By Richard Hawk

CHAPTER ONE

Once upon a time there was a big company. It was called Good Company and it had Good employees.

Everyone at Good Company worked hard and got paid on time. The parking lot was big enough for everybody's car -- even during the busiest of days. There were plenty of bathrooms and they were always kept clean. All the employees of Good Company got two days off per week, one vacation day for every 200 hours worked and five paid sick days each year. It was a Good package.

Best of all, Good Company spent lots of time and money on its safety program. It held safety meetings, gave away safety prizes, posted safety signs and notices, did safety inspections and sponsored safety days. Why, Good Company even had its very own safety department. And it was an efficient one too. When a safety hazard was reported, it would be eliminated as soon as possible. Good Company employees were expected to always wear safety gear and follow safety rules. And they did.

Employees of Good Company were proud of their safety program. They willingly participated in and enjoyed all the training provided. Employees donned with pride the many safety jackets they had earned over the years. Ask a Good Company employee if management took safety seriously and the response would most likely be a heartfelt "yes."

Good Company's safety record wasn't just good, it was way above average, great, stupendous. Throughout the land everyone knew about Good Company's safety statistics and would say, "My, my, my, what an amazing safety record Good Company has."

CHAPTER TWO

But things at Good Company weren't all that they appeared. The pride in the Good Company safety record wasn't shared by all employees. Some actually showed disdain for it. These employees felt it was all a fairy tale.

They would sadly recall the day when a workmate broke his leg in three places -- but was carried into work the next day so the injury wouldn't be considered a "lost time" injury. Others would mention the employee who caught her sleeve in a gear and lost a finger -- but was somehow able to come in to work the next day.

You see, Good Company employees knew that if they were injured on-the-job, they'd become the center of attention at least for a few days. And if there was any way possible to stop their injury from becoming a lost time incident, any way possible, it would be done.

Some Good Company employees would even speak up and tell you that they thought Good Company's great safety record had become more important than the Good Company employees.

CHAPTER THREE

As the years rolled by there was a change of Good Company leaders. The new leaders thought perhaps the Good Company should start caring less about numbers and more about employees. Though the new leaders feared the numbers would get worse to their surprise they didn't rise. Soon the Good Company really became the good company.

And everyone lived happily ever after.

THE END

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TERRORISM, PART 3

Robespierre: Ruled by the guillotine and died by it.

The French Revolution

European history is marked by violence, including civil and religious wars. But terrorism in its modern sense came relatively late to Europe. The English word "terrorism" is thought to derive from The Terror, the regime that ruled France during the French Revolution for two bloody years, 1793-1794.

The leader of the regime, Maximilien de Robespierre, embraced the word "terror" as a positive and vital instrument of state to protect the revolution against royalists, members of the nobility and clergy and other enemies. According to Robespierre: "Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore emancipation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs."

The symbol of The Terror, the guillotine, claimed 40,000 victims, including, ultimately, Robespierre himself.

Critics across the English Channel observed the events in France with shock and disdain. One of those, the English political philosopher, Edmund Burke, used the term "terrorism" to describe the proceedings. The name stuck.

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