The New American articles from November 2003

The New American archives from November 2003

The right to homeschool.(Letters To The Editor)
November 3, 2003... Your article "Keeping Homeschooling Private" in the September 8 issue was timely and important. On this subject, it is interesting and pertinent that the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, like the Constitution of the United States,...

Wind power woes.(Letters To The Editor)
November 3, 2003... It is understandable why Mr. Justin Ertelt (Letter to the Editor, October 6 issue) might be slighted when he thought John McManus was rejecting alternative energy sources--particularly wind turbines--out of hand in his "The Sky Is Falling! Or...

Honoria, Rome & America.(Letters To The Editor)
November 3, 2003... Regarding Taylor Caldwell's story "Honoria" (October 6 issue), I am familiar with her writing and her style. So it is that in reading the opening paragraph of her story I knew "Honoria" would be Rome. And as I read further I knew that our...

Correction.
November 3, 2003... Our October 6 article "California's Collapse" correctly pointed out that California has many more congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives (53) than any other state, but incorrectly identified the state with the second-largest...

Bush administration vs. Homeland Security.(Insider Report)
November 3, 2003... "Almost two years to the day after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the General Accounting Office (GAO) released an astonishing report stating that its undercover investigators were 100 percent successful in obtaining valid state...

Felonious housekeeping?(Insider Report)
November 3, 2003... Nearly two years ago, Judith Scruggs of Meriden, Connecticut, suffered a devastating loss when her 12-year-old son Daniel hanged himself in his bedroom closet with a necktie. On October 5, a jury compounded the tragedy by finding Scruggs guilty...

Ad blitz torpedoes California's Proposition 54.(Insider Report)
November 3, 2003... On July 24, when it was announced that the Racial Privacy Initiative (Proposition 54) would appear on California's gubernatorial recall ballot, it looked like the measure would easily pass. Polls showed Golden State voters favoring Prop 54 by a...

CDC: gun control ineffective.(Insider Report)
November 3, 2003... "A sweeping federal review of the nation's gun-control laws--including mandatory waiting periods and bans on certain weapons--found no proof such measures reduce firearms violence," reported the AP on October 3. The review was carried out by a...

Peter Camejo--green outside, red terrorist inside.(Insider Report)
November 3, 2003... "[Peter] Camejo continues to hold his socialist beliefs, jokingly calling himself a 'watermelon--green on the outside, red on the inside.'" That was from an October 22, 2002 article by Associated Press reporter Louise Chu about the California...

Terminating the recall revolt.(Insider Report)
November 3, 2003... Arnold Schwarzenegger's victory in the California recall election came about because of a revolt by that state's long-suffering middle class. Wrung dry by taxes, choking on business-killing regulations, inundated by cultural pollution, and...

Sowing future terrorism in Iraq?(Insider Report)
November 3, 2003... In a September 18 dispatch, the Associated Press quoted an Israeli military official as disclosing that the U.S. military "is showing an interest in Israeli software instructing soldiers on how to behave in the West Bank and Gaza." "The United...

Gorbymania! Former Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev enjoys global celebrity status unmatched by any other ex-political leader. But is he a prophet of world peace or a dangerous Pied Piper?(Strategic Deception)
November 3, 2003... There are many pretenders to fame who are, as Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry would say, legends in their own minds. Then there is Mikhail Gorbachev, who is a legend of mythic proportions in the minds of countless millions. He is lionized as the...

The Azerbaijan energy trap: U.S. policy initiated by Clinton and continued by Bush is making America dependent on oil from this region still run by Stalin-era Communists.(Communism)
November 3, 2003... If asked to identify Azerbaijan, most Americans, unfortunately would be clueless. Is it a newly discovered planet? A mountain in India? An exotic virus? None of the above. Azerbaijan is a key chess piece in a global power play to reorient...

Driving jobs offshore: the crushing burden of government regulation plays a key role in the ongoing exodus of American jobs.(Economy)
November 3, 2003... Why thousands of American jobs disappearing, only to reappear overseas? Since early 2001, the economy has shed nearly three million jobs, many of them well-paid positions in manufacturing and the hi-tech sector. Initial estimates from the Labor...

Rewarding lawlessness: while it tends to the security of Iraq's borders, the Bush administration is collaborating with subversive groups to undermine our own.(Immigration)
November 3, 2003... More than two years after Black Tuesday, our nation's borders remain terrifyingly insecure, and our anemic economy continues to shed manufacturing jobs. Assessing this grim situation, the Bush administration has focused intently on the task of...

Sincere gratitude.(The Goodness Of America)
November 3, 2003... Amsell Alexander Colebrooke, better known as "Bud," resides in Franklin, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville. Afflicted with worsening Parkinson's disease, the entrepreneur and real estate developer retired last year at age 78. During the...

Venerable heroism.(The Goodness Of America)
November 3, 2003... In 1904, industrialist Andrew Carnegie established the Carnegie Hero Fund to honor individuals who risk their lives to an extraordinary degree while saving (or attempting to save) the lives of others. To date 8,749 persons have received the...

