European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 12, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse Thursday May 12, 1994 is commentary i the stars and stripes Page 17 William Raspberry even when i was a smoker i knew smoking to be a Messy and offensive habit. And expensive a not just in the Cost of the Weed but also in the damage it causes from holes in clothing to holes in the round where houses once stood. At some Point it became Clear that it is also a health Hazard and not just to smokers. Its hard to think of anything that could bring me Riding to the defense of the deadly tobacco Industry. Ill give it to Henry Wax Ian Mike Synar and Ron Wyden though. They keep trying. These three House democrats Haven to been trying to drum up sympathy for cigarette manufacturers quite the contrary. They have been trying to destroy the Industry a a a and even that wont evoke much pro Industry sympathy from me. What does move me to this faint defense of the indefensible Are the tactics of these congressional crusaders. The approach is by now familiar to a Span watchers. Representatives of the Industry Are invited to the Hill ostensibly to testify but in reality to serve As foils for legislators whose minds have Long since been made up. Why done to you admit that you re adding nicotine to your product in order to make it More addictive the lawmakers will ask sounding of so reasonable. We done to add nicotine the manufacturers will reply. We blend different types of tobacco containing varying amounts of nicotine but the nicotine is already in the Plant. We done to add any. Haven to you patented the technology to add nicotine if you wanted to yes but we done to use it. We done to add nicotine. Then follows this wonderfully scientific Exchange a you do too. We done to either. A do. A a a a a a a done to. Let this run on for five or six hours and the congressmen get credit for having held a hard hitting hearing. Frequently one of the Trio of congressmen will be positively rude cutting an Industry representative off in mid sentence a not because the reps Are uncooperative but because they done to give the right answers to such technically Subtle questions As a a rent to you trying to addict my kids a and its logical follow up a How can you live with yourself a even when new evidence is adduced a As when the cigarette manufacturers released the secret list of their ingredients a no discernible Effort is made to weigh the evidence and reach conclusions based on it. The information is All important As Long As the manufacturers withhold it worthless when they give it up. Let me say clearly done to have a clue As to whether the tobacco people Are spiking their cigarettes with nicotine in order to Hook More kids. But its obvious that the Industry will need new smokers if Only to replace those who die of tobacco related illnesses. Its a bad business. But so is an investigative process in which the answers done to matter Only the questions a in which the questions themselves reiterated with sufficient Stem faced concern for future generations become indictments and at last convictions. How Many casual watchers of the proceedings can doubt that cigarette manufacturers Are injecting their products with doses of nicotine calibrated to addict our children and what is the evidence for this conclusion other than that the question keeps being asked. It is reminiscent of the probing questions the news Media keep putting to the Clinton regarding that timeless boundless series of transactions and alliances known As Whitewater. A a we re Only doing our jobs a say these probes As though the Job consists not of gathering facts but Only of asking in As Many guises As possible the same question which at Bottom is Why done to you just confess and save us All a lot of trouble but journalists did t invent the form Wyden Waxman and Synar will resent it and serious anti smokers will think in a crazy but the Capitol Hill inquisition masquerading As legislative hearings reminds me of nothing so much As a Witch Hunting Joe Mccarthy. Like Mccarthy they ask and answer their own questions dismiss the protestations of those who have a different View and nourish pieces of papers which they allege prove every charge implicit in their questions. That the purpose of the current hearings May be a Good one is not enough to justify the technique. A Witch Hunt is a Witch Hunt it a even when Good Guys do the Hunting. postin italian Spring thoughts turn to Berlusconi Bologna Italy a this is a Spring when contradictions cohabit the italian landscape like delicacies on a Platter of Antipasto. On warm Days elegantly dressed italians walk briskly across Broad piazzas dominated by Renaissance churches conversing madly on 20th-Century cellular outside the Money Exchange a Wall machine instantly converts foreign currency into italian lire while in. A Side a Man needs 10 minutes and two signed documents to turn $20 into 32,000 lire. Here in Bologna a famous for its food and its universities known by its nicknames a Bologna the fat and a Bologna the Learned a people take their pasta and politics equally seriously. So on any Given evening the local to Torie tucked away under Miles of arcades Are full of italians using both hands to conquer strands of Spaghetti and punctuate arguments. To describe Italy As a country in the midst of change is to miss the flavor entirely. Political turmoil is steady fare Here. Since world War ii Italy has been run like a restoration comedy with governments coming onto the stage and disappearing More often than the Calendar year. A a this country has had a full deck of governments 52 of them in some 40 years. Variations on the theme of chaos. A bureaucracy grew that makes our own seem lean and mean. Corruption a became the Way of government life. A shrug became the Universal Symbol of cynicism for the old that turned into apathy among the Young. Two years ago the corruption finally triggered an investigation known As a Kickback Ellen Goodman the scandal sucked up politicians by the hundreds tainting the whole establishment leaving a void at the Center of political life. But this year Silvio a Catusco in moved into that void with the smoothness of a former cruise ship crooner and the savvy of a communications Mogul. This political Novice who own three television stations a. Championship soccer team a huge advertising firm and a Host of publications formed a new. Political party with just a team cheer for its name forza italia a go go this new right entrepreneur became a human infomercial a political variation on . Susan Powter promising to a Stop the professor David Ellwood watching from his teaching Post at the University of Bologna described him As a the supreme manipulator a saying a the Speed and style of his Rise All relied on the use of television. The others weren table to match him and did no to the Man who has been compared to everyone from Ross Perot to Ronald Reagan to citizen Kane sold himself As the prototype of a successful Man somehow american thoroughly modern. An outsider. None of the above. A in just three months Berlusconi put together an Alliance with right Wing and barely Neo fascist parties and together they walked away with an election that sent 452 newcomers to a 630-seat legislature. Now the head of this unstable and maybe unholy Alliance has put together a government. To has to prove that the 53rd government is the beginning of a fresh deck a no Small feat in a country whose Low expectations of government Are routinely met. Yet for the visitor who comes Here Lor history and pasta for 16th-Century churches and fresh Porc Mon a mid Altor noon Platter there arc As Many signals about the future As there arc cellular phones in the Tiki Piazza. In Europe As in America the cold War world order has disappeared. A everyone talks of a a crisis of leadership a a collapse of authority combined with a longing for something As undefined As the word a the old political parties in Italy were called a Jurassic v. A it a a. A. A a Quot the Young people who voted for Berlusconi in droves have Quot like the Young everywhere a showed less interest in the politics of the right or the left than of the future. Uncertainty about that future is clearly not Only an american condition. Ait Isnit the exclusive properly of our generation x. Its Here As Well. In Uncertain times populism of the sort that Quot propelled this election can Wear a Friendly or a fearsome face Berlusconi is for the moment simply a fresh face an unknown. He won by exuding what few italians Felt Confidence in the future. So for now a forza italia is the marching order of the Day. Go go Italy. But the direction is nowhere nearly As predictable As the singular delights certain to be found in the next bowl of Tagliatelle on a warm bolognese afternoon a. A Doston Gobo
