The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 26

2-C Tuesday, Oct 28, 1986 The Philadelphia Inquirer How Japan stays ahead of America by lagging behind it comes to the Nobel prize, you never hear about the person who came in second. This year the runner-up for the economics award was Professor Valentine Septable, who wrote the best-selling book Japano-mics: The Sony in Us AIL Septable has been working on the theory that the Japanese are not 30 years ahead of America but 30 years behind. It was this reasoning that led him to unravel the mystery of why the sun always sets on a Seiko watch. To find out more about his school of economics I drove out to Septable's lab underneath Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium.

The professor was taking the loss "I'm very proud of it It took me five years to build this model. He pointed to the top of it which looked very much like a Benihana restaurant "This is where the VS. was 30 years ago and this is where it is now. Over here is where the Japanese are now, which is where the VS. was 30 years ago." "But if they are that much behind now," I said, "why are they so far ahead?" "Very simple," Septable replied as he showed me photographs plastered all over the model.

They were pictures of American manufactured products from the past He asked me, "Do you remember how it was in this country 30 years ago? We made wonderful cars, radios, refrigerators, hot-water heaters and baseball mitts. Everything, including the mitts, seemed to work. The reason for this is that our workers knew what they were doing and management knew how to sell the product. We also had something else which has been lost, and that's quality control." "Where did it go?" I asked. "Some say the Japanese stole quality control from us because we wouldn't pay them reparations for World War II.

But this is not true. It was strictly our own economic decision that brought us down. Thirty years back, the United States had two paths to follow. It could either stay where it was or move ahead and make everything out of plastic. We chose plastic.

At the same moment Japan, who was not good at advanced technology, decided it had to stick with old stuff that wouldn't break. It didn't take long, as everyone's cars and appliances fell apart, for Americans to look eastward for satisfaction. It was then the Japanese realized that to become number one, all they had to do was stay way behind the VS." "If the Japanese are 30 years behind us, how do we persuade them to catch up?" Septable said: "It's quite simple. The American managers who brought us to where we are today all went to the Harvard business school. What we have to do is get the Japanese to send their kids to Harvard as well.

Only when all the centers of industry in Japan are manned by Harvard graduates will the US. be able to compete with Japan again." I could see why Septable was runner-up for the Nobel prize. "Who would have thought the solution to our trade deficit is to make our foreign competitors earn M.B.A.S at Harvard?" Septable said: "It's our only chance. We have to hope when they return to the Empire, the graduates will screw up Japan as much as the Harvard business alumni have screwed up the United States." ByARTBUCHWALD of the Nobel very calmly. "I may not have won the biggie, but I was voted 'Mr.

Congeniality' by all the other economists. That meant more to me than being able to buy a new blackboard." "Even if you lost," I said, "your work is not to be sneezed at" NEWSMAKERS Listening to your voice of reason oaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaoaaaaai is Von Bulow tells of obtaining drugs By DARRELL SIFFORD By W. Speers Inquirer Stall Wriier Claus von Bulow said under oath yesterday that he obtained Valium for his heiress wife, Martha "Sunny" von Bulow, from a prostitute after a doctor refused to renew his wife's tranquilizer prescription. In a pretrial deposition to lawyers for his estranged stepchildren, who are suing him for SS6 million, von Bulow said he got the tranquilizers for his wife after her first coma in 1979, from which she recovered In 1980, Sunny von Bulow noticed another woman's name on the label, von Bulow testified yesterday. He told his wife that the woman Was a prostitute that he had been seeing.

When asked why he didn't remove the name, he replied, "The fact that I was seeing call girls was no secret to Sunny, so why should Sunny von Bulow, 55, fell into a second coma at the couple's Newport R.I., mansion later that year. Doctors say this one is permanent. A syringe found at the mansion in 1980 showed traces of insulin, barbiturates and Valium. In a retrial last year, von Bulow, 59, was acquitted of twice trying to murder his wife by Electing her with insulin. Robert Lamm and a cast member of TV's The Young and Restless, was in labor, was scheduled to go on last night at the Spectrum.

Alex Lamm gave birth to their first child at 8:24 a.m. yesterday in Los Angeles. Kate Adam weighed 5 pounds, 13 ounces and was 20 inches long. Robert Lamm, one of the original band members, has a 9-year-old son by a previous marriage. He was homeward-bound when the girl was born.