Teen lifesavers.(The Goodness Of America)
November 3, 2003... At the other end of the age spectrum, the recent list of Carnegie Medal recipients also included two teenagers: One saved a woman from drowning: the other helped rescue a man from a fire. In Cooper City, Florida, high school stu dent Daniel...

Liberty's son of thunder: Patrick Henry's words were his most potent weapons. Americans sacrificing for their country today still echo his thunderous cry, "Give me liberty or give me death!".(History--Greatness Of The Founders)
November 3, 2003... Patrick Henry arrived in Richmond in March 1775 as one of the few patriots aware of the dire need for his state to prepare for the coming War for Independence. Several days later, on March 20, Virginia's second revolutionary assembly convened...

Clerk thwarts robbery.(Exercising The Right)
November 3, 2003... At around 9 p.m. on August 25, two masked men entered the Cap 'n' Cork liquor store in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana, and announced a robbery. One was armed with a rifle. Store clerk Matthew Novak was working that night, and he, too, was armed....

Face-off.(Exercising The Right)
November 3, 2003... An armed robber entered a Sunoco service station in Fort Wayne, Indiana, shortly before 10 p.m. on November 13, 2002. Pointing his gun at employee John W. Washington III, he demanded money. Rather than comply, Washington pulled his own gun...

Neighborhood watch.(Exercising The Right)
November 3, 2003... On the afternoon of September 4, Port Allen, Louisiana, resident Dwayne Coulon was at work when he received a phone call from a neighbor informing him that his home was being burglarized. A neighbor (possibly the same one) had also called...

Break-in.(Exercising The Right)
November 3, 2003... On the evening of July 15, sheriff's deputies in Deschutes County, Oregon, attempted to stop Mark Timothy Nelson of Vancouver, Washington, for a traffic violation. Nelson fled at speeds up to 85 miles per hour. He kept going even after his...

It ain't peanuts!(Between The Lines)
November 3, 2003... ITEM: "Federal farm program payments to North Dakotans have slipped the past two years' to levels not seen since the mid-1990s, reflecting an improved farm economy, officials say," reported the Bismarck Tribune for Sept. 29. Farm payment...

Arafat's ongoing terrorism.(Between The Lines)
November 3, 2003... ITEM: As National Public Radio emphasized how "supporters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat [were marching] through the streets of the West Bank," NPR on September 29 featured commentary by Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle East studies at...

1492: discovering Columbus' legacy.(The Last Word)
November 3, 2003... On the 11th of October, 511 years ago, on board the small, but sturdy, caravel Nina, a sailor peered down into the heaving ocean and saw a branch, its stalks and twigs loaded with berries. Aboard the two ships accompanying the Nina other...

Defending Freedom.(Letters To The Editor)
November 17, 2003... When reading the October 20 "Defending Freedom" issue, I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw your salute to Julia Brown in the "Heroes of the JBS" article! I have been fighting Communism for as many years as the John Birch Society, and...

Acknowledging Black Confederates.(Letters To The Editor)
November 17, 2003... I'm writing as a proud descendant of Confederate ancestors to thank you for Jodie Gilmore's article "'Acknowledging Black Confederates" (September 22 issue). It's high time these men and women receive their due honor. The acts of honor,...

Revoking Duranty's Pulitzer.(Insider Report)
November 17, 2003... In 1932, New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty, a shill for the Soviet Union, won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting of the Ukrainian terror famine. Duranty's role in covering up that atrocity--the systematic starvation by the Soviets...

Bringing back the draft?(Insider Report)
November 17, 2003... "The Selective Service System (SSS) wants to hear from men and women in the community who might be willing to serve as members of a local draft board," announced a notice posted on the Selective Service System's website on September 22. "If a...

Time to upgrade to United Nations 2.0?(Insider Report)
November 17, 2003... In our May 19 cover story ("What Did We Win?"), THE NEW AMERICAN observed that "the war in Iraq did achieve something previously unthinkable: It has united the 'mainstream' American right behind the proposition that the United Nations--or a...

Baghdad's black hole.(Insider Report)
November 17, 2003... A briefing paper presented at the Iraq Donor's Conference in Madrid reported that "billions of dollars of oil money" transferred from Iraq's oil industry to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) "has effectively disappeared into a financial...

Building Baghdad's arsenal.(Insider Report)
November 17, 2003... "American officials in Baghdad have identified at least 30 businesses and individuals in the United States that investigators said they suspect sold tens of millions of dollars in military technology to Iraq before the war," reported the...

Descent into degeneracy.(Insider Report)
November 17, 2003... According to publisher Judith Regan, "The culture has become much more porn-ized." As examples she cites the increasingly smutty tone of television advertising and the October debut of Skin, a Fox-TV series in which a central character is a...

Who really supports our troops?(Insider Report)
November 17, 2003... Item: "Hundreds of sick and wounded U.S. soldiers including many who served in the Iraq war are languishing in hot cement barracks here while they wait--sometimes for months--to see doctors," reported a UPI dispatch from Fort Stewart, Georgia,...

