The Washignton Post - 04.04.2020

saturday, april 4 , 2020. the washington post ez re k A1 7

Free For All

Jabin botsford/the washington post

Deborah Birx and Anthony S. Fauci listen to President Trump during a briefing at the White House on March 20.

“Race, privilege and toilet

duty: Life at Harvard for a black

freshman in 1959,” Randall Ken-

nedy’s March 22 Book World

review of Kent Garrett and

Jeanne Ellsworth’s “The Last

Negroes at Harvard: The Class of

196 3 and the 18 Young Men Who

Changed Harvard Forever,” be-

spoke his point of view.

I had the enormous luck to

spend my 1955 -1956 starter year

at Harvard College in the Hollis

South freshman dorm. Outrank-

ing other good friends who were

graduates of the Bush family’s

Phillips Academy Andover, the

clear “grandee” in Hollis South

was Robert Patterson Watkins

III of the iconic Boston Latin

School.

Watkins’s “upper class” years

were in Eliot House. He went on

to Columbia Law School, to the

“other Cambridge” in the United

Kingdom and to the Justice

Department and the U.S. attor-

ney’s office before decades as a

senior partner of the p reeminent

litigation firm of Williams &

Connolly.

Watkins was a good friend in

our f reshman year, a nd o ur fami-

lies have been close friends for

decades. He and I are longtime

members of what The Post re-

cently called the “posh” Metro-

politan Club, and, with others in

our 1955 -1956 freshman dorm,

our couples jointly attended our

Class o f 1959 6 0th reunion in o ur

Cambridge last May.

To Kennedy, who has made a

career of laments, another good

lawyer respectfully replies:

Enough already.

Terry Murphy, Bethesda

A Harvard

success story

Regarding John W. Mayo and Mark Whitener’s

March 2 2 Outlook e ssay, “ Five Myths: A ntitrust law”:

I have a great deal of respect for both authors and

worked closely with Mayo on projects and litigations

during the all-too-brief golden age of competition in

telecommunications a nd broadband in the late 1990s

and early 2000s. Though I agree generally with their

responses to these common myths and have made

similar a rguments over the y ears, I disagree w ith their

response to Myth No. 2, “Antitrust protects smaller

firms from their big rivals.” They are certainly right

that the law has developed to make clear that the

antitrust laws protect competition itself, not any

individual c ompetitors. The basis of our economy and

of the antitrust laws is that vigorous competition

produces the best outcomes for consumers. There-

fore, the antitrust laws protect the competitive pro-

cess itself, a nd they do that by e nsuring c ompetition is

not constrained by any single company abusing its

market power (under Section 2 of the Sherman Anti-

trust Act) or any group of companies abusing the

competitive process (generally under Section 1 of the

Sherman Act). The authors concluded their response

to Myth No. 2 by noting that “enforcers and courts

tend to take competitors’ complaints about their

rivals’ behavior with a grain of salt.” That is true, and,

in my v iew, m ore unfortunate the more true it is.

Competitors are the first ones to notice that other,

usually bigger companies are abusing their market

power, and they often notice that by observing that

they are b eing hurt by the a nticompetitive conduct of

those companies. So while some competitors’ com-

plaints may not be true, one would hope that enforc-

ers and courts have become sophisticated enough to

look carefully and not just take all competitors’ com-

plaints with a grain of salt. In the olden days of coal

mining, before there was technology to do the job,

miners (it is said) would take a canary into the mines,

because canaries were more sensitive than people to

the poison gases that could lurk in the mines. If the

canary died, the miners took it as a warning that the

air i n the mines was poisonous. So r ather t han s imply

writing off competitors’ complaints as whining, en-

forcers and c ourts would h elp consumers much more

quickly and effectively by understanding that com-

petitors’ complaints and the damage they are seeing

to their businesses could be the “canaries in the coal

mine,” warning that one or more companies had

poisoned the a ir for competition.

Jeffrey Blumenfeld, Washington

The writer is an antitrust lawyer.

Big companies

a nd little birds

Thank you to the Post staff who contributed two

pages of sports movie recommendations in lieu of

the real-time action that we prize but cannot enjoy

during social distancing [“Sports movies for when

there’s no sports,” Sports, March 22]. Perhaps the

staff was preoccupied with the pandemic because

there was no mention of films about running. The

absence of running movies is noted particularly as

the sport makes headlines: USA Track & Field

requests postponing the To kyo Olympics, the Boston

Marathon moves from April to September and the

District’s historic Cherry Blossom Te n Mile Run

switched to a virtual race.

