European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 18, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Wednesday december 18, 1991 the stars and stripes a Page 13 commentary Ellen Goodman Smith verdict a reminder of changing standards the trial is Over. It s Safe to leave the front Page around where the kids can see it. The Only phrase that will Send them to the dictionary this morning is nuclear proliferation. Now in the aftermath we have a Phalanx of analysts talking about winners and losers. The defense and the prosecution. Willie and the woman. The Kennedy and the Media. Men and women. It is the last set of a a opponents that seems the most curious to me. The idea is going around that Smith s acquittal sends a a wrong signal to the country. That its a bad for  a handful of activists have said that this proves How hard it is for any woman to be believed. And at least one rape Counselor intimated that the verdict is its open season on women. Well hang on a minute please. It is hard to convict a defendant in a rape Case when there Are Only two people at the scene or on the Lawn if you prefer. Its supposed to be hard to find someone guilty. If i had been on the jury listening to the admin Sable testimony id have let Willie walk. And spare me the analogies to the Clarence Thomas hearings. The Issue was whether a Man would go to jail for a few years not whether he would go to the supreme court for life. The jurors doubts done to mean they thought the accuser was a pathological liar a vicious seductress or a head Case. If she had been charged with making a false accusation they would have acquitted her too. So would i have. But they had to make a decision and anything close to a tie goes to the defendant. They gave him the Benefit of the reasonable doubt. Innocent As they say until proven guilty. Wilt that scare off women who Are victims of rape will it make them think thrice before going to court maybe so maybe for a while but there s nothing new in that unhappy fact. If anything we Are seeing a slow shift in the balance of believability toward women. This Case blown massively out of scale broadcast out of All proportion was t outrageous or abusive. The prosecution did t get to bring in other women from Smith s past. The defense did no to gel to bring in evidence of her past. The appalling sight of her underwear was matched by the discussion of his erections. The Only woman mercilessly trashed was the prosecutor Moira Lasch. As for the notion that this verdict was generically a bad for women a that it a set Back women a and All those phrases used by the scorekeepers of female William f. Buckley or. The i Cal. Of a Kuam Kennel Smith will c0m1nue after these messk3es. Progress 1 done to buy it. What is Progress after All in the course of sexual politics is it marked by an increase in the number of men in jail or by a decrease in the number of assaults i done to want to choose Between Law enforcement and a a crime prevention but i would Chart the Long run of Progress by the change in attitudes and behaviour. This Case raised a warning Flag to men. William Kennedy Smith was no masculine St hero. Even in the Best scenario his behaviour won no citation for sexual sensitivity. Even in the most positive Light we still saw a Young doctor having a one night stand of unprotected sex with a stranger and dispensing of her with Post coital posthaste. No stamp of approval came on his acquittal. If this Case made a lot of Ordinary men uneasy if they reran old sexual tapes in their Heads a did she or did no to she consent did she or did t she say yes How did i behave a that Sall to the Good. If a lot of Ordi nary women flashed Back to sexual encounters of a third kind a neither rape nor desire a that Quot too changes behaviour. Before the fact or at least the next fact. Date rape after All occurs in a context a culture that a still a expects men to be assertive and women to be resistant. A rape conviction requires that a woman prove her resistance. But a decent sexual experience assumes much much More than not saying no. We be heard More conversation about men women and sex swirling out of the Florida courtroom than Ever in my memory. So we can Mark Progress less by one ruling of guilt or innocence than in the Public sense of what is right and wrong Between men and women. You cant win them All. You done to deserve to win them All. But the verdict in Palm Beach has done nothing to change the evidence sexual standards Are slowly changing. C Trio Boston Globe newspaper company taking the Market evaluation of or. Big greed fetishists talk usually about corporation Heads and How much Money they make and do so for pretty Good reason. But cd so 60 minutes alerted us recently to some of the salaries being drawn Down by labor Union officials with special attention Given to one gentleman with the teamsters who collects $600, per year that we know of. Asked How he justified a salary so High his answer was in the classic free Market language he was a a Worth it. Which brings to mind the interesting question of How to measure Worth up in such stratosphere. The classic formulation for the just wage was first spoken in latin hundreds of years before Adam Smith the medievalist invoked secundus estimation pm fori a your wage is set according to a the evaluation of the  so How does or. Big at the teamsters get evaluated by the Market it in t realty As though if he declined to work for the teamsters the american federation of Learned societies would hire him to boost the salaries of professors. There is a level of fungibility in the skills of businessmen and one reads every now and then about How the president of a big Bank goes off and becomes president of a Copper company. And then of course we had general of the armies Douglas Macarthur going off to become president of Remington Rand though one suspects that he was not required to hone his skills As an Assembly line supervisor of air conditioners or razors or typewriters the marketplace was estimation ing something a Little different a very big name. The head of the teamsters in his circles has a big name. Among other things he Hasni to spent time in jail which makes him a collector s item. But How does the Market handle salaries of corporation Heads obviously if or. Coca cola Isnit paid enough and shows Superb skills he can threaten the Board of directors to become or. Pepsico and the bidding War goes on. But it is Worth asking How come corporate compensation Rose so dramatically during the �?T80s? those with a Long memory can remember when in 1972 presidential candidate George Mcgovern found out that the resident of Ford motor co. Was earning 400,000 per year. His indignation was such that he very nearly asked for a constitutional amendment to make such egregious salaries unlawful. Four Hundred grand Back in 1972 translates to $1.1 million today and now if you were to offer any such sum a e.g., to the top executives of t Ime inc. A they would look at you and say that they done to accept tips. I have read a pre publication manuscript of he most engrossing Book on recent corporate experience yet written. It is called so aptly to the end of time and discusses the famous merger Between the Magazine Empire and the entertainment Empire which became time Warner. Author Richard m. Clurman a next Book ought to be a thriller so gifted is he at drawing the attention of the Reader and dazzling him with the fascination of corporate goings on. But Here we concentrate not on the makings of a Best seller so much As on the breathtaking compensations handed out to a dozen men and their accompanying legions of lawyers and accountants. Compensation for what compensation for making one of the most maladroit mergers in recent history and costing the stockholders the loss of More than us per share which is what they would have got from taking another Deal than the one they look but How does the a a Market justify paying $16 million to a corporate executive for his role in putting together a bad Deal Steve Ross the Warner magnate got $200 million in return for his Benediction. That is the kind of Money one tends to think of As reserved for heirs of John d. Rockefeller or for Michael Jackson. But for a Mere businessman it can be said that after All the stockholder is free to sell his Stock which is True and a lot of time Warner stockholders have done exactly that but at a huge loss. Which keeps us returning to the question if engineering a Deal that transforms a company in the Way that Michael Eisner transformed Disney is Worth millions and millions in compensation How ought one to Deal with people who Engineer deals that fall Flat and How does one arrive at such figures who do the compensation committees consult astrologers Why done to they put the Gold Bullion into an escrow account deliverable to the corporation executives three years later a if their machinations prove profitable if that had been done a whole lot of people living in municipal Palazzo would join the homeless. 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