out in lower office. But such folks should bear in mind that the best way to move up and gain respect is to do what's right at all times, not just when it's convenient or when he or she thinks someone might be watching.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at (Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com).
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May 1, 2002

One of the abiding myths of education is that there's only a short window of time in your life when learning new things is possible. It saddens me to hear of people who have to start over in life in a new career. Not only do they have to overcome the economic barriers to education but also the social and psychological barriers that make lessons learned in adulthood appear to be of lesser value than those learned in the "traditional" ages for learning.

My college years were not right after high school, but after four years' service in the Marines and five years of employment in the Postal Service, but I had figured out the value of lifelong learning long before then.

It was in getting my pilot's license that I found that there was more to education than book learning. At the conclusion of my flight test in July 1981, after I had successfully landed a Piper Tomahawk in a crosswind, the examiner, turned to me, said "congratulations," shook my hand and added, "You now have a license to learn." Getting that little piece of paper from the FAA was not the end of learning, but the beginning.

It's the same with diplomas. Whether from high school, college or trade school, they symbolize that while you've learned some things, there's a lot more out there to learn and, hopefully, you know how to get and apply that knowledge.

In college, the group I admired most was the senior citizens in the lifelong learning program at Florida Atlantic University. Indeed, I envied them because they could attend fascinating lectures on all sorts of subjects without having to take notes, tests or write research papers, and could audit the regular undergraduate classes.

That was learning, I thought. Though I and other non-traditional students were inspired by the lifelong learners, it was stunning to find out that the "traditional" students did not like their presence on campus.

Lifelong learning classes were conducted in rooms in the student center, and the student government types would rant and rave in the college paper that they didn't belong there, or anywhere else on campus.

One student whined that the presence of older people was "depressing," and it was ruining her college experience. In an anonymous letter, someone repeated every stereotype about Florida seniors, and the editor, who agreed with the writer, insisted that it be published verbatim to balance my signed columns in favor of the presence of seniors on campus.

Declaring that not only did the lifelong learners have a right to be on campus, but that their taxes had made the college possible, did little to persuade the young know-it-alls that the resources of the college should be for everyone, not just for them.

I hope those who opposed the lifelong learners eventually come into wisdom and understanding that learning is a process that goes on through one's entire life, and seekers of knowledge should always be welcomed into the classroom, regardless of age.

That's the most important lesson of all.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.
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April 23, 2002

I was pondering the wonder of technology in retail sales recently while waiting in an interminable line to pay for my purchases somewhere.

The advent of bar code technology, I once read, would speed us through checkout lines and on our way to adventures beyond the mundane need to restock on toilet paper and dental floss.

Ah, the sweet innocence of youth. I tend to be a patient fellow, but I have yet to see any improvement in the speed through the checkout, and am tempted to bring reading material when there's nothing good in the tabloids.

I always love those little books: "Veterinary Cures from the Bible" and the Reader's Digest, with its "sky is falling" and "rotten, no-good kids" articles, but I prefer the library for light reading.

The new technology gives you time to think about these things.

Back when my mother used to go food shopping and bring me to help carry the bags, I thought it was super cool to listen to the almost musical melodies played by the mechanical cash register. The cashier had to be quick with the fingers and push the right buttons, then hit the big one that added the purchase to the list.

The grand finale of this mechanical symphony was the one that computed the total. If my mother bought a lot of stuff, you'd hear the cash register make mechanical noises and tumbling sounds for up to 15 or 20 seconds, then see the total in actual digits, not light-emitting diodes.

And there was none of this wimpy calculation of how much change was due. A good cashier could do it mentally and correctly every time.

Today, the music from a cash register is like comparing a whole-tone composition to Mozart. It's all bleeps, bloops and blurps, with weird messages like "confirm customer is 17" when you buy a DVD. I always make sure to tell the cashier it's great to be 15 but able to pass as someone older. They are seldom amused.

It's supposed to be faster, but every customer's purchases usually have to be scanned at least twice, there is at least one intervention from a manager needed and at least one trip to the "courtesy desk" by the cashier.

