From: crosmun@crosmun.rtp.dg.com (William Crosmun)
Subject: Transition follies
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 21:26:30 GMT
Organization: Data General Corporation, RTP, NC.

Reprinted without permission from Art Buchwald.  It applies even more now than 
it did in 1980.

					 Everyone is Helpful

According to the reports I hear, the Carter appointees and the new Reagan
people are working smoothly to make the transition.  You don't find the
bitterness which has been present during the changeovers of other
administrations.  In many cases, the Carter people even seem HAPPY to turn
over the reins of government to the Reaganites. 

I dropped in on one of the deparments where a Carter appointee was briefing a
Reagan lieutenant on what to expect.

The Carter person said, "Now, in this blue metal file cabinet are all the
plans for improving mass transportation in the country."

"Good, I'll go through them this afternoon."

"They cover everything from buses, to subways, to railroads, to movable
sidewalks.  If it transports people -- we've made a study of it."

"Excellent.  What are in those six green cabinets over there?"

"The reasons why we can't build them.  Let me show you how the system works.
Let's say you were planning to build a 165-mile-an-hour train for the
northeast corrdior of the United States.  You would look up 'Super train' in
the blue cabinet.  We have photos of Japanese trains, French trains, German 
trains and Swiss trains, as well as plans for each of these systems."

"They all look beautiful," the Reagan man said.

"Now we go over to this green file cabinet and look, up 'Super train.' This
photo shows you what would happen if you tried to go 165 miles an hour on an
American track bed."

The Reagan man said, "It looks like the train has crashed into a garbage dump
somewhere in Philadelphia."

"It's actually Baltimore.  Our engineers have figured out that at 165 miles an
hour, the Super train would fly off the tracks in Philadelphia and land just
about here in Maryland, unless it smashed into a freight in Washington first."

"How would I find the answer to that problem?"

"You go to this green file cabinet here and look up 'Cost of laying new tracks
for Super train.'"

"Twelve billion dollars?!" the Reagan man said.

"That doesn't include switching equipment and computers.  When you have a
train going that fast, you have to keep the tracks clear at all times, because
it can't stop if it sees something ahead.  In order to make sure that it is
safe, you would have to build electric gates at all the railroad crossings,
which we figure will cost another six billion."

"I guess we better forget about the Super train.  What other ideas are in the
files?"

"We have an excellent plan for busing."

"Governor Reagan is against busing."

"This would not be used for busing schoolchildren; it would be to bus people
to work.  Here is a prototype of a new air-conditioned vehicle which would
seat 80 people and have room for 60 standees."

"That makes a lot of sense.  What's wrong with it?"

"To make it pay for itself, it would cost $4 per person for a two-mile ride.
The cities won't buy them unless we give them one billin dollars in
supplemental payments."

"That's ridiculous.  What about monorails?  Governor Reagan was very impressed
with the monorail he saw at Disneyland."

"I think the monorail folder is over here.  Yes, here it is.  A monorail, at
present construction estimates, would cost four million dollars a foot --
without stairways for the stations."

"Do you people have any mass transportation ideas the new President could
implement?"

The Carter man went through the files.

"Here's one our Research and Development people have been working on.  It's
a dog sled that can pull six people at one time and only costs $900."

"Now you're talking.  What's wrong with it?"

"You need artificial snow machines every block along the route or the dogs
will refuse to pull the sleds."

"You Carter people aren't leaving us much to work with."

"That isn't true.  We've ordered fourteen new green file cabinets for the
office, and here's the number of the General Serices Administration in case
you need any more."


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William Crosmun
crosmun@dg-rtp.dg.com

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"If an aging America ever begins to lose its short-term memory, it will really
 be in trouble - because that's the only kind of memory this country seems to
 have.  There's a perpetual tendency to believe that whatever is going on at
 this particular moment is absolutely unique in human history, but will,
 paradoxically, continue now into the indefinite future.  Both assumptions are
 certain to be wrong, but meanwhile they have sent a passel of chickens
 scuttling hysterically around the U.S. barnyard."
  
                                                  Louis Rukeyser - 1992

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