For starters, these films have an IMDb rating of

seven or higher and are broadly appealing: “Chariots

of Fire” (1981), “Forrest Gump” (1994), “Without

Limits” ( 1998), “The Long Green Line” ( 2008), “Un-

broken” (2014) and “Skid Row Marathon” (2017).

Please let readers know great sports movies also

include those without bats, balls, pucks and clubs.

Anne Pitchford Coia, Washington

The writer is head of community outreach

f or the DC Road Runners Club.

It irked me that none of the writers mentioned

the 1932 Marx Brothers’ classic college football

movie, “Horse Feathers.” Never was football so

funny.

Bruce James, Silver Spring

It was discouraging to note that in the March 22

list of sports movie recommendations, which did

include films about such borderline “sporting”

activities as pro wrestling, fishing, auto racing and

pool, not a single film about soccer was deemed

worthy.

There is no doubt that in the sports world of the

United States, soccer is subordinate in significance

to football, basketball, etc.

However, I would think that in a list of 32 movies

there would be space for at least “Bend It Like

Beckham,” “ Chasing the Game,” “ The Other Kids” or

“The Miracle Match.”

If “Mr. Baseball” Thomas Boswell can single out a

movie about shooting pool, I would think that soccer

would at least be on someone’s radar.

Daniel W. Keiper, Falls Church

Movies with running times

stephanie k. kuykendal for the washington post

Gurinder Chadha, director of “Bend It Like Beckham,” poses with the movie poster.

The March 23 print edition featured historical

ironies in the comics section. “Loose Parts” featured

a bar named “Molotov’s” serving the epony-

mous cocktail, very droll on its surface. The first true

molotov cocktails were “served” by inventive Finn-

ish soldiers, facing Soviet tanks in the 1939 -

Winter War, in honor of Soviet Foreign Minister

Vyacheslav Molotov’s birthday on March 9. The

irony? The publication date of the cartoon strip just

missed both the architect of the Molotov-Ribbentrop

Pact’s birthday and the 80 th anniversary o f the

formal end, March 13, to that brutal war that

preserved Finland’s independence.

Larry Butler, Reston

This drink burns

dave blazek/the washington post news service and syndicate

The March 23 “Loose Parts”

I opened the March 24 Post, expecting coverage of

a major event from the previous day. But nowhere,

from the front page to A26, was a column inch

devoted to Colorado’s governor signing into law the

repeal of that state’s death penalty, b ringing to 22 the

number of states without capital punishment.

At one time, the national strategy was to wait until

the number of states without the death penalty

reached 26 before a test case would be brought

before the Supreme Court. Then an argument could

be made that the punishment is unconstitutional

because it is both unusual and cruel.

I oppose the death penalty, along with about half

the country, because it keeps society no safer nor

deters violence any better than long, harsh sentenc-

es. It r evictimizes survivors of the deceased who wait

an average of 20 years for an execution. It extin-

guishes any possibility of rehabilitation. (It’s called a

“corrections” system, right?) And because a death

sentence drains more tax dollars than a life sentence,

it depletes resources that could be used to heal

victims’ families and underwrite crime prevention

measures (education, housing, job training).

Regardless of one’s moral stance on capital pun-

ishment, certainly the issue merits media coverage.

Richard Stack, Silver Spring

An unusual

l ack of coverage

The photograph of infectious disease expert Anthony S. Fauci

that accompanied the March 25 news article “As the economy

stalls, Trump’s tug-of-war with scientists escalates” proved the

old adage that one picture is worth a thousand words.

Allen Tobias, H untington, Md.

Ashley Parker’s March 18 White House Debrief, “ Pandem-

ic response has become a reality show — and everyone has a

role,” a ccurately and cleverly described the various roles p layed

by the president and administration officials during ongoing

news conferences on the coronavirus. The “Trump cheerlead-

ers” (of whom the vice president is a prime example) and

“competent government bureaucrats” trying to clearly explain

what’s going on reveal themselves with great consistency as we

watch daily.

I urge reporters to refrain from asking provocative questions.

They lead to exaggerated statements by the president (rating

himself a “10” as Parker reported) and to fights with the usual

“enemy”: the media. For example, o n March 1 8, the media didn’t

report what the president did (restrict entry from China and

elsewhere) to make the situation so good. On March 19, it was

“fake news” — reporting without asking his opinion. And on

March 18, in describing how popular he is (in response to a

question), he managed to slip in that he’s beating former vice

president Joe Biden i n Florida. I h ope t hat The Post c ontinues to

report its factual stories about the real issue, the pandemic.