Throw in changing the register tape, opening a hermetically sealed container of pennies and dealing with a customer's nonfunctional check-cashing card, and I wonder sometimes if I'll soon see my handsome face on a milk carton, have to get a carton of frozen yogurt that hasn't melted or worry about my cat forgetting me.

That doesn't even include charge-offs, key turning and assorted other time-wasters, including the venerable "price-check" when an item doesn't scan.

Cashiers whine to advice columnists about how impolite it is for customers in line to talk on cell phones while waiting, but it's sometimes the only way to stay awake while waiting to pay for purchases. And I wish cashiers would tell me why the express lane is invariably the slowest lane in the place.

The only benefit of progress I find is that, while I wait in line, I have lots of time to think of column ideas.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.

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April 11, 2002

The endgame of the current fighting in the Middle East is not a pretty one. In my mind's eye, I see Yasser Arafat and some of his henchmen sitting in a room and toasting their stunning victory over the infidel hordes.

And outside the building, which is the only one left standing in what used to be the Palestinian-controlled areas near Israel, there's nothing left. The cities and towns, gone. The young men, killed in suicide bombings or Israeli attacks. The women, just as dead, or refugees. The children, martyrs to the holy cause.

And the Palestinian leadership will celebrate and hail the sacrifice made in the name of a pock-marked old man and his belief in the need to settle scores thousands of years old. To Arafat and his ilk, all

this death and destruction is worth it. When people suffer from bad, self-serving leadership, sacrifice for

the cause becomes the order of the day. Bosses in high towers claim spiritual superiority over the masses, leverage that into political and material superiority, hire men with guns to defend those perks and privileges, and set off on their ruinous path.

The dead don't matter to such leaders. All those young men's lives are a sacrifice Arafat and Co. are more than willing to make. You won't see them -- or their male relatives -- on the firing line, of course. That's for the little people.

Instead of having jobs, building lives, raising families and improving their land, Palestinian men have little to do but march, protest and wave their fists -- and die for Arafat. On the Israeli side, civilians and soldiers live in fear, wanting the killing to stop but needing to respond to the provocations.

If they let the Palestinians run completely amok and the only thing left to fight over will be a smoking pit of ruin surrounded by rocks and dirt. And they'll still fight over the rocks and dirt -- with rocks and

dirt.

Greater columnists than I, in other papers, have declaimed in a similar mode. Training a new generation for nothing more than fighting and dying does the present generation few favors and the future ones none.

There will eventually be a winner in the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but even then there will be plenty of losers. Israel's tourist economy has taken a beating, the economy on both sides is a shambles and the fear that, even if a peace accord is ever signed, someone will decide to settle old scores means that fear and anxiety will reside in the minds of the inhabitants long after the last shot is fired.

Maybe if Arafat and his crew would spend more time thinking about how to make life better for his people than how to get them killed to make a political point, the life they keep claiming to want might come to pass.

The alternative is oblivion -- for both sides.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.

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April 4, 2002

Uncle Sam wants his military personnel to stop misusing his credit cards, and it's about time.

The Pentagon has announced that it's charging ahead with plans to do something about the fact that a tiny number of our men and women in uniform have apparently decided that the government plastic in their wallets is a license to buy things and not pay for them.

I can only wonder how these folks handle their personal finances, if they leave the government and banks holding the bag when they make personal purchases on a government credit card and then default on their credit-card bills.

Maybe we taxpayers, in this time of war, don't lose sleep over the tab for a new jet fighter or an aircraft carrier, but the money stolen through government credit-card misuse adds up to a nice chunk of change that could go toward fixing up base housing or giving the troops a raise.

That's our money they're playing with, and a little accountability goes beyond making sure some low-level bureaucrat doesn't end up as a budget analyst. Every credit-card purchase should be for official business only, and violations should be punished immediately and severely.

You'd think the military would have a handle on something like this. After all, they know where to find the offender, so stopping him or her should be fairly easy.

