Want to avoid cancer? Shrink. Men’s Health (February 1989) reports that a recent study showed that the shortest 25 percent of the more than 12,000 people studied had only half as much cancer as the tallest 75 percent.
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A capsule history of the last 25 years, from Citizens Utility Board president Josh Hoyt in CUB News (Winter 1989): “Remember when Ralph Nader told off the Detroit automobile moguls back in 1965? He said, ‘You ought to build cars that are smaller, safer and more fuel efficient.’ The big car manufacturers just laughed and said, ‘You’re an “activist.” What do you know about cars?’ In fact, the only people who listened were the Japanese, who built small, safe, fuel efficient cars and almost put Detroit out of business. And when Chrysler came close to going belly up, who had to pay to bail them out of their mistakes? We did–the taxpayers!
“Now, when these utility companies began their nuclear building frenzy in the 1970’s, there were organizations that said, ‘Hey, don’t build those things! We won’t need the power and they cost too much money!’ Well, the utility big-shots just laughed and said, ‘What do you know? You’re just a bunch of “activists.”‘ So they went out and started buying nuclear power plants like Donald Trump buys buildings.” With the usual result, except that CUB would like them to pay for their own mistakes for a change.
The bad-timing award goes to Iran expert James A. Bill. “It is time to speak clearly about US acceptance and recognition of Iran’s revolution,” he writes in World Monitor (March 1989), “to announce US intentions to respect Iran’s national sovereignty, to refrain from gratuitous jingoism labeling Iran and Iranians as terrorists and barbarians”–just before the homicidal fundamentalists in charge of that country labeled themselves.
