Des Moines Tribune from Des Moines, Iowa • 16

Ir 'J DAVID KRtlDENIER, Publisher MICHAEL GARTNER, Editor JAMES P. CANNON, Executive Editor GILBERT CRANBERG, Editorial Page Editor WILLIAM P. MAURER, Managing EditorNewt GARY G. GERLACH, General Counsel STEPHEN S. INGHAM, General Manager CHARLES EDWARDS Circulation Director DAVID TIBBETTS, Advertising Director Des Moines Tribune A Independent Newspaper Friday, Aigwt 21, 1981 FEDERAL RULES: Too many cramp productivity $148 shoes that walk all over you By Ellen Goodman INI WoiMnotan Post Writers Groue GEOFFREY MOSS, WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP Wrong decision on radio tower It will be a shame if the spitting, shouting and wastebasket-throwing of a few prevent people from understanding the frustration of many when the Zoning Board of Adjustment Tuesday denied a black broadcasting group's request to operate a radio station and build a 100-foot tower in a near-north-side neighborhood.

The issue is not an easy one. There was neighborhood opposition. One couple and another woman spoke against the request and presented a petition against it signed by about 30 'jeighbors. The couple said they approved of the station but opposed the tower. They cited the -ssible dangers of children climbing it, ice falling from it, the tower itself falling, electrical interference, noise, and the sacrifice of an outdoor basketball court beside the Gateway Center at 801 Forest where the station has its headquarters.

The Urban Community Broadcasting Co. has been struggling for four years to launch its minority-oriented educational station, KUCB, which began limited broadcasting Aug. 7 with a temporary antenna. Its request for a variance to operate in Gateway Center and to build the tower to improve transmission capacity was supported by most of a crowd of well over 100 persons. Present were representatives of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, several ministers including those from the Inner-City Cooperative Parish and many individuals who believe that Des Moines needs the 10-watt station to provide better communication among minorities and cultural diversity for the whole area.

The zoning board's staff recommended children's breakfasts, faculty lunches and snacks." Other suspect regulations have to do with the government's mechanistic demands for a unisex society. Schools that benefit from federal tax funds are prohibited from discriminating in any way on account of sex. Thus colleges and universities "must use the same pay scale for male and female coaches, expend equal amounts for publicity of male and female athletic events and expend equal amounts on equipment and supplies for males and females." Such regulations, in the administration's view, are quite simply unreal. They ignore the world as it is a world in which a male who coaches football, for good or ill, commands higher pay than a woman who coaches tennis. In their blind adherence to formula, the rules also ignore the wishes of the people.

No convincing evidence ever has been adduced to prove that the people want to put women's athletics on an absolute par with men's athletics. Policies of reasonable equity and plain common sense should suffice but in the Washington mazes, such policies get lost. Marveling at the energies of Bush, I myself remain skeptical nonetheless. The bureaucrats were here before this administration came to town, and the bureaucrats will remain after it has left. It is a long and tedious process to get a departmental regulation on the books, and the process is just as long and tedious to get the rule repealed.

Delaware's Senator Bill Roth, a careful student of these things, estimates the cost of federal regulation at $1,800 a year for the average family, and $100 billion a year for U.S. business. The Reagan administration merits applause for a good start, but it has yet a long, long way to go. 3 11'' I I' I Mh of excessive federal regulations, and for the keeping of that promise he put Bush in charge. The vice president is coming on like Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan hill.

Charge! His Task Force on Regulatory Relief has identified 1,800 federal rules that may be "burdensome, unnecessary or counterproductive." Some of these rules are still in the proposal stage; others will require legislative action from Congress. Five hundred regulations of limited impact have been put on the back of the stove for consideration later this year. But the remarkable record shows that in March the administration suspended or rescinded 27 major regulations. In April it acted upon 34 regulations that weighed heavily on the auto industry. At last week's press conference, Bush targeted 30 more.

The range of these regulations provides a depressing insight into the bureaucratic mazes of govern By James J. Kilpatrick mi Untvtnal Press Syndicate FN THE MIDST of our August doldrums, Vice President George Bush's press conference of Aug. 12 was the only game in Wash ington. The pleasant consequence was that his attack upon excessive federal regulations got a nice play in the papers and on the tube. Once again the lords of the local press were struck by an astounding truth: This administration is keeping its campaign promises.

It is downright shocking. President Reagan promised to end the last price controls on petroleum, and he did it. He promised to lift the grain embargo, and he did it He promised to seek major reductions in taxes and spending, and he got them. He promised to nominate a woman to the Supreme Court; behold Sandra O'Connor. One of his major promises was to ease the burden ment today.

The administration proposes to review and reconsider regulations affecting livestock marketing, river and harbor dredging, the refining of lead-free gas and the reporting requirements of American-flag ships. The task force will look at flood insurance, health planning, community-development programs and the use of patient package inserts for prescription drugs. It will review rules affecting mobile homes, endangered species, marine vessels, highway geometry and the commercial-diving industry. In many instances, Bush's attack will concentrate on the paperwork burden of federal decrees. The burden is mountainous.