One idea that's a step in the right direction is to make credit-card misuse punishable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. But while this will at least give the military a legal basis to go after offenders, there can be added some incentives to not misuse that credit card before someone commits an offense.

When I was in the Marines, all you had to do was say "Leavenworth," and people knew what you were talking about, though "Pendleton brig" also could make my heart palpitate. The prospect of military prison was enough to keep me on the straight and narrow, I can assure you of that.

While in Marine boot camp, I stood firewatch one night for the Correctional Custody Platoon, recruits who had wised off to drill instructors or committed other offenses. It was definitely scary to see them filling sandbags, literally "making" their beds and eating at attention. Just the occasional sight of "brig babies" in my military career was incentive enough to stay out of trouble.

Maybe all personnel issued a government credit card should be taken on an all-expenses-paid trip to beautiful Fort Leavenworth. A tour of the grounds and the accommodations, and the possibility of checking in and never checking out, would surely serve as an incentive to not misuse a government credit card.

Maybe a brief visit and chat with previous credit-card offenders could enlighten, in the style of "Scared Straight," potential cardholders on the ways and means to find oneself a resident of such a place.

If that isn't persuasive enough, the prospect of "six, six and a kick" (six months' confinement, six months' forfeiture of pay and benefits, and a dishonorable discharge) might be just the ticket to nipping military credit-card misuse in the bud.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.

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March 28, 2002

Postage rates are going up again, as the Postal Service struggles to survive in the age of e-mail and the aftermath of the anthrax scare.

A recent report from the General Accounting Office labeled the Postal Service's financial situation as "dire" and said that the system is in need of immediate reform. But old habits die hard, and the Postal Service has to move uncharacteristically fast to ensure its own future.

Bear in mind, this is an agency that has been promising "change" for decades, and when change hasn't happened, replied that "change takes time." Well, the Postal Service is almost out of time and money.

My suggestions to save the system will no doubt upset many people, but if we want mail delivery to continue and not be subject to rate hikes every year, this may be the only chance to ensure the Postal Service's continued existence.

First, Saturday mail delivery should be eliminated, except for the holiday season. Forget all the talk about how it's a tradition and that it will be the end of the world if the mailman doesn't deliver on Saturday. It'll save plenty of money, and also gasoline, and wear and tear on postal vehicles.

Next, the Express Mail service should be closed down. Express Mail is simply duplicating the efforts of private-sector companies that do a better, more reliable job. Since FedEx has boxes in post offices now, and UPS boxes could be added, to be fair, there will be little or no disruption if Express Mail is eliminated.

Next, all postal installations and mail-processing facilities should shut down completely on Sundays and holidays. Granted, this will slow the mail down somewhat, but the cost savings can be huge when you consider that postal career employees get a 25 percent premium for working their shift if any of it is on a Sunday. Pay for holidays also is a huge expense; simply shutting down is less expensive.

Next, end all management bonuses. If any postal manager is not satisfied with his or her compensation, he or she should be encouraged to leave or take a lower-paying job as a regular postal worker, not bribed to stay.

Productivity bonuses have, in at least one facility that I'm aware of, allegedly led to managers exaggerating mail volume to get bigger bonuses.

Finally, the union leaders need to understand that flexibility is the key to the Postal Service's future survival. I know from experience that unions are adept at blocking change and reform, sometimes even if it's beneficial to the members.

It may seem degrading to have to compromise now, but things could get a lot worse for members and union leaders if the Postal Service goes under.

These are ways the Postal Service can cut costs now without laying off employees or managers, or closing facilities. The impact on delivery service and worker pay may be intolerable to some, especially the unions, but if the whole system goes down the tubes, the impact will be even greater.

If the managers of the Postal Service don't take the reins and implement changes to cut costs, the reality is that such changes will be forced upon them, or their replacements.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. He worked for the Postal Service for 11 years. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.


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March 21, 2002

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, many people wondered if things could ever be the same, especially in aviation. Layoffs hit the airlines, except for Southwest, and pilots suddenly became superfluous.