Deceiving us into war: using deception, inflammatory rhetoric, and bait-and-switch tactics, the Bush administration lured the American public into supporting a war that is becoming a global quagmire.(Deception & War)
November 17, 2003... "Facing growing doubts at home about the wisdom of attacking Iraq, President Bush on Wednesday will launch a campaign to defend the U.S. invasion," began a Reuters wire dispatch on October 8. President Bush is going to need a public relations...

Behind the deception: President Bush's reversal from unilateralism to multilateralism was entirely predictable. He is merely following the internationalist principles that guide his administration.(Deception & War)
November 17, 2003... "Unilateralism!" "Cowboy diplomacy!" Clintonites and other denizens of the one-world Left had been using such expressions to vent their outrage over President George W. Bush's foreign policy long before he launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. But...

TV or not TV? Not! TV programming is designed to shepherd viewers into compromising their values. To preserve freedom, Americans should severely limit or entirely eliminate their TV viewing.(Hollywood)
November 17, 2003... In the typical American home, the television set occupies the center of the living room, as if it were the household deity. People immersed in TV's caricature of reality indulge in a delusional sense of intimacy with people they do not...

Understanding unemployment: in a free market, unemployment is an unnatural phenomenon. That this condition continues to afflict millions is a consequence of harmful legislation and regulation.(Economics)
November 17, 2003... Most goods are available at the price of labor. We labor to satisfy our wants and needs which are the demands of the heart, mind and body. While those wants and needs are practically unlimited, labor is scarce. Wherever we are and wherever we...

Miss America stood firm for abstinence.(Making A Difference)
November 17, 2003... Before she was crowned Miss America 2003 in September of last year, Erika Harold of Urbana, Illinois, had for many years carried a message urging premarital chastity to youngsters across the Prairie State. Consistent with her deeply held...

Court condones expression of faith.(Making A Difference)
November 17, 2003... In 2001, the dress code policy for employees of Kentucky's Logan County Public Library system read: "No clothing depicting religious, political, or potentially offensive decoration is permitted." Kimberly Draper, a library employee, was...

Tenacious woman vanquishes voyeur.(Making A Difference)
November 17, 2003... For many months, 28-year-old Hannah Arbuckle of Indianapolis, Indiana, suspected that a stranger was spying on her. She told the October 4 Indianapolis Star, "I would wake up to him looking in nay windows or when I would get out of the shower....

Treason misses the mark: in Treason, Ann Coulter fires both barrels at stupid liberals and inept Democrats, but, like a poor marksman, she keeps missing the real target: a deeply entrenched conspiracy.
November 17, 2003... Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, by Ann Coulter, New York: Crown Forum (a division of Random House, Inc.), 2003, 356 pages, hardcover, $26.95. If you're looking for a book that excoriates liberals and...

France's champion of liberty: nineteenth-century economist Frederic Bastiat's writings demonstrate why socialism won't work any better for 21st-century Americans than it did for the 19th-century French.(History--Struggle For Freedom)
November 17, 2003... A writer sits at his desk, staring absently at the city street below. He nibbles the end of his writing instrument thoughtfully. What should he write about today? The out-of-control welfare system? Pork barreling politicians? The onerous tax...

Last straw.(Exercising The Right)
November 17, 2003... William Gates was born 67 years ago in the West Ashley, South Carolina, home where he and wife Yvonne currently reside. The house passed to him when his parents died. Their street, according to Mr. Gates, was once a decent part of the...

Jewelry heist foiled.(Exercising The Right)
November 17, 2003... Alfredo Guido and son Meliton Aguirre own Jewelry Francy's in Pompano Beach, Florida. On July 30, they, two employees, and Aguirre's fiancee were in the jewelry store when four masked robbers (two of them armed) burst through the door after...

Remembering a legend.(Exercising The Right)
November 17, 2003... In April, druggist Steven Kesler sold his pharmacy in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Recently described by the Calgary Herald as "a legend in the area for nearly 20 years," Kesler had become nationally renowned in the wake of an attempted robbery of...

Pay more, get less.(Between The Lines)
November 17, 2003... ITEM: The Minneapolis Star Tribune bemoaned infighting over competing Medicare reforms. "As Congress labors to complete a $400 billion overhaul of Medicare this fall," said the paper on Oct. 13, "lawmakers say they are trying to help senior...

Brazil's debt rip-off.(Between The Lines)
November 17, 2003... ITEM: According to Reuters for October 9. el team from the International Monetary, Fund (IMF) was heading to Brazil "to assess the state of the economy under a $30 billion loan program and decide whether the country should "exit the program...

One small step for babykind.(The Last Word)
November 17, 2003... It is natural for anyone who has labored tirelessly for years in the pro-life movement to feel a sense of satisfaction that Congress has finally shown an ounce of common sense, a pennyweight of compassion, and a gram of courage. The weary...