By the vice president's calculations, the national school-lunch program requires 46 million hours of form-filling every year. "The school cook has to estimate for each meal how much flour and yeast are used in bread for MOSS, WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP Industry's 'mother of invention ADAPTED FROM A DRAWING BY GEOFFREY jKHIS COLUMN comes juu luiu vcojr, vi uia- courtes'y, of a lawyer from Dallas, Texas, whn shall remain nameless lest I hear from him again. This man let us call him Rant Enrave harangued me at long-distance rates the other day for no less than 20 minutes on the subject of how powerless and abused men are in this country. What had pushed his button were pictures in the August Vogue magazine. His call just happened to follow that of an old friend from New York, who was outraged by another fashionable treatment.

Her text was an ad in The Sunday New York Times Magazine. I thought briefly and mischievously of fixing them up with each other. Then I retreated to the library for the Times and to the newsstand for $2.50 worth of Vogue. Flipping through the never-never land of Vogue, I finally came across the spread. Under the headline, "New Look-Makers," were pictures featuring a real Sadie (as in sadist), involved in various aspects of modeling and mayhem.

She began by holding a gray-pin-striped man in a ham-rnerlock. In sequence, she then proceeded to smother him in a $205 muffler, whack him with a $250 pocketbook, push him in the puss with her $148 Geoffrey Beene shoes and then muzzle him. She was definitely not getting in touch with his feelings, if you receive my meaning. I could understand how it upset old Rant Enrave. The ad in The New York Times Magazine might have come closer to his heart At least geographically.

The ad was for Texas Brand Boots. It showed a scantily dressed model astride a man's leg, dutifully pulling off his black urban cowboy boot The headline, "Treat 'Em Good and They'll Treat You Good," was matched only by the caption: "In the Old West, it's said, some men took better care of their boots than their women." Not altogether admirable, but certainly understandable. Well. Most of us have, by now, been repeatedly inoculated by the fashion merchandisers. for one, have lived through other various permutations and combinations of sex and violence.

I remember the fad a couple of years back for women to be photographed with dog collars around their necks. I lived through last year's hooker look and this year's kiddie-pom look. Even so, this is pretty gruesome stuff. There is a sort of can-you-top-this competition in the kinky. But this- time, I can't follow my old friend in New York or my new friend in Dallas in dire analyses about what these photos "say about American society." All they say about American society is that we have high-fashion hustlers.

The fashion advertisers and their fellow-travelers, the fashion editors, are not selling groceries and washing machines to the average citizen. They are selling pointy-toed, high-heeled stitched boots and $205 scarves. Objects. Unnecessary objects. In order to sell an object, especially an expensive and trendy one, you have to convince customers that objects per se are important.

It's helpful if you can make them believe that objects are more important than people. It's best if you make them believe that people are objects. At the end of all this we have ads featuring men who take better care of their boots than of women. And photos of women who step all over men, but with rather elegant shoes. Maybe this says something about the $148-shoe crowd.

But if you buy that as a theory on the general state of the sexes, I've got a guy in Dallas who's dying to hear from you. Des Moines Register and Tribune Company 715 locust Pes Moines, la. 50304 David Kroideaier, Chairman Michael Gartner, President Gary G. Gerlach, Ezecuttt Vice President Vice presidents: Stephen S. Ingkum Newspapers Jamei P.

GaaoonNeuu J. Robert tiudioa Planning Jamei KiserFinance Richard Gilbert Broadcasting Monsarito (conoco) INGERSOLL-RAND Gateway Center approval of the request, subject to certain conditions, which the broadcasting group met. These include the deeding of land for a new alley and erection of a 6-foot-high chain link fence around the tower. Protection of neighborhoods is a primary concern of boards like this one, and it is appropriate that the concern be at least as strong for fragile neighborhoods like the one in question. But look at the specifics in the case: As for congestion, as the zoning staff pointed out, radio stations generate little traffic, probably less than has been brought in by the center itself.

As for the loss of the basketball court, there was no guarantee it would remain, oecause financial troubles have forced the Gateway Center into bankruptcy. As for danger, KUCB submitted a report from a structural engineer pronouncing the proposed tower structurally adequate. It was determined, too, that if the tower fell, it would fall onto the building housing the station, not onto nearby houses. The fence provides further protection. The FCC assured residents that their television and radio reception would not be affected.

This leaves unsightliness. But the tower is little higher than many put up by ham-radio operators. The center itself is the real eyesore. It is hard to see how a tower could be uglier than the broken-windowed, dilapidated old building. Success of the radio station could mean an improvement in the building a real benefit for the area.

The board took in all this information, and then by a 3-2 vote, without discussion, denied the broadcasting group's request. Many in the audience were surprised. Some reacted improperly. Several shouted charges of racism. As it happens, the three who spoke in opposition were white.