While airlines called in some political debts to land a federal buyout, they fired pilots, flight attendants and other workers en masse without severance or benefits, and our local flight school also had to lay people off.

It looked like flying was going the way of the dodo bird, and all that would be left would be the long, concrete strips and airplanes permanently tied to the ground, their engines silent, their wings never to bite into the air again and lift their payloads above the land.

But many people still have the flying bug, that intense desire to sit in the left seat of an airplane, a drive that can only be treated, not cured. And passengers are slowly returning to the airports and airlines to get to their destinations.

Like the flu, the flying bug has shown a resilience and adaptability. You might say, based on a recent Press Journal story, that our area is the Mayo Clinic of the flying bug.

Flying, to me and many others, has always been a romantic adventure, and seeing what happened to those planes and thinking about the innocent lives lost in the air and on the ground made me wonder if most future flying would be done on the computer.

But there are some people who believe that there is a future for commercial aviation, and they're betting their own educational and financial futures on it.

Like many businesses, flight schools took a major hit after Sept. 11. Restrictions on flights, which are the lifeblood of any such school, plus the massive airline layoffs, made flight training appear to be a bad investment.

But that was in the short term. As the article noted, many pilots will retire soon, and the demand for those who can fly airliners is expected to rise, meaning those licenses flight students in our area are now pursuing will be tickets to the wild blue yonder, not the unemployment line.

I've noticed the pickup in flight activity in our area, and the drone of small planes is music to my ears. We are fortunate to have good weather and lots of small airports where flight training can take place.

Of course, some don't see it that way. The noise is an irritant, they say; the planes raise fears of crashes, though there are probably more car crashes in a single day than small-plane crashes or emergency landings in a year.

The economic benefit of all this flight training can't be ignored, either. We keep hearing about economic development, and while flight instruction itself requires no small amount of training, those who teach tomorrow's jet pilots live in the community and spend money to keep our economy going.

Maybe the Dodgers of the future are playing in Dodgertown, but let's not forget that the flight schools can produce a lot more pilots than the Vero Beach Dodgers produce major leaguers. We can never forget the tragedy of Sept. 11, but thanks to the flight schools and the optimism of their students, we can rise above it.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.


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March 12, 2002

President Bush has called upon Americans to donate two years of their lives to volunteer work.

While there are certainly plenty of important jobs that need to be done, expecting people to work for nothing is impractical, and implies that anyone who takes home a paycheck is a greedy, money-grubbing social parasite with no concern for the less fortunate.

Sure, if I had a trust fund mailing me checks with five figures after the dollar sign and before the decimal point every two weeks or was the favorite nephew of a wealthy uncle, I might be inclined to work somewhere for nothing.

However, the economic reality is that working Americans need the pay they get from the jobs they do to keep their financial heads above water.

This is an abstract concept to some, especially those in the rarified atmosphere of American business where some executives earn or collect as an end-of-year or retention bonus more than most of us will take home in a lifetime in a single month.

Indeed, it's odd that if a worker is making $6 an hour and wants to make $8, that's called greed, but if an executive is making $6 million a year and wants to make $12 million, that's the American way.

Lacking a trust fund or Roman numerals after my last name, I've had to pursue jobs for my adult life and make changes when that every-other-week paycheck was in doubt.

At my last newspaper job, the company was in such dire straits it missed payroll twice, leading several employees to hasten their job searches and me to accept a position at the Press Journal.

I'd be willing to work for nothing if I could persuade my landlord to let me live rent-free for two years and GMAC to forgive my car loan.

Of course, my landlord has bills of his own to pay and GMAC needs those payments to keep the executives and workers in clover, so while volunteering and working for free may be wonderful for society, it will hurt others who depend on my checks, and hurt my credit rating, not to mention leave me and my cat living on the streets.

This is pretty abstract for the wealthy set, for whom volunteer work is a job that pays only six figures and involves mainly calling up friends and twisting their arms for cash for a disease or social crisis of the week.

