Common Sense

Back when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth District ruled that the humiliation and sexist behavior a Tennessee woman experienced at work wasn't injurious enough to be called sexual harassment, what was the underlying message? That to be a victim, you had to act like one. It wasn't enough that Teresa Harris' boss made lewd remarks and degrading demands of his female employees. To claim sexual harassment, the appeals court said, Ms. Harris had to prove she was psychologically damaged and unable to do her job. Fortunately for the integrity of the American workplace, the U.S. Supreme Court this week broadened the legal definition of sexual harassment.

EVERY OTHER January, as a new Congress and Legislature take office, there's a glimmer of hope for reforms to scale back salaries and perks. There's a chance that an ember of empathy sparks elected officials to common sense, to live closer to the lifestyles of those they represent. Already, that glimmer, that ember, is fading. In Congress, a new Republican House, led by Speaker John Boehner, voted to cut its overall budget 5 percent but isn't touching members' salaries, currently $174,000.

When a stingray took a swipe at a swimmer off Island Beach State Park last week, a park official likened it to the ocean's version of a dog bite. "The ocean is filled with sea life. I think a lot of people have lost the concept that the ocean is a living room for thousands of marine species," said Bob Schoelkopf, director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, N.J., explaining the official's comment. "People aren't the only things out there. " Indeed, at this time of year with the beaches packed with swimmers, sometimes it's hard to remember the deep blue Atlantic is an ocean, not a pool.

You could keep the MX missile loaded on trains on military reservations in time of peace, somebody was saying, and then, if a Soviet attack seemed likely, move it out onto the nation's rail system so the Russians couldn't target it. That would eliminate the vulnerability of the MX as it sits in its siloes. Not a bad idea, in theory, and in fact, it's one of the Reagan administration's nuclear options to deal with the Soviet nuclear threat. Brent Scowcroft quietly shot it down.

Sylvia Auerbach is a woman of many words - written ones. It shows in the spacious living room of the writer's Elkins Park apartment, where hundreds of books dress the towering walls. It shows, too, in her work. The recently transplanted New Yorker has written four books, taught both fiction and nonfiction courses, edited at Publisher's Weekly and published a host of articles for magazines and newspapers. "If you're going to spend your life doing something, it's nice to spend it with the printed word," said Auerbach, who took over in June as director of the University of Pennsylvania's Publishing Institute, a department that offers a lecture series on publishing.

When every stretch of highway in America looks like Times Square, it will be too late to worry about the driver distractions caused by electronic billboards. The bright, gaze-riveting billboards are popping up in this region - notably, along the heavily trafficked Pennsylvania Turnpike in Bucks County. Their messages change every few seconds, making them a gold mine for outdoor ad companies, which can sell the same space several times over. But what's the impact on drivers whizzing by at speeds of 65 miles per hour and greater?

Operation Desert Storm hasn't been easy for some innocent civilians right here at home, either. We're talking about the young children of military personnel assigned to the Persian Gulf. The problem of quickly throwing together child-care plans has been particularly difficult for single parents and families in which both parents have been ordered off to war. When the Senate reconvenes today, Sen. John Heinz (R., Pa.) plans to call on the Pentagon to ease that difficulty. His resolution would allow a "service person" to request duty outside of an "imminent danger area" if he or she is a single parent - or, in the case of two-parent families, if both parents are likely to be deployed in harm's way. The policy would only go into effect if the military parent(s)

It is virtually impossible to pick up a newspaper or turn on a radio without being bombarded with news regarding the United States and Iraq. With each passing day, the situation has played out like a global diplomatic opera, going from "confrontation" to "countdown" to "crisis" to "impending conflict. " Combined with the recent elevation in our terror alert system, nerves are frayed and emotions are running high. For months, I have been taking the temperature of things on my radio show.