The audience, most of whom stood to express support, was largely black. The board is white. It may appear unseemly to inject race into the issue, but in this case the problem may be that the board failed to see its importance. The station would give a voice to a segment of the population that has not had much access to the airwaves. Add to that the cultural enrichment for the whole community, and it is clear that the board erred in weighing more heavily the concerns of a small number of residents concerns that, for the most part, had been answered than the best interests of the neighborhood and of the wider community.

The broadcasting group and the black community in Des Moines deserved better treatment. Now, they are going to have to go to court to try to get it. Perhaps some good can come from this, as the community is made more aware of the new station's existence (it plans to continue broadcasting and even proceeded to build part of the tower on its roof, in what may be a violation of the zoning ordinance). The wounds that were inflicted by the board's insensitivity will be difficult to heal, unless an important lesson from this episode is learned: the necessity of assuring diversity in membership of public boards. Until then, the cost in ill will and distrust generated by a decision like this one will be high.

By Ruth Ruttenberg 1911 Los AnwHs Tkms Mows Swvtct Mt JOHE REAGAN adminis- a view that measures government regulation only as a burden. There is a wealth of empirical evidence, however, that regulation is itself a major stimulus for new markets, new jobs and most important innovation. To a surprising degree, regulation is the mother of invention. Pollution control is one of the fastest-growing markets in U.S. industry.

In-house corporate literature singing the praises of new products and processes developed in response to regulation contrasts sharply with public-relations advertising bemoaning the burdens of the same regulation. Union Carbide 1978 annual report, for example, boasts of company leadership in municipal wastewater-treatment systems, which the federal government has helped ensure by budgeting $24 billion for them over a single four-year period. Union Carbide also says proudly that "increasing application of mandatory government standards has significantly increased air-pollution-control markets during the last five years." American Cyanamid Co's. 1978 annual report contained a similar success story: Growth in sales of organic flocculants (wooly fibers) was due in large measure to pollution-control regulations. Stauffer Chemical Co.

told its shareholders in 1979 that, over the long term, the opportunities offered by government regulations may be more important than the constraints they present. The 3M Corp. is well known for its growing line of respirators and other protective equipment for workers. Innovations spawned by regulation can increase overall productivity. A good case in point is vinyl chloride.

Though industry had threatened that regulation could cause the collapse of the entire vinyl-chloride industry, within 18 months of the proraulga- Ruth Ruttenberg is an associate economic consultant and an assistant professor at Howard University in Washington, D.C. During 1979-80, she served as senior economist at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. This article is based on one that appeared in Worker Papers. Industry has often claimed that pollution control and hazard abatement consume not only unnecessary dollars but extravagant amounts of energy as well. Reality belies such pessimism.

When General Motors Corp. was forced to control pollution, its engineers designed powerhouse boilers that monitor emissions and set air-fuel ratios. Not only was the air that workers breathed cleaner, but the machines' fuel efficiency was maximized to boot. Ingersoll-Rand California pellet mill is creating a new energy supply by converting organic waste into compacted, sulfur-free fuel pellets. Companies are also making money from the large, fast-growing market for substitute products.

Even though industry reacted with loud dismay when the government tried to regulate asbestos because of its carcinogenic effects, American industrial ingenuity has risen to the occasion. Monsanto Co. has a new fire-retardant, Phos-Chek, to replace asbestos fireproofing. Kennecott new Fiberfrax is used not only in protective clothing, welding curtains and expansion joints but also as a furnace liner, where it reduces fuel consumption by as much as 50 percent and boosts productivity by shortening the production cycle. Du Pont has developed Nomex, a fiber that serves as an asbestos substitute, and is useful in protective apparel.

Honeycomb structures of Nomex paper are used to strengthen interior cabin panels in aircraft, where weight-saving and flame-resistance are important. Regulation has improved the market for all these products. To be sure, regulation increases costs in some cases. For some firms, improving workplace safety and health may be an expensive process requiring outlays for new and improved plant and equipment One should not suggest that the job is always easy to accomplish or afford. But there are innumerable cases in which regulation also spawns far-flung benefits: basic innovations, jobs, productivity gains, energy savings, new markets and profits.

In an increasing number of cases, regulation has spurred technological innovation that has increased profits while promoting the health of U.S. workers and U.S. industry. The new, safer saw not only protected workers, it also saved wear and tear on tools. When shipping coal by rail across country, Conoco left behind trails of coal dust until a new device was developed to keep coal dust out of the environment It also saves an estimated 80 tons of coal per tralnload.

Increases in productivity can come from improved maintenance of equipment, which increases useful life, or from entirely new produc-' tion processes. tion of an Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulation for that substance, more than 90 percent of producing firms were in compliance. New firms were entering the market, and growth rates were more than twice the national average. Vinyl chloride is by no means the only example of compliance accompanied by productivity improvements and industry growth. At Kaiser Steel pipe mill In Fontana, workers were getting bad cuts from an old saw..