Maybe we should all volunteer a day out of our week to show the president some of the harsh realities of American life experienced by those who don't own baseball teams or oil companies, and don't have friends (read: someone who gave him lots of cash) named Kenny Boy.

The "society-improvement" squads are always carrying on about educating the humble and ignorant masses.

But maybe they're the ones who need a little education.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.


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March 7, 2002

The state is taking a meat cleaver to public educa tion, and while it doesn't affect me directly since I don't work for the schools or have children, it will have an impact on the larger society we live in.

For years, the argument between the left and the right has been over whether spending more money on public schools has any positive effects on education.

Unfortunately, most of the rhetoric on both sides is anecdotal, with local business leaders complaining about illiterate people applying for jobs, for example, but not saying whether those people were products of the local school system or new arrivals.

School officials whine about the need for more money, when much of the extra money that is allocated seems to get swallowed up by the bureaucracy.

The debate over education funding tends to generate more heat than light, and, as usual, I'd like to insert my two cents.

One of the culture shocks of living in Florida and in the modern age is that there is far more emphasis on schools as not only the center of learning but also the social center for students. Maybe it's because I attended an urban system where neighborhood friends were closer than school friends, and what happened at school had less impact on us.

I was a high-school student in New York City from 1974 to 1978, the teeth of the city's budget crisis. All city departments and agencies faced huge cutbacks then, and the newspapers were filled with poignant tales of city workers who suddenly lost their jobs.

The schools were not immune to these changes. Not only were free electives cut dramatically, extracurricular activities and sports were pretty much eliminated. I remember trying out for the baseball team, showing up with hundreds of others at a practice where there were only two slots open on the team. All the intramural sports had been eliminated.

It was a difficult time, and to their credit, the teachers still did their best to educate us. Of course, this was before standardized testing really came to the fore, so if a school was underfunded as all of them were and a few students didn't do well on the tests, the school was not punished financially.

I remember feeling resentment at the lack of clubs and programs at school, but not that much since there was always the bunch from the neighborhood to play ball with. What I think worries a lot of students today is the feeling that anything done outside a school-organized event won't "count" or be a valid resume item.

In an era of cutbacks, formal programs to participate in tend to fall, and that may appear to make a person look less "special." I say it's all overblown. There are possibilities and activities outside the purview of the schools, and while they may not "count," they're just as important.

Maybe I didn't make Newtown High School's baseball team, but in the 80th Street Bohack parking-lot stickball league, I once hit a rubber ball so hard and so far it looked like it would land in the church yard across the street for a home run.

Then it hit a powerline and bounced back into the parking lot for a cheap single.

And that's not on my resume.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.

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March 2, 2002

I have lived in the South for the past 16 years, and I have to say that there are some things that just amaze me about this part of the United States in general, and Florida in particular.

One of them is the endless debate over the use of English and the attitudes expressed toward those who speak Spanish and may not have that much ability in English.

In high school, I took my studies of Spanish very seriously and, while I've forgotten much of it, I can understand most street signs and directions in that language. It's quite a beautiful language, and its grammar also has helped me to understand English grammar that much better. Any language with the imperfect subjunctive tense can't be all bad.

But there are those who see Spanish or any other foreign language spoken or written in their presence as a threat. Not being able to understand what other people are saying can be intimidating, but it also can serve as an important lesson.

Most of the rhetoric against the Spanish language is directed at people who are not that well off and lack education, and time to learn a new language is a luxury they may not have. Showing a little compassion for those who are different should be what America is all about, not hurling invectives at people for being different or not being as fluent in English as someone who was born here and grew up in an English-speaking household.

People who make the case for English only are fond of saying that this is America, we have all this freedom and that people here should do things our way, and our way alone.

When I moved to Vero Beach from Palm Beach County, the moving crew consisted of three Hispanic men. One spoke and understood English well, but the other two did not. Thanks to my Spanish training, I was able to speak to the two who did not understand English about where my furniture and other possessions were to go in the new place.