Ruth Salinger, Bethesda

Kudos for the March 25 news articles “This pathogen isn’t

alive. That’s why it’s so hard to kill” and “Slow mutation rate

encourages researchers.” The interviews with seven distin-

guished virologists and biologists lead us to urge Congress to

hold televised but unattended hearings so that the public can

better understand what is going on with the coronavirus and

the covid-19 illness it causes and the efforts to develop an

effective vaccine.

These articles were a timely and reassuring reminder of the

great wealth of scientific and medical expertise that our nation

enjoys and the importance of our political leaders relying on

that expertise.

Judy Israel, R ockville

Elihu Leifer, Chevy Chase

Don’t touch your face. Unless it’s to facepalm.

With the new enforced time indoors, more of us
than ever are trying to solve the daily crossword
puzzles. The March 20 Los Angeles Times puzzle
would have been solvable if only The Post h ad used
the titles that the L.A. Times assigned to it.
Searching o nline, I found that the March 20 puzzle
should have been called “Anagram That.” Sudden-
ly, the four meaningless anchor clues became
meaningful.
Ellen Korb, Silver Spring

Entitled to titles

The caption with the photograph that accompa-
nied the March 22 obituary for Wolf Kahn,
“Celebrated painter of lush landscapes relished his
bold palette,” stated, “Mr. Kahn said his work was
inspired by the landscape of his.” As you see, the
caption ended mid-sentence. I would have liked to
know what inspired Kahn.
Joseph Scafetta Jr., Falls Church

Entitled to complete captions

The March 20 news article on spring breakers in
Florida, “In Florida, older set anxious as spring
breakers try to keep the party going,” devoted an
entire page and 1,400 words to young revelers ignor-
ing social distancing calls, thus endangering the
elderly. In the center of the page was a photograph of
elderly people dancing in tight embrace. The caption
said, “Betty Pochinski, 77, and Ed Wilson, 8 3, d ance as
a band plays March 11 in The Villages, Fla., home to a
large r etirement community.”
T here was not a single w ord in the article about o ld
people partying while their peers complain about the
young. That should have gotten a few paragraphs, at
least, to highlight the c ontrast.
Concepcion Badillo-Debusmann, Washington

Spring breakers and rule breakers

I enjoyed Kevin Carey’s March 22 Washington
Post Magazine article, “What happened to school
reform?” I, too, believe 2002’s No Child Left Behind
Act was a ham-handed federal effort to improve
public education and was riddled with mistakes. But
on one point, Carey was dead wrong. “A s for charter
schools,” he wrote, “studies have shown that they
have not on average performed appreciably better
than regular public schools.”
This may have been true of standardized test
scores more than a decade ago, when the oft-cited
Stanford University’s Center for Research on Educa-
tion Outcomes (CREDO) issued its first national
report, which included data through 2007 -2008. But
that was a long time and many studies ago. In 2 015, a
CREDO study of 41 urban regions showed that in
urban charter schools, students received the rough
equivalent of 40 more days of learning in math and
28 days in reading every year compared with
demographically similar children who remained in
district schools. Children who remained in a charter
for four or more years gained roughly 108 days of
learning in math and 72 days in reading. If you
average those two, you get 90 days — the equivalent
of attending school for 50 percent more time every
year.
C REDO studies have also shown that online
charter school students perform abysmally on
standardized tests, dragging down overall charter
results. And what about non-urban charters?
Though I can find no studies targeting suburban
charter schools, broader studies suggest they have
average test scores that are no better than their local
district schools. Why would this be? Perhaps be-
cause few suburban parents send their kids to
charter schools to get higher test scores. More often,
they choose charters to engage their children who
are bored or uncomfortable in district schools. Many
suburban charters use project-based learning, for
instance, and don’t particularly care about stan-
dardized tests.
Finally, Carey’s assertion also failed to capture
non-test measures of performance, such as atten-
dance rates, graduation rates, college-going rates,
and student and parent satisfaction. The few studies
that have focused on these measures also find higher
performance in charter schools than in district
schools.
David Osborne, Washington
The writer directs the education work
of the Progressive Policy Institute and is the author
o f “Reinventing America’s Schools: Creating a 21st
Century Education System.”

Charter schools make the grade

eve edelheit for the washington post

Dancers in T he Villages, Fla., on March 11.

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