What Were They Thinking? New & Revised: Really Bad Ideas Throughout History (3 of 3 free samples)

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What Were They Thinking? New & Revised: Really Bad Ideas Throughout History by Bruce Felton. Copyright 2003, 2007 by Bruce Felton
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BAD IDEAS IN AMERICAN POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT (CONT'D)

DEAF, NO. DUMB, DEFINITELY.

As the noise from Ohio's Toledo Express Airport continued to exceed FAA standards and area residents' tolerance, Mayor Carty Finkbeiner suggested a novel solution in 1995: move in deaf people. "There may be people out there interested in living in a nice home if the noise factor was not going to be a problem," he said at a staff meeting.

A lot of people thought they weren't hearing right. Advocates for the disabled jumped all over the mayor, labeling him biased and insensitive. A spokesman for Barrier Free Toledo said the proposal was comparable to "saying let the blind work at night because they can't see."

At a press conference a few days later, a weepy Mayor Finkbeiner apologized. "Nobody intended to be insensitive," he said. "My only words were that it was an interesting idea."

FUZZY FRUIT. FUZZIER THINKING.

DBCP is a potent insecticide that kills bugs that even think about bothering fruit that's been sprayed with it. Unfortunately, eating it, handling it, and, perhaps, even reading about it makes male humans sterile. Indeed, the Food and Drug Administration banned DBCP in 1977, whereupon many peach growers went bananas.

"If . . . sterility is the main concern, couldn't workers who were old enough that they no longer wanted children [manufacture DBCP] voluntarily?" said National Peach Council spokesman Robert K. Phillips. "Some might volunteer for such work posts as an alternative to planned surgery for a vasectomy . . . or as a means of getting around religious bans on birth control when they want no more children."

ISRAEL ON THE NIAGARA.

If one early American Zionist had had his way, Israel would be located near Niagara Falls.

In 1820, Mordecai Manual Noah, editor of the National Advocate, tried to talk New York's state legislature into designating Grand Island, a piece of densely forested real estate north of Buffalo and the falls, as a "city of refuge" for Jews. The state nixed the idea, but five years later Noah got his friend Samuel Leggett to buy 2,444 acres of the island for the same purpose, and solicited investment from European Jews as well. Publicly Noah waxed eloquently about the importance of carving out a Jewish homeland on American soil. In private he drooled about raking in "an immense profit" from the plan.

The dedication of what Noah proclaimed "the Jewish State of Ararat" took place on September 15, 1825, at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Buffalo. (It would have been held on Grand Island, but there weren't enough boats to ferry all the guests.) Having ordained himself "Governor and Judge of Israel," Noah dressed the part, appearing in a magisterial red robe trimmed with ermine. (It turned out to be a Richard III costume, borrowed from a local theater company.) The festivities were attended by public officials; local clergy; officers of various fraternal lodges, including the Masons and the Knights Templar; and the Seneca Indian chief Red Jacket.

In his dedicatory remarks, Noah decried polygamy, said flattering things about Native Americans (whom he believed were descended from the Tribes of Israel), and levied a tax of one Spanish dollar on every Jew in the world to defray the cost of getting the colony running. He never had the chutzpah to collect so much as a nickel, nor did a single Jew ever settle in his tree-covered wasteland. Politicians jumped on him "for swindling the wealthy Jews of Europe," and Noah quickly turned his attention to other pursuits. In 1833 all of Grand Island was bought for a song by a land developer, and in 1852 it was incorporated as a town. Of its 18,000 present-day inhabitants, barely a handful are Jews.

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"Thank you, Governor Evidence."

--President Richard Nixon, addressing Washington State governor Daniel Evans in a speech during the Watergate hearings

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