He said that the Chicago tour was scheduled so that he would be home for the blessed event but that the baby had arrived three weeks early, catching him "about as far away from LA as I could be." Yesterday's Newsmakers said incorrectly that the concert had been postponed because the wife of band member Jason Scheff was in labor, Scheff is a bachelor. Fast track Louis Guida, Yardley stockbroker and racehorse owner, was inducted Sunday into the Italian-American Hall of Fame, with auto racer Mario Andretti and crime fighter David Toma. Guida, 51, hit the jackpot with Nihilator, which this year became the first harness horse ever to win $3 million. A real-life role umtM rraaa tntarnationat With a smile and a gesture, actresses Lynn Redgrave (left) and Mary Tyler Moore express their feelings for the foods they hold. They were rehearsing yesterday in New York for "Sweet Sue," a new comedy by A.

R. Gurney Jr. Rose Bird and two other state Supreme Court judges, it was reported yesterday. The Los Angeles Herald Examiner said the movie star made the contribution to Crime Victims for Court Reform. Bird is a vocal critic of the death penalty.

In his Dirty Harry movies, Eastwood plays a detective who doesnt take kindly to judges who are soft on criminals. Countercharges It's a girV Clint Eastwood donated $30,000 to a group working against the reelection of California Chief Justice The Chicago concert, postponed from Saturday because Alex Donnelly Lamm, wife of keyboardist I stepped into an elevator in my condominium, scowling and fierce-looking because I'd just crawled through a traffic snarl that had turned a two-hour drive into four hours. A friend asked pleasantly, "How are you doing?" I almost bit him. "Terrible! Terrible!" And then I recited my litany about one expressway and what seemed like 80,000 cars. "It must have been bad," he commented.

"It was bad!" "Does it help to get angry?" I thought that was a good question, and I calmed down enough to answer "Yes, it really does. If I can yell and act like a fool for a little while, it helps me feel better about the whole thing." The friend wondered if it would be better not to get angry in the first place, to take in stride things that I couldn't do anything about. i I told him that was easy for him to say because he wasn't the one who had been stuck in traffic and I felt myself getting angry all over again. Has that ever happened to you? Behavioral psychologist Shad Helmstetter was describing a bleak day on which he was driving to work: "I found myself anxiously anticipating the change in every traffic light Halfway to my office, I came to the astounding realization that I was doing my attitude, and probably my health, a great injustice. More than that, I realized that my behavior was not that which should be expected of mature adult I was dealing with traffic at about the same level that an 18-month-old child deals with hunger I made an instant decision.

I decided that never again would traffic, in any situation, cause me stress." Helmstetter then engaged in what he called "situational self-talk." "I enjoy relaxing while I am driving in the car. I always give myself the necessary amount of time to get anywhere I am going. Traffic fights change at their own discretion, not mine. If the light changes before I get there, I will stop, wait for the light to change, and relax while I am waiting. Slow-moving or standing traffic is not a problem to me.

I now enjoy the time I have to organize my thoughts and think about those things that are beneficial to me. What happened? Did he stop strangling the steering wheel and grinding his teeth? "The self-suggestions took hold. A few times since then, on the way to an airport, a little behind schedule, I have had to consciously restate my self-talk. But since that day I have felt differently when I drive. Was it a difficult change to make? No.

Could anyone else do the same? Yes." Helmstetter, who lives in Scotts-dale, Ariz, is the author of the book What to Say When You Talk to Your Sell, which, he said during an interview, is based on the notion that we can change our attitudes and our behaviors if we tell ourselves the right things, over and over again. This, he said, is because the brain doesnt think for itself. It merely accepts, like a computer, what we program into it, and it makes no value judgment. "The brain will believe anything you tell it long enough and strong enough," and eventually this belief leads to changes in the person changes that make life much happier not only for the person but also for everybody who comes in contact with the person. "The purpose of self-talk is to override the old tapes, to erase and replace them with something else," something that will substitute the positive for the negaive.

An example from Helmstetter: A parent habitually may say, "I just can't seem to communicate with my son anymore." The message is self-defeating, he said, and easily could be rephrased into a winning message: "I take the time to listen, talk and communicate. I'm patient and understanding. It's worth working at, and I do." At this point, I must confess, I thought that Helmstetter might be putting me on and I told him so. What if, as parents, we're not patient and understanding? Can we become that way simply by talking to ourselves? He stuck to his guns. "Our attitudes are created by conditioning Positive talk about believing in your son" can, indeed, change the way a parent feels.

