Your government’s business continued as usual last week even as All-Tragedy-All-The-Time TV took over our lives.
Your tax dollars were at work even as a big-shot historian was negotiating with two networks to make more than $10,000 to exploit his relationship to John Kennedy Jr. by playing pundit. Pilloried as a scavenger after a deal with NBC was disclosed, the connected Douglas Brinkley did an about-face and said he would blab for free.
They were at work as a proven journalistic thief from Boston named Mike Barnicle, given the boot by The Boston Globe for his history of dishonesty, was relegitimized as a grief-afflicted Kennedy Family Analyst.
Yes, the government continued performing even as every Father McCarthy from every parish in North America was rushed into make-up rooms and then on air to intone about the mechanics of a Catholic funeral mass.
But a look through the mind-numbing Federal Register serves as a reminder of the government’s impact on all citizens, rich and poor alike, on land and at sea.
It’s a softbound, gray, small-print booklet published daily, Monday through Friday, by the National Archives and Records Administration. It’s the place where the government sticks copies of new regulations and legal notices, as well as presidential executive orders and other federal documents of public relevance.
It is unspeakably boring.
Here’s some of what happened last week beneath the radar screens of the maudlin media, according to the Federal Register:
– The Federal Aviation Administration issued a rule to improve the fail-safe features of the thrust reverser systems of certain Boeing Model 747-200 and -300 series planes. Boeing assures the FAA that it is “developing a modification that will positively address the unsafe condition . . . .”
– The FAA also issued a rule for certain Boeing Model 777 planes, requiring replacement of a certain engine-driven pump supply shutoff valve with a new one. This was prompted by reports of the valve’s failing, which could mean, in the event of an engine fire, an uncontrolled fire in the engine compartment.
– The Coast Guard is establishing a “temporary safety zone” in a 400-yard radius around a fireworks launch site in Gloucester, Mass., Harbor. This is to meant to protect boaters during a fireworks display on the evening of Sept. 4.
– Responding to gripes from the Fresh Garlic Producers Association, the Commerce Department announced a review of possible dumping of garlic from the People’s Republic of China. This comes as three Chinese companies refuse to fork over information needed for an investigation into the dumping allegations, meaning that the Chinese might be ripping off both our nuclear secrets and our garlic cloves.
– The Commerce Department is apparently having a tougher time figuring out whether Ecuador is circumventing anti-dumping laws in the export of fresh cut flowers. “Because of the complexity of certain issues in this case, it is not practicable to complete this review within the time limits” mandated by the law, which means you can call that FTD 800 number without any moral qualms.
– Put aside your waders, worms, lures and deep-sea trawlers because the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced it is barring any more fishing for Pacific ocean perch in the West Yakutat District of the Gulf of Alaska. “This action is necessary to prevent exceeding the 1999 total allowable catch of Pacific ocean perch in this area.”
– The Bureau of Arms Control at the State Department unveiled proposed regulations to implement the international Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction. Because this treaty is aimed at saving all of us from being blown to smithereens, coming up with a way to implement it seems like a reasonable notion.
– The Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration at the Labor Department announced an Aug. 12-13 meeting of its Medical Child Support Working Group at Chicago’s Palmer House Hilton. The aim is to “identify the impediments to the effective enforcement of medical support by state child support enforcement agencies.” This could be too dour even for C-SPAN.
– The Agriculture Department’s Agriculture Marketing Service is proposing an industry-funded promotional program for cultivated blueberries, to be given the racy name of the Blueberry Promotion, Research, and Information Order. At the very moment All-Tragedy-All-The-Time TV was zooming in on the Kennedy burial at sea, the marketing service was urging that blueberry producers and importers pay $12 a ton to a new U.S.A. Blueberry Council.
Oh, painstaking research discloses that blueberries are grown in 35 states, with commercial production dominated by Michigan (44 percent), New Jersey (19), Oregon (12), Georgia (9), North Carolina and Washington (5 each) and Indiana and Florida (2 each). We export more than 6 million pounds of fresh blueberries each year, with Canada the principal destination, followed by Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Germany.
– The Coast Guard, in a move inexplicably missed by the New York Times and MSNBC, proposed a temporary rules change to close the Rock Island Railroad and Highway Drawbridge at Mile 482.9 on the Upper Mississippi River from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Sept. 26. “This temporary rule would allow the scheduled running of the Quad City Marathon as part of a local community event.” If this upsets your weekend boating plans, you have until Aug. 23 to gripe to the Coast Guard at 1222 Spruce St., St. Louis, Mo., 63103-2832.
More Top Picks Best Portable Radios
– The Corporation for National and Community Service announced it has about $500,000 to dole out “to mobilize more Americans to observe the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday as a day of service.” You can try to get a grant of up to $3,500 or one up to $10,000 for “large-scale” service projects. (“By large-scale, we mean that the service involves a large number of participants in a geographic area,” says the formal notice.) Applications for the smaller grant “may be no longer than 7 single sided pages.” For more data, call 202-565-2799.
– The Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration issued a “certification of eligibility,” allowing workers at Duck Head Apparel Outlet in Decatur, Tenn., who lost their jobs selling T-shirts, placket shirts, shorts and pants made by a sister firm, Delta Apparel, to apply for financial relief through the Worker Adjustment Assistance program. It has been determined they may have been “adversely affected by increased imports.”
– Going in for a little surgery? Be advised that the Food and Drug Administration amended its regulations about color additives “to provide for the safe use of (phthalocyaninato(2-)) copper in coloring nonabsorbable sutures for general and opthalmic surgery made from a blend of poly(vinylidene fluoride) and poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene).”
– The Agriculture Department Food and Nutrition Service proposed changes to “improve program integrity and promote consistency” in the federal food stamp program on Indian reservations. They would clearly define intentional violations, establish penalties and force Indian agencies who administer the program to take appropriate action. This stems from an audit indicating that households on 30 reservations “had income that exceeded the eligibility guidelines.”
– R. Wallace Stuart, the deputy general counsel of the United States Information Agency, gave notice that, “I hereby determine that the objects to be included in the exhibit `Contemporary Egyptian Art,’ imported from abroad for the temporary exhibition without profit within the United States, are of cultural significance. I also determine that the exhibition or display of the listed objects at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from September 13, 1999, to January 23, 2000, is in the national interest.”
And you thought All-Tragedy-All-The-Time TV was tedious.
———-
James Warren and Michael Tackett of the Tribune’s Washington bureau are hosts of “Unconventional Wisdom” at 7:05 p.m. Sunday on WGN-AM 720.