TWO FROM THE SEWER . . .

"Ethics in Engineering" (McGraw-Hill 1989) is worse than Green Rage (see above) in that the latter is easily recognized as the demented treatise by an eco-nazi, whereas Ethics is in its second edition as a successful college text. One of the authors is a philosopher, which may excuse him, but the other, R. Schirzinger, is a professor of engineering at the U. of Calif. at Irving, and a disgrace to his profession. For example, the section on nuclear power risks, TMI and Chernobyl quotes mostly discredited an-tinukes (such as the 1976 GE defectors and Critical Mass's Pol-lard), and after chapters and chapters of morals, ethics and assorted buzzwords on social responsibility, he has nothing to say about the 350 dead of TMI¾the ones who died in the substitute power cycle because the politicians kept unit 1 shut for 5 years. That alone makes him the equivalent of an astronomy professor who expounds on the flatness of the earth, and who has the ethics of a Marion Barry.

However, the book is not totally useless: you can find the com-panies whose executive wimps have scored top marks in almost all categories¾e.g., Betty Crocker, Polaroid, or Mrs. Paul's. In no category does their zealous servility come for free, but is taken from the money you pay for their product, which means it must either come from its reduced quality or from its overblown price.