The American Enterprise articles from January 2001

The American Enterprise archives from January 2001

Last Gasp.
January 1, 2001... "A hacker broke into our computer, tuned up our hard drive, balanced our checkbook, updated our software and left us a bill for $200." "Well, there's your problem... there's a little car Under there." "I love the way you weaves...

John McCain, Culture Warrior.(upcoming hearings involving motion picture industry)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Later this spring, at about the time the film industry lines up to collect the Oscar statuettes they award themselves in March, studio executives are scheduled to be swearing to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth back in Washington...

T.R. vs. the Dictionary.(Theodore Roosevelt)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... From boyhood, Theodore Roosevelt had been a notoriously bad spelle; so as President he simply rewrote the rules of orthography--until a swarm of spelling bees stung him back to his senses. The Spelling Reform Association had been founded in...

Unwise Passions: A True Story of a Remarkable Woman--and the First Great Scandal of Eighteenth-century America.(Review)
January 1, 2001... Unwise Passions: A True Story of a Remarkable Woman--and the First Great Scandal of Eighteenth-century America By Alan Pell Crawford Simon & Schuster, 333 pages, $2Z50 How Nancy Randolph, "the fetching daughter of one of the greatest of...

Grover Cleveland: A Study in Character.(Review)
January 1, 2001... Grover Cleveland: A Study in Character By Alyn Brodsky St. Martin's Press, 456 pages, $35 In our historically illiterate age, we remember the vices of Presidents while ignoring their virtues. So most of us, when thinking about Grover...

Oliver Stone's USA: Film, History, and Controversy.(Review)
January 1, 2001... Olive Stone's USA: Film, History, and Controversy Edited by Robert Brent Toplin, with commentary by Oliver Stone University Press of Kansas, 335 pages, $34.95 Oliver Stone makes memorable and maddening films about recent American...

The Facts About PACS.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Jeffrey Milyo, David Primo, and Timothy Groseclose, "Corporate PAC Campaign Contributions in Perspective," in Business and Politics (April 2000), Carfax Publishing, Box 25 Abingdon OX14 3UE, England. Milyo of the University of Chicago and...

Learning About the Military.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Peter D. Feaver and Richard H. Kohn, "The Gap: Soldiers, Civilians, and Their Mutual Misunderstanding," in The National Interest (Fall 2000), 1112 Sixteenth Street N.W. #540, Washington, D.C. 20036. Feaver, a Duke University political...

`Must-Carry' Trash TV.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Thomas W. Hazlett, "Digitizing `Must-Carry' Under Turner Broadcasting v. FCC (1997)," in The Supreme Court Economic Review (2000 annual), University of Chicago Press, 5720 S. Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637. In 1997 the Supreme...

Help the Poor--Fight Crime.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Eli Lehrer, "Crime-Fighting and Urban Renewal," in The Public Interest (Fall 2000), 1112 16th Street N.W. #530, Washington, D.C. 20036. "America's success in reducing crime ranks with welfare reform as the greatest social policy triumph of...

DDT Is a Good Chemical.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... A.G. Smith, "How Toxic Is DDT?" and D.R. Roberts, S. Manguin, and J. Mouchet, "DDT House Spraying and Reemerging Malaria," in The Lancet (July 22, 2000), 84 Theobald's Road, London WC1X 8RR, England. An early triumph of the environmental...

Help Archeology: Restore Private Property.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Richard L. Stroup and Matthew Brown, Deciding the Future of the Past: The Miami Circle and Archeological Excavation. James Madison Institute, Box 37460, Tallahassee, Florida 32315. Many new projects in the older parts of America s cities...

Exploiting the Holocaust.(reparations)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Gabriel Schoenfeld, "Holocaust Reparations--A Growing Scandal," in Commentary (September 2000), 165 East 56th Street, New York, New York 10022. Controversy rages over how much money insurance companies, Swiss bankers, and Western...

SCHOOLS TODAY.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Solid majorities of Americans are very or somewhat satisfied with the quality of education they received and with the quality of schooling their children are receiving. They are less impressed with the quality of education in the country as a...

Educational Roles and Responsibilities.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Nearly three-quarters of parents today say they are more involved in their children's education than their own parents were. Parents far more than teachers are thought to have the greatest effect on a student's level of achievement. Most...

Parents and Teachers.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Teachers feel the biggest problem in their schools is lack of interest and support from parents. Parents say the schools don't have enough financial support and that they are overcrowded. Parents are more receptive to school choice than...

the Mail.
January 1, 2001... Stephen Ambrose says the transcontinental railroad "could not have been built without government help" (LIVE, September). Someone should have told that to James J. Hill, who actually built one without a penny of government subsidies. His Great...

The Deep Secrets of Good Schools.
January 1, 2001... Americans tell pollsters that improving schools is just about their highest public priority today. Yet there is no consensus on the best way to do this. People are profoundly uncertain of how to judge the scads of faddish educational reforms...

THREE CHEERS FOR THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... The uproar over votes in Florida had one good effect: After this election, the Electoral College never looked better. Think what the election would have been like without the Electoral College. The raucous scenes in Florida would have...

