Pass the helium.

• Author: Douglas, Susan
• Position: The reality of corporate unreality - Pundit Watch - Column

Listen to what George Will actually said on national television. The gang at ABC's This Week was celebrating the Liggett smoking settlement, and Will remarked: "If everyone quit smoking today, it would be a calamity for Social Security." Oy vey, and the program is already a wreck! So please pass me a carton of Virginia Slims (you know, "It's a woman thing") so I don't become a burden to the next generation.

And now, on with our nation's current affairs.

Have you ever seen so many alleged grownups getting so exercised about a guy's patella? I liked the Star Wars-inspired computer graphics of the Presidential knee that accompanied all of the somber, expert medical commentary about the possible dire complications for the leader of the free world. Jumping-jack reporters in a positive frenzy at the post-op press conference asked breathlessly whether Clinton could really STILL go to Helsinki, as if postponing a meeting with a guy barely off life-support systems might reignite the Cold War.

Isn't it time for members of the Washington press corps to get a life? Geez--the guy tripped and had minor surgery.

But with Congress doing absolutely nothing except trying to outlaw second-trimester abortions and bickering over which money hogs, Republicans or Democrats, do or do not become the focus of fundraising investigations, the Washington press corps hasn't had much to report. When Time magazine has a major story entitled "Does Heaven Exist?" (answer inside: Yes, and it's like being at Club Med on mescaline), it's probably safe to say that the news media, as a whole, has been sucking in too much helium. Screwiness is epidemic.

For example, it's a little strange to turn to the business section of The New York Times and see a bunch of diaper-clad but otherwise naked baby bodies with the heads of major CEOs affixed to them. See the head of Michael Eisner on a chubby, little infant's body. This is creepy, but it gets worse.

The article draws from the newly prominent Frank Sulloway of MIT, author of Born to Rebel. In a nutshell, Sulloway argues that first-born children are authoritarian and conformist, while later-born kids are more adventurous. What does this have to do with American business? Well, Sulloway thinks "too many first-born men rule the nation's corporations," and since they are the least likely to be open to innovation or social change, they may be undermining the nation's global competitiveness.

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