A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING: LAWYERS, ADS, STOCKS AND PROFANITY

Plaintiffs' lawyers take aim at democracy: In a brute triumph for litigation force and a grim setback for democratic governance, the Clinton administration and lawyers for city governments bullied the nation's largest gun maker, Smith & Wesson, into agreeing to a variety of controls on the distribution of its products that the administration hadn't been able to obtain through the normal workings of legislation. Glock and other gun makers appear likely to follow.

With quaint if unintended humor, reporters describe Smith & Wesson's capitulation as "voluntary." In exchange for knuckling under to a long list of demands, which include the adoption of external trigger locks, the development of "smart gun" technology within three years, and extensive controls on the marketing of its products, Smith & Wesson was spared the threat of a direct federal lawsuit and promised a settlement of some of the 30-odd suits filed against it by municipalities. The sheer cost of legal defense against these suits, whatever their outcome, had grown ruinous: a company statement said the deal was aimed at preserving the "viability of Smith & Wesson as an ongoing business entity in the face of the crippling cost of litigation."

Using the deliberate infliction of litigation costs to obtain leverage over an opponent was once considered a breach of legal ethics, but times have changed. Litigators boasted that their attacks would bleed the thinly capitalized gun industry into submission. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo warned gun makers that unless they cooperated they'd suffer "death by a thousand cuts." Several makers have in fact gone bankrupt since the courtroom siege began.

Supporters of the new settlement seemed to treat as a virtue that it doesn't have to be run by Congress for approval. White House domestic policy adviser Bruce Reed said the agreement showed that the deal has "opened a new avenue for regulating the firearms industry without action from Congress," where gun-control legislation has fallen victim to "partisan gridlock."

"Legislative stalemate" and "partisan gridlock" are merely pejorative terms for the normal workings of democracy. When the legislative process is working, measures that are opposed by an important constituency within the majority legislative party do not tend to hurtle to a speedy enactment.

Conflict-averse businessmen love to grab at the excuse that, well, guns are different. But tobacco and breast implants were different too. In the next rounds, lead paint, latex gloves, violent video games and managed-care insurance policies will be different too. Why, these companies' predicament has nothing to do with the litigation threats my industry faces! Thus do businesses wind up conforming to the First Law of Risk-Averse Public Affairs: Never head out to the rescue of anyone who's less popular at the moment than you are.

How unlike the wisdom of the trial lawyers themselves, who in their attacks on American industry have been keenly aware of the advantages of mutual cooperation. As they know well, each successful new round of assault litigation contributes new precedent, new revenue, new political alliances and newly honed techniques to assist in future rounds.

Thus the gun round built on the tobacco round in its modus operandi: Demonize the opponent from day one. Fly around the country signing up sympathetic plaintiffs particularly governments. Shop for favorable judges and juries. File suits rapidly all over the place on different theories, on the assumption that something's bound to stick. Lavish resources on working the press and sympathetic interest groups. ...

This is how important public questions get hammered out secretly in the back offices of influential lawyers and presented to the public as a fait accompli. So much for the integrity of democratic process. -- Excerpt from an article in The Wall Street Journal by Walter K. Olson, author of "The Excuse Factory: How Employment Law Is Paralyzing the American Workplace"

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Newspaper advertising expenditures reached a record $46.3 billion in 1999, the eighth consecutive year of new highs. If that wasn't enough, the Newspaper Association of America also reported that national advertising last year reached $6.7 billion, a 17.7 percent leap that represented the largest percentage increase for national advertising since 1976.

At a time when volatility has shaken the stock market, newspaper advertising has continued to climb unwaveringly upward.

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Keep a cool head amid the current stock market craziness: Most dot-coms have been bid up to wildly inflated levels, especially IPOs in already overcrowded consumer and retail fields.

Today's market in tech stocks is a dangerous speculative bubble, as foolish as any in history, including radio stock mania of the 1920s. It will deflate as venture capital dries up for second-round financing.

Consider rebalancing your portfolio if you're heavy into techs, taking some gains and spreading them over the value-priced blue chips. Or hold more cash to take advantage of good buying opportunities ahead.

Blue-chip stocks have been needlessly dumped due to concerns about rising interest rates and commodity prices ... however real.

Strong multinationals are attractively priced for the first time in several years ... for the long-term investor with a global vision. -- Advice from Kiplinger on March 10 (prior to the most recent Dow surge and the Nasdaq yo-yo performance)

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Watch your language: Profanity is used every six minutes on prime-time network TV, every two minutes on premium cable and every three minutes in major motion pictures, according to a study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs.

"If civility and courtesy are good things, then I'm troubled by language that expresses incivility , boorishness and mutual disrespect," says the center's director, Robert Lichter. "There's a reason why we talk different in the locker room than the living room. If people start talking like they're in the locker room, maybe they start behaving like they're in the locker room." -- Peter Johnson, USA Today

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Greetings from abroad: I am sitting in the back room of a pub in Chipping Campdon, England, drinking champagne and eating a plowman's lunch, wondering how the colonials are doing in the "new country."

I'll bet no one believed that I could find a computer, but I did and am I glad.

Everyone of you should pay a visit to this wonderful part of England. It's like being on a movie set or at Disney World. Any minute I expect a B-17 to take off and buzz Lygon Arms Hotel where the pub is located.

This is some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen. Green rolling hills with no billboards give a backdrop to beautiful flowers and hedges in the foreground. The air is clean, and the people are friendly. The food is tasty and the drinks (mostly local ales) are all worth the trip over here.

The history in this area is something to behold. Oxford, Stratford and Bristol are some of the names you might recognize.

Someday I will write a book about these people and their country. Got to go now ... . -- Al Seier (retired Judge)

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You might think these are funny:

The last fight was my fault. My wife asked, "What's on the TV?" I said, "Dust!"

Do you know the punishment for bigamy? Two mothers-in-law.

Young son: Is it true, Dad, I heard that in some parts of Africa a man doesn't know his wife until he marries her? Dad: That happens in every country, son.

The most effective way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once.

If you want your wife to listen and pay undivided attention to every word you say, talk in your sleep.

~Gary Rust is president of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian and other newspapers.