COOP COMMUNISM.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Karen Davis has a dream. She left her husband and job as a college professor to become a radical chicken-rights advocate. Davis, who has compared poultry farmers to Nazi commandants, now runs a chicken sanctuary in Virginia where the birds are...

NOT DEAD.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Amidst the excruciating division in the American electorate today, it appears the Right is holding its own: * Gore's positions were"too liberal" for 43 percent of the electorate, while 34 percent of voters said Bush's were "too...

FIX OUR VOTING SYSTEM.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Much of the post-election chaos could have been avoided had national news anchormen kept their big mouths shut early on election night. Instead, they behaved like hyperactive children furiously unwrapping their Christmas gifts a day early. ...

DOUBLE STANDARD AT THE IRS.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Under pressure from liberal politicians and interest groups, the IRS has been attacking conservative churches and religious organizations for a decade now, threatening to revoke their tax-exempt status if they become involved in politics. An...

THE PEOPLE SPEAK.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Crying "bigotry" and "intolerance," homosexual advocates easily intimidated corporations into yanking advertisements from Laura Schlessinger's TV show this fall. But on election day, the gay movement's push for normalization suffered some...

VOTERS GRADE THE MEDIA.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... We've long known that pressrooms are not "balanced"--when they vote themselves, 80 to 90 percent of national reporters choose liberals and Democrats. Now there's evidence that the public can tell. A new survey found that 39 percent of...

THIS IS YOUR LIFE.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... The Tax Foundation has just released two more of its excellent studies documenting the effects of taxes on Americans. Finding One: Total annual taxes paid in the U.S. now come to $10,447 for every man, woman, and child in the country, on...

HOW W. WON THE TAX DEBATE.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... When Ronald Reagan advocated large tax cuts in the 1980s, he was unconcerned about the possibility of reducing federal revenues. The economic benefits of his plan would be so large, he argued, that revenues would actually rise over time in...

THE TEACHER-CONTRACT RAT'S NEST.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... The veto power that teacher unions hold over educational decisions through their union contracts is a major obstacle to school improvement. Here are some of the harmful provisions common in many teacher contracts across the country. * In...

THE EDUCATION VOTE.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Concern about schools led to a record number of education initiatives on state ballots in November. Democrats used to own the education issue, but as public disquiet has grown, the battles have become more competitive politically, notes TAE...

THE MEDIA GRADE THE MEDIA.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... In the middle of the post. election mess, Howard Fineman, senior editor at Newsweek, gave this blunt reply on "Imus in the Morning" when asked, "How would the liberal weenies of the news media be treating this if the roles [of Gore and Bush]...

RACE IN THE VOTING BOOTH.(black and Hispanic voters in 2000 elections)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
January 1, 2001... The recent election was heated considerably by the issue of race. In particular, Democrats did everything they could to increase turnout among blacks, including some highly tendentious final-weekend campaigning in black churches by Al Gore,...

THE HOLE IN AMERICAN PROSPERITY.(family problems)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... As wondrous as recent trends have been in areas like the economy and new technologies, there are some places where life has taken a turn for the worse. Family life is clearly one. Advocates of various liberation movements would have us...

"Live" with TAE.(Interview)
January 1, 2001... TAKE A SPIRITED RAMBLE WITH AMERICA'S MOST LITERARY HISTORIAN AS HE DISCUSSES RACISM, CIVIL WAR BATTLES, LINCOLN, COMPUTERS, THE CONFEDERATE FLAG, NOVEL WRITING, TELEVISION, REDNECKS, THE KLAN, BIG GOVERNMENT, AND YELLOW-DOG DEMOCRATS. ...

Shareholders of the World Unite!(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Keep your eye on a financial trend that Will eventually be a political one. The United States is becoming a nation of investors, and people with money in the stock market are likely to change their outlook about important political matters like...

Model Schools.
January 1, 2001... 14 Academies That Teach Over a period of a year, The American Enterprise sent its reporters to visit schools all across America. We assessed suburban magnets, gritty inner-city public schools, Catholic, Jewish, and evangelical Protestant...

Who Needs God?(adapted from 'The Collapse of Communism')
January 1, 2001... An American couple I know adopted a young boy of three or so from Rumania, one of those orphans brought up mass-production style, never held in human arms, fed by a bottle attached to a mechanical apparatus. Isolated from human closeness and...

HERALD ANGELS.(Christmas caroling)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... HARLEM, MONTANA--Here in the small-town West, you can still go Christmas caroling anywhere without suffering an ACLU-style attack. Most recently, we were at home with the kids having piano lessons when my wife cried out, "There are Christmas...

Who Stole the Grinch?(motion picture 'Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas')(Review)
January 1, 2001... Why can't we be content with our classics? Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas has taken Theodor S. Geisel's 1957 children's book and pumped it up into a loud, spastic "family film"--or, to be more accurate, a holiday-season cash...

The Coming Internet Privacy Scrum.
January 1, 2001... Judging from the press offices of various congressmen on both sides of the aisle, 2001 is going to be the year for Internet privacy. It seems everyone in Washington is floating some proposal to protect Internet users from the federal...