Pie Attack On Economist Lumps
Ecos With Larry, Moe And Curly

SAN FRANCISCO — The radical environmental fringe is losing ground with the public, according to a variety of polls conducted over the last couple of years. Part of the reason for their decline is growing realization that the groups’ claims thinly veil a purely partisan political agenda that has nothing to do with the environment; another is that, through their excesses, they are making unwelcome fools of themselves.

Both elements were in evidence here recently when an activist assaulted Nobel prize-winning economist Dr. Milton Friedman at an education forum. His weapon was a pie delivered to Friedman’s face, and the economist’s dignified reaction left his attacker looking like a true Stooge.

Friedman was talking with people attending a conference on education when he was assaulted by Al Decker, a member of the so-called "Biotic Baking Brigade."

The activist group’s supposed concern is logging in California’s Headwaters Forest, but Decker said he pied Friedman because of the economist’s support for privatized education. Conference participants gathered for sessions on school choice were waiting for a speech by former Secretary of State George Shultz when Decker appeared.

Apparently aware that his initial explanation was a bit off-message for an "environmental" group, Decker added: "He is the world's preeminent neoliberal economist, and that economic philosophy is responsible for the destruction of our environment, the deterioration of our social structure and has brought the world to the brink of an economic collapse."

Decker, 27, of San Francisco, was arrested for misdemeanor battery and released, said San Francisco police officer D.C. Murphy.

Friedman, who could not immediately be reached for comment, apparently took the attack in stride.

"I guess that sometimes this happens," he reportedly said.

In February, pranksters in Brussels, Belgium, hit Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates with three pies. Procter & Gamble Chairman John Pepper was pied less than two weeks later in Columbus, Ohio by animal rights activists.

And last November, designer Oscar de la Renta was smacked in the face with a tofu cream pie during an autograph-signing session at a shopping mall in suburban Portland, Ore.

Friedman won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science in 1976.