The crew leader thanked me for being so understanding, noting that some customers had an attitude problem about members of a moving crew not being able to speak and understand English. To me, it was just plain courtesy.

To have such a negative attitude toward Spanish also is ludicrous. Our state has a Spanish name, there are cities all over Florida with Spanish names and there are streets galore with Spanish names.

Instead of condemning the linguistic diversity that is all around us, we should embrace it. As a language, English has borrowed freely from all languages of the world and adapted words until they're as much a part of the language as the original English as spoken in England.

When I worked for the Boca Raton News, people wrote in all the time complaining about Spanish. This in a city where one of the main roads through one of the city's most exclusive areas was called Camino Real.

To me, part of that freedom includes speaking the language one grew up speaking. Damning people because they can't speak the language perfectly is not what this nation is about.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.


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February 21, 2002

Two sporting events have been in the news lately, and not so much for the sports themselves but for things unrelated to the playing of the games.

When a big event happens, the news business generates two types of stories, the “main bar,” the chief story that is an overview of what happened; and several “sidebars,” which is where details both important and trivial are expanded upon.

Sometimes, the sidebars become main stories in and of themselves, and that has been the case with the Super Bowl and Olympics, where the security surrounding the events is being treated with almost the same level of intensity as the events themselves.

I saw this on TV news channels that ran stories gushing about the security at the Super Bowl, and how “tight” it was, on the Associated Press wire and on new Web sites. Those photos or video sequences of armed men in camouflage fatigues, barbed wire, and people passing through metal detectors and being searched may have made people feel good, but they made me worried.

The Super Bowl seemed to be irrelevant. Sure, there were the sidebars in the sports section on game strategy in the Super Bowl and, afterward, analysis of the game. But the security aspect was the main event.

In the Olympics, too, we hear occasionally about favorites to win certain events, and their diseases and personal problems, but security seems to be all that matters otherwise.

I realize that in light of Sept. 11, security has become a concern everywhere, but I wonder if it’s being overdone. Granted, such views leave one open to accusations, and I’ve heard more times than ever, “You can’t be too careful.”

Yet the glorification of security seems designed to accustom us to the presence of armed and uniformed troops at public events, something that may enhance security, or may lessen it as well.

Back when the dot-com boom was big news, there was a class of business news story that some in the business dubbed “wealth porn” or “financial porn.” According to the Columbia Journalism Review, these are news stories that “don't simply observe the positive cash flow into our Gucci billfolds/Kate Spade purses but make excessively broad generalizations and blindly venerate money.”

Now, the hype has toned down as many of those executives profiled are “spending more time with their families” or testifying – or taking the Fifth – before Congress, and many of those companies – and their employees -- have become history.

In the same vein, I guess we need to get ready for “security porn,” in which we get to see and hear about every security innovation imaginative humans can figure out and blindly venerate it as the answer to every security problem in existence, though such exposure might defeat the whole purpose of security.

Still, security is obviously good for business – the security business.

I read once that in the 80s we were all supposed to get rich selling each other cheeseburgers. My corollary is that in the 90s we were supposed to get rich selling stock to each other, and I suppose in the 00s we’ll all get rich guarding, or being guarded by, each other.



Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.


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February 21, 2002

If it痴 been feeling warmer lately, thank the jet stream, but much of that hot air may be the harbinger of another election season on the way.

Sure, it痴 only February and we池e still recovering from the holidays, but it痴 never too early to start campaigning, and while we池e at it, maybe it痴 time to grab some Christmas ornaments.

The noble, selfless and dedicated troops of the Florida Legislature are hard at work solving all our social and economic problems in Tallahassee, though, so it痴 wrong to question their motives or competence to gain another term on the gravy train.

And if you believe that, I can get you a deal on a nice bridge connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan.

I recently encountered a signature gatherer for the many constitutional amendments interest groups are seeking to get on the ballot in November. While there were some interesting issues under discussion, the ones I wanted to see weren稚 there.

