The Week

Sometimes you can lose them all. The Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, whose brand new wing Richard Nixon dedicated with considerable dash on St. Valentine’s Day, has filed for bankruptcy.

Before Ralph Nader got government into the business of making our lives 1,000 per cent safe, there were simple rules of office etiquette: he who was most important to the firm did pretty much as he pleased, and everyone else accommodated himself, or left. Nowadays this is all changing. A secretary in the Austin, Texas Department of Health tried repeatedly to have cigars and cigarettes banned from the office in which she worked. Her superiors took a long, hard look at her and at her smoking colleagues, calculated which of them was most important to the department, and—fired her. She now wants the Texas legislature to require all state offices to take any measures, however costly and inefficient, that may be necessary to protect even the most easily replaceable employee from “a smoke-filled environment.”

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Sometimes you can lose them all. The Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, whose brand new wing Richard Nixon dedicated with considerable dash on St. Valentine’s Day, has filed for bankruptcy.

Before Ralph Nader got government into the business of making our lives 1,000 per cent safe, there were simple rules of office etiquette: he who was most important to the firm did pretty much as he pleased, and everyone else accommodated himself, or left. Nowadays this is all changing. A secretary in the Austin, Texas Department of Health tried repeatedly to have cigars and cigarettes banned from the office in which she worked. Her superiors took a long, hard look at her and at her smoking colleagues, calculated which of them was most important to the department, and—fired her. She now wants the Texas legislature to require all state offices to take any measures, however costly and inefficient, that may be necessary to protect even the most easily replaceable employee from “a smoke-filled environment.”