ZippoDear Zippos: Because this is such a short issue, I’m going to ramble. It’s all your fault; if you want me to keep it short or to skip writing an introduction altogether, submit more messages yourselves. I smoked a pipe for a few years just after I graduated from college, and I loved almost everything about it. I loved the tobaccos and their rich smells. I loved the pipes, the variety of their shapes and woods, the colors of the woods, and the feel of a smooth warm pipe bowl in the hand. I loved the stories behind the styles of pipes, and I loved the paraphernalia that went along with pipes — the pipe stands, tobacco pouches and humidors, even the pipe tampers and pipe cleaners. I loved everything about smoking a pipe except the smoking itself, and I could never learn to like that. It wasn’t that the tobacco smoke tasted bad; it didn’t. It just never tasted nearly as good as the tobacco smelled. And I could never get the hang of keeping the damned things lit. The ritual was always a pleasure, but the payoff wasn’t there. One smoking accessory that I still appreciate is Zippo lighters. They are perfect tools, well made and reliable. Like good pipes, they feel right and solid in the hand. They light every time. And they close with a satisfying click that is so distinctive that the club of Zippo collectors is called the Click Club. They are also handsome. Of course, some Zippos are gaudy and outlandish, particularly some in the rock-and-roll, Harley-Davidson, Jack Daniels, and “urban style” lines. But others, like the plain brushed chrome lighter that is probably the cheapest and most common Zippo made, or the plain brushed brass, the engine turned, slim ribbon, and Venetian styles, are as elegant and well designed as the most expensive S.T. Dupont and Dunhill lighters. Even among those Zippo designs that are not elegant, some are sure to please. Three of my favorites bear pictures of the Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy, and Red Ryder, three of the straightest-shooting, most upstanding fictional Western heroes. These three lighters, by the way, are accompanied by a disclaimer that I’ll quote in full: “Attention: collector/customer. This campfire series is intended for collector/recreational/campfire use only. Not intended for tobacco use.” I enjoy the dual cynicism behind this disclaimer. I like imagining the cynicism of the anti-smoking prohibitionist who undoubtedly wrote a threatening lawyer’s letter, pretending to believe that the Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy, and Red Ryder were such iconic figures for contemporary children that picturing them on lighters would tempt the youngsters into tobacco debauchery. And I admire the cynicism of the Zippo lawyer who countered that pretense simply by pretending that these particular lighters were made only to ignite campfires. Zippos are manufactured according to old-fashioned, traditional, American factory standards — which means that they are backed by a lifetime guarantee that they will work, or the factory will return them to good working condition without charge. The guarantee is for the lifetime of the lighters, not of the owners, since the lighters are likely to outlive their owners. There is a story, which is probably true, that during World War II a soldier’s life was saved because a shot aimed at his heart hit his Zippo, which deflected it, and that after the Zippo was shot it still worked. In fact, the story may well have been true many times over, since during World War II the whole production of the Zippo factory was sent to the Armed Forces. The reliability of Zippos is undoubtedly the source for the plot of “Man from the South,” one of the three best episodes of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents series, along with the Civil War classic "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and the episode in which Barbara Bel Geddes successfully disposed of the weapon with which she murdered her husband by serving the police detective a leg of lamb. In "Man from the South," Steve McQueen’s casual boast that his lighter lights every time leads to a bet with Peter Lorre that McQueen can’t fire his lighter successfully ten times in a row. If McQueen can, he wins Lorre’s convertible; if he can’t, Lorre gets to chop off McQueen’s little finger. There is some suspense, because the brand of the lighter isn’t specified in the script, and of course there’s an Hitchcockian twist at the end. Lorre’s and McQueen’s performances are outstanding, but the lighter’s performance outshines both of them. This kind of works-every-time reliability was exemplified in DC by Chief Financial Officer Anthony Williams and his deputy Natwar Gandhi, chief of the Office of Tax and Revenue, and then by CFO Gandhi, when he succeeded Williams. Regardless of what citizens and councilmembers may have thought about some of their choices, we all believed that at least the numbers in the budget books they supervised were real, that their accounts balanced and were accurate. We relied upon them, and the financial markets believed in them. We believed that they put into place procedures and safeguards by which we could follow and account for the city’s money. There is still no indication and no suspicion that they were not good, competent, honest, and straight-shooting accountants and financial officers. But the massive embezzlement from the Office of Tax and Revenue calls into question both the adequacy and completeness of the accounting measures that they put into place and their judgment in hiring and retaining subordinates. In most organizations, a superior officer takes the blame for the dishonesty of his employees, unless he exposed it and ended it himself, and the superior officer resigns or is fired in order to restore faith in the integrity of the organization. Theresa Conroy asks, below, why Chief Financial Officer Gandhi remains in office. He does because the District government has no one else of his stature, no one else with his reputation on Wall Street, to fill the office. We don’t have a Control Board, with the backing of the federal government, to attract and hire someone else with the talents and stature that Williams and Gandhi had when the Control Board hired them. Mayor Fenty and the city council don’t have the clout or the standing to attract a CFO comparable to Gandhi, and they certainly don’t have the desire or the will to hire a CFO who would have the independence that Gandhi has been able to display on many, if not all, issues. The embezzlement has put all of us in a dilemma. At the end of the bet, when there is a failure, when the flint sparks but the wick doesn’t burst into flame, when the lighter fails to fire, Peter Lorre should chop off McQueen’s little finger. But if we chopped it off, we’d have to replace it, and we don’t know how. Now, if you don’t want me to run off like this again, write in; I look forward to hearing from you. Gary Imhoff ############### Why Is Natwar Gandhi Still Chief Financial
Officer of the District?
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