Industrial Revolution

The factory floor is clean--and surprisingly quiet. Only a handful of men tinker with huge machines destined for other plants that will turn metal into automobiles, appliances and construction equipment. Owned by Giddings & Lewis, America's biggest producer of machine tools, the factory is a window on a revolution in U.S. manufacturing--and the peculiar nature of the nation's robust economy. Heavy industry is pouring money into advanced equipment such as Giddings' automated machine tools.

The call went forth like an old battle cry among the union activists of the coal pits, most of them idled now for years, men and mines alike. It was not a fight they could win, most likely, but at least it was a fight. "So y' be goin' ter march in London then, Mike?" "Aye, nowt be keepin' my boots off the Hyde Park Tory grass, Tyrone."

The upheaval that swept America from Los Angeles to Atlanta last week is more than a protest against police brutality or a symptom of age-old ills. It reflects a dangerous new kind of racism and a new, far more intractable kind of unemployment--both with implications that reach beyond the United States. They spring from a new system of wealth creation that is spreading swiftly through all the affluent nations, destroying the "mass society" of the industrial past.

Recession or no, could industrial stocks be the market's next leaders? Early in 1989, some savvy investors looked at consumer and service stocks such as Federal National Mortgage, Circus Circus, Tiffany and Pepsico and decided that they were drastically undervalued. They were right, and the stocks took off like rockets. Now, some investors are taking the same view of long-unloved industrial stocks. If these stocks were cheap before the Mideast crisis, they're a lot cheaper today.

Earth Day is at its best at the neighborhood level, with nature hikes and trash pickups--but it's bigger than that. It brings forth resounding speeches by politicians, some of them sincere, but it's bigger than that, too. There are Hollywood events, TV specials and ads telling us how various corporations love the planet, but it's much bigger than that.

Pursuant to your editorial, I am getting extremely tired of reading how stupid our students are and then reading the totally inane, useless questions they are asked to prove the point. I am 66 years old, which means I was raised in the old school where we, theoretically at least, got an education. I have an I.Q. in the genius class, have seven years of college, was reading high school literature in the third grade and can't answer half of the questions. Yes, I learned about the Magna Carta when I was in school but not once in 50 years have I needed that information.

On most days, the skies above Orange County offer few clues about the chemical stew we breathe. It does not come from smokestacks spewing dark columns of industrial excess. Increasingly, it comes from producers of high-tech computer chips, circuit boards, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment, the so-called "clean" industries cherished by civic boosters, the kind of industry rich in jobs but without the mess and environmental threats of industries of old. Or so it seemed--until now. Volumes of statistics compiled for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and obtained by The Times Orange County Edition paint a startling picture of industrial air pollution in Orange County.

Every great idea has three stages of reaction: 1) It won't work. 2) Even if it works, it's not useful. 3) I said it was a great idea all along. --Arthur C. Clark It has been almost three months since two obscure chemists at the University of Utah held a press conference to announce that they had found something truly incredible in their test tube. Their reported discovery of cold fusion, if accurate, would usher not only science but all aspects of modern life into an era of growth and improvement that mankind has not experienced since the Industrial Revolution.