European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 1, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Friday november 1, 1991 the stars and stripes Page 13 commentary Ellen Goodman men join women in walking the Fine line the Man leans across the table and asks the question again As if i had not heard him the first time. A where is the line a it is mid morning in los Angeles and we Are sitting Over Coffee a the West coasts drug of Choice a talking ostensibly about National politics. But the subject gravitates naturally toward sexual politics. He wants to know a where is the line a Ever since Anita Hills Story exploded All Over his office spewing its uneasy debris he has been searching for an a a Marker to separate flirtation from harassment a threshold Between attention that is Welcome and unwelcome. At times he says the line is As hard to find As Waldo in one of those elaborate drawings. My Coffee companion is Young single and sincere. He is not whining about being victimized or misunderstood. He recognizes that the map of the male female Domain is changing and the line he is searching for is a Safe path you see the office he says to me earnestly is his Workaholic generation s version of dating bar and matchmaker. The hours Are Long work life and social life intermingle. It has become the primary meeting ground for men and women. In this world men Are expected to pursue women he says. Men Are supposed to initiate relationships take the first step make the opening gambit risk the first Call. But when does the attention a woman May want from one Man become harassment from another less Welcome  he wants something to follow through the land mines. As we talk 1 find something refreshing and familiar in his uncertainty. If men Are suddenly walking a Fine line and searching for a solid one Isnit that what women have always done women who were not born yesterday have had to learn to negotiate Tricky territory. How do you turn a Boss off without losing your Job How do you end the behaviour of the men you work with a the sex jokes the too Friendly hand on the shoulder a without ending the camaraderie. Where is the line Between encouraging him and offending him of men were expected a boys will be boys a to be aggressive women were expected to be the gatekeepers of male sexuality even at work. Indeed women _. So. Share this expectation of each other even of Anita Hill. When the overnight polls those indications of knee Jerk responses found that a majority of women were not on her Side i was not All that surprised. The very universality of her experience seemed to work against her As Well As for her. At some level Many women looking at the poised Law professor thought that she should have been Able to a handle  after All they had every woman had. Now however in this shift men Are being told to a handle  they Are being Given a Mirror image task. To express interest without being seen As a  to ask for a Date once twice Quot thrice without being labelled or even sued. When does one Man s claim that he is a socially awkward at this task become a woman s belief that he is sexually harassing her. As my table companion asks a where is the line Quot of course there Are Many ways to change this unsettled Topography. Some women can become More assertive both about asking men and refusing them. But it seems to me that at last we have raised the expectation that men will read something More important than maps. They will read women. We Are insisting that they learn the clues the body language the verbal signs that differ with every human interaction. They will have to receive As Well As deliver messages. To know what she heard not just what he meant. That s not such a bad thing a not such a bad set of skills to have in the world. When women first got into the Many a world they were expected to abide by its rules. They were supposed to Deal with the world on its own rough and Tumble terms to Swap stories with the boys and not Blush to handle it rather than fight it. Now women Are trying to balance the lopsided Ness of this change. C the Boston Globe newspaper  will those who dwell in . Lose Good sense what ails american government Patricia Schroeder for one thing. And a few thousand other career legislators like her. The congresswoman from Denver is intelligent witty Well meaning and warmhearted. Alas she also is something we simply no longer can afford. She is too costly in Money Ana institutional distortion. Proof that she proves the Wisdom of term limits for legislators is her legislative embrace of an admirable idea. The idea is Midnight basketball leagues which have been praised by this columnist. Such leagues in Chicago and other cities take Young inner City men off the Steets and into gyms for basketball and counselling during hours when they might otherwise be getting into trouble. Now at Schroeder a Behest the House judiciary committee has voted to include almost $3 million a pittance but such things grow in the crime Bill to subsidize Midnight basketball leagues. The department of housing and Urban development it to Jack Kemp already had its nose in that tent with some subsidies. Now Schroeder Speaks the four letter word Washington adores Quot More. A she favors Federal funding for new leagues in suburban and Rural areas experiencing youth related problems. The mentality of Washington s entrenched incumbents is one of the reasons they Are entrenched every Good idea out there in America must become a slice of Federal pork. Let us stipulate that Schroeder is Public spirited. She also is strictly speaking deranged Oxford English dictionary Quot thrown into confusion As a result of living too Long in Washington. Elected in 1972, she has spent most of her adult life in Congress and probably cannot fathom How anyone could find anything Odd about Washington funding a Nice thing like Midnight basketball. She is just doing what people do Here and in other Legislatures. They get up in the morning Shower shave or at a a a a cup of coff invariably they can convince themselves they a a really spending anything. A it the antecedent of the pronoun can be almost any program will pay for  As in a it is cheaper to buy basketballs than prison  Edward Crane of the Cato Institute rightly argues that in a town where the tone of life is set by a ruling class of career legislators the prevailing mentality makes people a strictly speaking a weird oed a out of the Ordinary strange Odd fantastic. Most of the people legislators associate with Are involved in regulating other Peoples lives and spending other people s Money. Furthermore microphones Are constantly being shoved at them and soon they believe their preferences Are so Wise they should be codified. After prolonged immersion in Washington a culture of ruling there is not a dimes Worth of difference Between As the Wall Street journal puts it democrats and Republica rats. Thar is Why the House recently passed appropriations Bills funding a study of the handling of manure $37,000 a Stuggars Ark., fish farm $542,000 a recycling facility in Susquehanna. A. $1 million the Institute of peace $8.3 million Houston so better Bush system $415 million a study of Afognak Island Ark. $250,000 and thousands of other projects that could conceivably be defensible if the Federal government had enough revenues which it does not and if it were not supposed to acknowledge some limits to its reach nine decades before or. James Naismith Hung a fruit Basket in the Myca gym in Springfield mass., and invented basketball. President Jefferson saw today a Folly coming. He said to Congress if you Guys get into funding even things As Basic As roads and canals Well sooner or later you will even be subsidizing games hither and Yon. Of he did no to say that in so Many words but that was his Gist and a glance at the Federal budget proves he was right. We have come a Long Way a lot of it downhill since Jefferson fled the Federal City for the sanity of Monti cello and Here is no going Back to jeffersonian ism. However it is reasonable to suppose that term limits compelling the rotation of offices would have two salutary consequences. If people served in Legislatures Only briefly going to them from other careers to which they would soon return they would have less incentive to dish out pork. And if they were not too Distant for too Long from Normal citizens and Normal life in Normal communities they might retain the ability to discriminate Between appropriate and inappropriate functions for the Federal government.  put a full Raj it if Tiff