Zippo

Dear 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
themail@dcwatch.com

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Why Is Natwar Gandhi Still Chief Financial Officer of the District?
Theresa Conroy, tlennonc@aol.com

On his watch, twenty to thirty million dollars of taxpayers’ money walked out the door. Dr. Gandhi let DC employees have the city’s blank checks, and they used them for spending sprees at Neiman Marcus and in the Virgin Islands. It was Gandhi’s job to see that systems and checks are in place to keep those thefts from happening. In today’s Post (Marc Fisher’s column, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/24/AR2007112401215.html?sub=AR),  Gandhi blames the thefts in part on the Barry administration. Marion Barry hasn’t been mayor for years. Incredible.

Tony Bullock, in his Outlook piece in the Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/23/AR2007112301524.html), praises Gandhi for being “chest-deep” in fixing the computer system of the Office of Tax and Revenue. He notes that when Gandhi took over “there were no systems in place back then that would have uncovered this sophisticated scam.” Well, there still aren’t. The thefts were uncovered only because a bank teller at the Safeway in Bowie became suspicious.

Both Fisher and Bullock stress the good things Dr. Gandhi has done over the years. So let the District give Dr. Gandhi a certificate of appreciation (or better yet, a wooden plaque) for picking “millions of pieces of paper” off the floor of the OTR and for schmoozing up Wall Street bond raters at New York luncheons. But the District needs to find a new chief financial officer who can, and will, do the job that’s required.

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DC Tax Scam Suspects Seek a Plea Deal
Jonathan R. Rees, jrrees2006@verizon.net

The DC Tax and Revenue Office suspects are now considering cutting a plea deal with the USA for a lesser prison sentence. While the government is attempting to recover the thirty million dollars stolen, I think that DC taxpayers would like to know who benefited from this money other than their family, friends, and coworkers. I think that DC taxpayers have a right to know if any of our government leaders received some of this money in the form of campaign contributions or gifts. I have a sneaky feeling that some of the stolen money made its way to the campaigns for Fenty for Mayor, Bowser for City Council, and others, and if the prosecutors do their job this will come out. The Offices of the US Attorneys of DC and Maryland should not be so quick to cut a deal with the main culprits until they hand over the names of all who received those stolen dollars and account for where every dollar went.

As a result of this scam, some DC city council members have expressed a desire for the director of DC OTR Natwar Gandhi to resign, but I think members of the DC city council who had oversight power during the period of time that tax payers were being ripped off should resign because of their poor oversight.

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Parking Meters
Bryce A. Suderow, streetstories@juno.com

I need someone to refresh my memory on the parking meter problem. A few years ago they were in terrible shape and DC hired a nationally known corporation to install and maintain new meters. And now I hear the meters are screwed up again. What’s going on?

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Energy Costs in DC
Dan Maceda, danmaceda@verizon.net

I recently signed up to have my electricity supplied from wind power sources. This is one of two green options provided in DC. It costs more but I think it is worth it. I’ve been wondering how I can be sure that I am in fact receiving my electricity from a wind power source. I’ve written to Pepco, which told me they just handle distribution, so I wrote to Pepco Energy Services, Inc., PowerChoice Sources. I’ve asked how many residential customers there are in the District and how many have been opting for either the wind power source or for renewable. I’ve also asked how much of the electricity supplied to municipal and federal facilities within the District is from wind or renewable sources, how much from coal, and how much from oil-fired plants.. My queries have been ignored. Does anybody have any suggestions as to how I might get that information?

I wonder how many people are willing to pay more for electricity if it comes from either renewable sources or wind and how much would be added to city and federal bills to switch to wind or renewable. I’m sure there will be an objection about long-term contracts but just how many of these are there and how long do they last, and are there upward adjustments based on increased fuel prices?

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Marion Barry, Revisited
Star Lawrence, jkellaw@aol.com

I saw Councilman Barry on Tucker Carlson the other evening. He looked fit and healthy, still with a twinkle. I first encountered him in the dashiki days, when Stokely Carmichael and he used to hang out at Tasso’s at 17th and P. Then he became mayor, tossed the ethnic garb, and well, we all know the story. But there he was, like all of us forging in his later decades, still out there. I can’t condone some of the lame stuff he did that cast the city in a bad light, but he is a survivor; I will give him props for that.

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Mount Pleasant Entertainment
Laurie Collins, lauriec@lcsystems.com

[Re: Jack McKay, “Voluntary Agreements and the ABC Board,” themail, November 21] There is no ban on live music in Mount Pleasant. There are restaurants that have live entertainment agreements as well as other non-alcoholic venues where local musicians perform. Fun-less, lonely, or deserted it is not — our streets are vibrant, filled with diverse, interesting people who live, work, and pass through enjoying our stores, restaurants, bakery, coffee shop, and carryouts.

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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS

St. Columba’s Church Peace Fellowship, December 4
Ann Loikow, aloikow@verizon.net

On Tuesday, December 4, at 7 p.m., the Peace Fellowship of St. Columba’s Church invites everyone interested in peace making in the middle east to hear Daoud and Jihan Nassar, two members of a Lutheran Palestinian family who farm a 100 acres near Bethlehem in the West Bank. The family works for peace and reconciliation with their neighbors through their project they have established called the “Tent of Nations,” which provides arts, drama, and education to women and children of nearby villages and refugee camps. Their efforts have won them recognition and an international award. For more information see www.tentofnations.org or call 363-6658. The church is located at 42nd and Albemarle Streets, NW, and is one block from the Tenleytown Metro Station on the Red Line. The meeting will be held in the church’s Music Room.

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