OSI Systems Inc. of Hawthorne has been trying mightily to calm fears about its Rapiscan full-body imagers which have been deployed – amid much sniping – at airports.
The company’s done a good job of explaining that the radiation you get from its so-called back-scatter imaging technology is so minor it only equals a few minutes of flying in a plane.
But it’s done a poor job of explaining how the nude images it gets cannot escape the airport and be distributed, perhaps for the world to see.
The company says not to worry: The images are quickly deleted and there’s no capacity to store or save them.
But wait. Let’s say, God forbid, a terrorist with a bomb slips past the system. Wouldn’t we absolutely want to go back and find his archived image so we could see exactly how he did it? How else can they prevent it from happening again?
If the Rapiscan system really can’t store or archive images of passengers, then the system is not only intrusive but is far less valuable than they would have us believe.
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We have a rule not to publish guest editorials from the same writer too often. There was one exception: Harold L. Katz.
The “Katz exclusion” existed because Katz was knowledgeable, opinionated and unafraid to write sassy op-eds. He knew this community in his bones (he’d been involved with literally dozens of civic boards over the decades) and he cared deeply about Los Angeles, especially the Westside. And as he grew increasingly alarmed by what he viewed as the downward trajectory of the city and state, he felt compelled to sit at his keyboard and tap out warnings about what was going wrong and why.
While Katz could be outspoken in person, he also was kind and thoughtful – what people used to call a gentleman. When I thought of the old “let’s disagree without being disagreeable” line, I thought of him. He dressed well and joked that he was born with a suit on. It can be troublesome and perhaps anachronistic to wear a suit in laid-back L.A., but gentlemen wear suits.
Katz was no professional writer. He was better. He wrote sometimes with anger or resignation, depending on his mood and the subject, but always with passion. His work wasn’t always the most polished but it was definitely the most honest. Little wonder that he developed a following.
The Business Journal benefited from his thoughts, insights and musings about Los Angeles. We weren’t alone; he wrote for CityWatch, the Century City News and others. One newspaper couldn’t hold all of Katz’s opinions.
In the last couple of years, as my admiration deepened, I got to know a little about him. He was a CPA and proud of his profession. He loved his wife, Jan, a beautiful woman, and was unashamed to gush about her. He loved ballroom dancing. And he fretted about the fate of Los Angeles and increasingly felt compelled to write about it.
A few months ago, I had lunch with him at Kate Mantilini’s in Beverly Hills. The meeting coincided with his regular visit to his cardiologist. He wore a suit. He told me that in the past he called himself “a CPA and citizen activist” but lately had taken to calling himself “a CPA and writer.” He liked his new status as an editorialist.
On Monday of last week, Katz, 77, for the final time went to the office he loved and sat by the keyboard he commanded. And it is fitting that it was at that spot a short time later where the gentleman took his leave.
Charles Crumpley is editor of the Business Journal. He can be reached at [email protected].