If I were proposing amendments, I壇 want one that banned politicians or candidates from disrupting the school day to be photographed reading to children. Then I壇 take aim at politicians or candidates who try to be photographed next to children holding flags.

My final amendment would be to require that all elected officials show some respect for their positions by not proposing nonsense legislation. We have enough symbolic gestures on the books now, and our legislators� time is too valuable to waste on proposed laws that fit into the mania of some back-bencher.

A good case in point is a story that came across the Associated Press wire about a legislator in Georgia, Dorothy Pelote. Now this one痴 a piece of work, though of course in Volusia County there痴 one who has encounters with UFOs, so maybe we in Florida shouldn稚 be pointing fingers.

Anyway, Pelote has, in the past, claimed that she is in touch with the spirit of Chandra Levy, has proposed laws requiring that schoolchildren keep their fingernails trimmed and that supermarket baggers not lick their fingers.

Obviously, she belongs in the bughouse, not the statehouse.

Her latest brilliancy is a law she was thinking of introducing that would ban answering the door naked.

She says it痴 a major problem, and what if a child rings a doorbell and someone answers the door in the altogether? Nowadays, any legislation that mentions children and protection in the same paragraph has a mesmerizing effect on legislators, and I imagine it would pass quickly if proposed.

The point is, apart from the fact that the legislator is obviously a mindless busybody with little better to do than think about ways to regulate the smallest details of one痴 personal life, this is an example of mockery of public office, and why some people should be removed from public office if they demonstrate an obvious contempt for the legislative process or fail to take their jobs seriously.

Notice I didn稚 mention demonstrating an obvious contempt for their constituents� intelligence. Sad to say, but if that standard were applied, we壇 have no legislature.



Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.


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February 12, 2002

On a recent Friday, I drove up to Melbourne to meet a friend at the Melbourne Square Mall for dinner and a movie and, as is my wont, arrived an hour early. My plan to walk around the mall and do some shopping was replaced by another plan: to check out all the Brevard County students' science-fair projects. It was quite a show.

Oftentimes, when education is covered in the news media, it's the latest "bad news" about student behavior or performance in school, adult behavior at school board meetings or athletic events, or the general topic, "our failing public schools."

These students' displays, however, showed something seldom seen when I was in high school: an intense curiosity.

Two earnest young "rocket boys" showed me how they tested model rocket engines to see if they performed as rated by the manufacturer, using a test stand they built. One of the team demonstrated a device for estimating the highest altitude of the rockets they launched.

One young researcher had done a study of which set of siblings fights more, boys and boys, boys and girls, or girls and girls, and what they fight over most.

Another fellow had done a comparison of the Windows XP operating system and Linux for speed of startup, shutdown and application startup. He was somewhat dismayed to find that Windows XP scored higher on the test system, because it challenged what he had expected. More research is needed, he told me, to find out why he got such results.

There were countless other displays of research into just about anything imaginable, from esoteric studies of cells and protozoa to the effect of different laundry detergents on dirty clothes. It was good to see the number of research projects by girls, some of which were so complex as to defy explanation. Some of the math these kids were using I never even took in college.

Politicians love to carry on about the state of education and demand more standardized tests for the great god of "accountability." Before doing that, they should check out a science fair like this and bear in mind that concepts like curiosity, thought and insight cannot be quantified by filling in dots on an answer sheet.

Of course, when you're running for re-election to Tallahassee, higher scores on the FCAT may be better for one's re-election chances, but the things that really matter sometimes can't be expressed in numbers.

These students are lucky to have access to resources and equipment that didn't even exist when I was growing up, and I envy them not only their youth but their interest and enthusiasm.

Reading, writing and arithmetic are certainly important skills to have. But it's the thinkers and dreamers who will have a hand in the future, too, and if those kids in the Melbourne Mall are the tip of the iceberg, the future will be better than we can imagine.

Later this week, there will be a science fair at Vero Beach High School. I hope some of our local politicians take a break from bashing the schools to see what the youth of our area are capable of.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.

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