As many of you have heard, Rose Friedman died yesterday of heart failure. She was a sweet and graceful, but tough, lady. I first met her at the 1974 Austrian Scholars’ conference in South Royalton, Vermont. I sat with her and Milton at dinner, invited to do so because I had just seen their son, David, in California a few days earlier and they wanted news of him. That was where I first learned of her and Milton’s friendship with their Vermont neighbor, John Kenneth Galbraith. When I expressed surprise at her statement that they were friends, both she and Milton told me that we should separate our views on politics from our views on friends. Suitably castigated, but gently so, I learned the lesson and have applied it since.
I still remembering arguing with her after Hoover’s memorial service for George Stigler in 1992 (he died in December 1991) about whether we could plan for what to do in a car accident: I said that if we thought it through, we probably could and she was adamant that we couldn’t. I think I proved her wrong in avoiding a major car accident near Denver in June 1994, only months after attending a traffic school in which we thought through various scenarios. We also spoke about her great pain at the loss of her beloved, Milton, at Hoover’s memorial service for Milton in January 2007. She still spoke about it when I visited her in her home in Davis in November 2007. I’ve never before known someone that age who was so in love with her husband.
My favorite passage from her autobiography, Two Lucky People, co-authored with Milton, shows her strong sense of justice–her view that government should not treat well-known or wealthy people better than they treat others, and also that government should limit its exercise of arbitrary power. Here it is:
We flew home to Boston en route to Vermont, and had what for us was a unique and very annoying experience clearing customs in Boston. Believing that we were free to go, we were calling for a porter when an official tapped Milton on the shoulder and asked us to accompany him and a female official to a side office. Once inside, they curtly demanded to see Milton’s wallet and my handbag, and proceeded to search them thoroughly without telling us what they were looking for. In the course of examining Milton’s wallet, the male official came across one of his business cards and his demeanor changed instantly. Now respectful rather than overbearing, he said something like, “You should probably be questioning me, not the other way around” and immediately let us go. We were as annoyed by his change in demeanor on recognizing Milton’s name as by being singled out for close examination without being informed what if anything we were suspected of. As it happened, we had nothing special to declare, but innocence is no defense against bureaucracy.
“Innocence is no defense against bureaucracy.” What a great line.
READER COMMENTS
Dan
Aug 19 2009 at 2:07pm
“Innocence is no defense against bureaucracy.”
Kafka’s The Trial in one sentence?
Colin K
Aug 19 2009 at 5:03pm
Here’s a good one about privilege and bureaucracy for you:
Normally whenever the President visits somewhere, the FAA shuts down the airspace and airports within 35 miles to everyone except scheduled airlines and government. This isn’t new though pre-9/11 the restricted zones were much smaller.
Starting this Sunday, Obama is visiting Martha’s Vineyard for a week. As you may imagine, the fashionable way to get to the Vineyard is via private jet, and this is the end of the high season. If the FAA were to enforce the normal 30NM restricted zone, this would shut down both the Vineyard and the Nantucket airports for a week, and let’s be honest, Nantucket makes the Vineyard look like Atlantic City.
Needless to say, for the first time that I can remember, the FAA has come up with a much-less-restricted restricted zone that will allow private aviation (Part 91/135 ops if you want to get technical) in and out of both MVY and ACK during Obama’s vacation.
The rules are complex and annoying as usual for the FAA, but certainly a lot less annoying than flying your G-V into Providence, driving to Woods Hole, and hopping on the ferry with the fanny-pack crowd. Ahoy polloi!
Jacob Oost
Aug 21 2009 at 12:56am
Hey, I wear a fanny pack. It’s great for holding an extra lens, or your keys if you’re bike-riding. You snob.
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