It will take time, but it can be done because we create, by our thinking, self-fulfilling prophecies that can be either good or bad. I stuck to my guns, too. What if the son is a skunk, somebody with whom everybody has trouble communicating? Helmstetter seemed unruffled, and I wondered whether he, at this very moment were engaging in his own self-talk to maintain his cooL "If the kid is a skunk, you need to program him to improve self-esteem. You could begin using statements like 'You are capable' 'I believe in you' anything that lets the young person know the best about himself instead of the worst If a child is always told that he hangs around with the wrong friends, that he doesn't know where home is, that he's lazy and won't amount to much, well, eventually the subconscious mind will accept this and make sure that he lives it out" Self-fulfilling prophecy, said Helmstetter, now is "proved to be a scientific fact. What we say to others is what we help them to believe.

Eventually they start saying the same things to themselves" and acting on what they say. Helmstetter said that healthy self-talk doesn't mean that "you suddenly will change from a person with an average number of bad days to a bright, dynamic person who never has a problem. What it means is that you improve a little bit each day and each day becomes a little better. Your whole life changes, a little at a time." What do you think? A custody battle between actress Lesley-Ann Down and moviemaker William Friedkin over their son, Jack, 4, will enter its final stage Dec. 16 when custody arguments are scheduled to be heard.

And not a moment too soon. Last week, Friedkin sought a contempt citation against his former love when she was two hours late dropping the kid off after a week's visit. Not about to take that lying down, Down got her lawyer, Marvin Mit-chelson, to counter-complain that the week before, Friedkin was three hours late delivering the boy to her. Messy. Rock at the Rock Cyndi Lauper, Bob Geldof, Paul Young and the Pretenders gave a rock concert Sunday aboard a British aircraft carrier anchored off the Rock of Gibraltar.

The three-hour show, attended by sailors, British military personnel stationed in the British dependency and citizens who held winning tickets in a Gibraltar Tourist Office drawing, was taped and will be aired on British TV as a Christmas special. Geldof, who has spent most of the last two years raising funds for Africa's hungry through rock extravaganzas, said it was "great to be back in front of the microphones playing music. I get bored stiff without music. Writing and performing that's my life." Celebrity specs The Ohio State University Optometry Clinic has an exhibit of celebrity glasses this week in Columbus. Among those on display are specs worn by the likes of Dean Martin, Sophia Loren, Vice Presi- Clint Eastwood dent Bush, former President Gerald Ford and cartoonist Charles Schulz.

Not everybody who was asked decided to contribute to the exhibit. Evangelist Billy Graham said he gave his old glasses to charity. A secretary to Phil Dona-hue wrote: "Unfortunately, the glasses Phil has, he uses. The others, he doesn't have he loses." Truest of the Blue In case you don't have cable or do and never watch MTV, the winners of the contest for the best homemade video version of Madonna's "True Blue" were Chris Guest 28, and Angel Garcia, 21, both of Key Biscayne, Fla. On Thursday, MTV will feature 24 hours worth of amateur videos attracted by a $25,000 first prize.

Actress ailing Ava Gardner has been fighting pneumonia in a California hospital for much of the month, it was disclosed yesterday. The actress, 64, checked into St. John's Hospital and Health Center in Santa Monica Oct. 6 for a routine checkup. A virus she was carrying turned into pneumonia, a hospital spokesman said.

Her doctor said he expected to send her home next week. Contributing to this article were the Associated Press, the New York Daily News and USA Today. is sua (V hv4 V) rt 5,1 1 141 ii 1 1 inn M.i lnniiainili Lml i-l, wM.iWglw.il.,l. umad Praat International First lady Nancy Reagan chats with songwriter Marvin Hamlisch, host of the forthcoming television program "In Performance at the White House." The President's wife dropped in on a rehearsal Sunday in the East Room. Peopletalk By Liz Smith Maybe you read about how Elton John has changed his way of living.

Instead of celebrating after concerts with those huge wild parties with too many people, he gives more elegant and quiet sit-down dinners. Hollywood was agog when Elton tossed a private bash in the Car-tier jewelry shop after his closing night in L.A. He had six tables of the creme de la creme, and he ended up shopping for some pieces of jewelry for his sical has also rehabilitated the professional standing of American director Harold Prince. And now, Hollywood's big man, Steven Spielberg, is said to be the one who wants to bring the musical to the screen. The original vehicle was a famous silent film for Lon Chaney in 1925, dubbed with sound and rereleased in 1930.

In 1943, there was a remake with Claude Rains, Nelson Eddy and Susanna Foster. And in 1962, Britain's Herbert Lom did it wife after dinner. Tlifi presence of Sylvester Stallone and his wife, Brigitte Nielsen, at one table caused everybody to start talking about how sure they are that Elton will do the music for Sly's next movie. The biggest hit in London in an age and one that has even given a shot in the arm to the long-suffering New York theater is Phantom of the Opera. (Broadway knows it can expect this smash eventually!) The mu again.

An enduring property! There is talk of updating Lenny, the stage bio of the late comic Lenny Bruce, for Broadway. Comedian Marty Brill, who played the part in London to wild acclaim, manager Larry Spell-man and playwright Julian Barry are huddling. The Actors Studio made $220,000 from its The Color of Money benefit, thanks to Paul Newman, Tom Cruise and Touchstone Pictures. The Millionaire By Percy Ross Dear Mr. Ross: My wife has colon cancer.

The doctors have told us that her chances of recovery are quite slim. She decided to try chemotherapy regardless of how sick it makes her fceL I guess the outcome now is in the Lord's hands. Her hair has almost completely fallen out She feels terribly embarrassed to be seen in public and hasn't attended church services for weeks now. I know she desperately wants and needs to attend church, but her vanity has stepped in the way. She finally told me that if she had a decent-looking wig she wouldn't feel like such a sore thumb.

Medical bills have drained our savings. I wanted to let a couple of bills slide so I could buy her a wig, but she wouldn't hear of it Tulsa, Okla. Dear Mr. If it was simply a case of vanity I wouldn't grant your request I see a wig in this case as a means for your wife to maintain her dignity. My check will cover the purchase of a natural-looking wig, plus a little extra for new dress.

Most people feel better when they look good, I hope this applies for your wife. Writt to Party Rots. The PWiMptiit hqiaror. Boi 35000. Minnaapoas.

Mkn. 5638. Bacauaa of tho naavy voajma at maa. onty Irmnd numoor ot rtquMtt artf ba anawarad tirturt column. arthoogh many A casual relationship doesn't excuse father from responsibility cular control.

Dear Ann Landers: I am hoping you advice, and I am turning to you. By ANN LANDERS mm -ifc Dear Ann Landers My 24-year-old daughter has become pregnant by a 25-year-old man. I'll call him Bob. They met a year ago in a singles bar. I cannot say they actually dated.

They would meet occasionally at the bar, leave together (no doubt to have sex) and Bob would bring her home. You can see she really doesnt know the young man very welL Bob does not want this child, nor does he want his family to know about it He asked her to have an abortion, but she made it clear that abortion is out of the question. She also told him that he was under no obligation to her. Since then (a month ago) she has mony. In my opinion, if they really wanted us, they would set a definite time, like, "How about dinner next Friday at Am I right about this? My husband does not agree.

Mrs. in the Burbs Dear Mrs. I'm with you. "Drop in anytime" is no invitation it's a meaningless collection of words with a phony ring to it. A real invitation is a call to nail down a specific time and place.

Facing Ha most dMoii and moat raw frig arranoamant? Am lanoW booktot 'HAamaoa What to Eipact" prapara you tor batrar or lor worao. For a copy, oantf SO cants and long, ttimipod. aff-oddroaaod onvstopa to Am Lanoars. Tha Phaaoat-pna rxjurar, Boi 11995, Chcago, 80611. Please remind your readers that appearances may be deceiving end to reserve judgment on people who seem to be intoxicated.

E. in N.Y. Dear N.Yj You did it for me and I am grateful. Multiple-sclerosis victims and their family and friends will be grateful, too. Thank you for writing.

Dear Ann Landers: I am getting tired of people who run into us and say, "Why don't we see anything of you? Wed love to have you come over for a visit Don't you like us anymore?" When I respond, "Why don't you invite us?" they say, "You don't need an invitation to come to our place. Old friends don't stand on cere Distraught Mother Dear Mother: Even though this is not exactly the love story of the decade, your daughter would be stupid to allow Bob to walk quietly into the sunset She should see to it that he accepts the financial responsibilities of the pregnancy. Ai for letting his parents know that can wait until after the child is born. By then, "Mr. Wrong" might be eager to introduce his newborn child.

Or your daughter might not wish to have any ties with him except financial Knowing his family could complicate matters; the best course is to wait and see. will publish this letter to let your readers know about a disease that affects a quarter-million Americans. When I go shopping, sometimes I stagger or stumble and falL On occasion, my vision is defective, and it is difficult for me to find items on the grocery shelf. When I ask for help, my speech may be slurred Shoppers often assume that I have been drinking. Actually, I have multiple sclerosis, a chronic disease of the brain and spinal cord that affects young adults in their most productive years.

No one knows what causes this illness. It short-circuits the central nervous system, and the victim loses mus not seen or heard from him. Her friends tell her she is crazy to let the guy off the honk, that he should pay child support and his parents should be told about the expected grandchild. My daughter has turned to me for.