The American Enterprise articles from January 2002

The American Enterprise archives from January 2002

When art becomes inhuman. (Bird's Eye).
January 1, 2002... Many of today's avant-garde artists, I've decided, have modeled themselves on that well-known societal fixture, the snot-nosed teenager. Since the 1960s, the hippest modern art has aspired to exactly what every garden-variety 13-year-old brat...

Sidelights.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Ronald Reagan turned 90 years, 248 days old in October, making him the oldest ex-president in U.S. history. * Given the choice of George W. Bush or Bill Clinton, over 70 percent of American voters would prefer to have Bush as President during...

Traditional buildings go chic? (Scan).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... A giant new mall/indoor entertainment complex is currently being planned for Syracuse, New York. When completed in 2004 it would be the world's largest shopping destination, as well as a massive hotel, restaurant, and sports and entertainment...

Strong women wear lipstick. (Scan).(Mary Kay Ash and feminism)(Brief Article)(Obituary)
January 1, 2002... Mary Kay Ash died on Thanksgiving Day at the age of 83. She should have been a feminist icon: a beautiful, savvy businesswoman who gave women the power to "have it all"--without abandoning their families. Her company's motto: "God first, family...

Winston Clinton. (Scan).(criticism of Bill Clinton's terrorist policy)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Crews were still digging for bodies in lower Manhattan when Bill Clinton stopped by Georgetown University to deliver his lessons on terrorism. He declared that America is "still paying the price today" for slavery, greed, racism, insensitivity,...

Real art heroes don't rebel. (Scan).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... For decades, The Story of Art has served as the classic text for thousands of intro art-history classes on college campuses. When its author, E. H. Gombrich, died in November, his New York Times obituary included this passage: "His...

The ignorance lobby. (Scan).(election law reform)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... The American Civil Liberties Union seems to believe that ignorance is bliss. Especially when it comes to voting. The organization recently challenged several sections of a new Florida election law that would place a bit of responsibility on...

Selective tolerance. (Scan).(religion in schools)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... During the 2000 presidential campaign Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman observed that what separates Americans today is "not our different denominations, but faith itself.... We are a society of the religious and the...

Safe from God and country. (Scan).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... In the left-wing hothouse of Madison, Wisconsin much of September and October was spent arguing that it is hurtful and divisive to allow the national anthem and Pledge of Allegiance into local schools. The town's mandarins decided that the...

Faith and hope dashed by charity. (Scan).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... After September 11, Americans have, famously, given much time, blood, and money to the victims of the terrorist attacks. As hideous as the events were, there was great comfort to be found in the care and aid offered by so many citizens of this...

China's fake capitalism. (Scan).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... When investors buy stock in a corporation, they want to make sure the company has an independent board of directors, that its books have been audited by professional accountants, and that its CEO has authority to make decisions about hiring,...

Guilty until proven green. (Scan).(Sweden's environmental policies)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Robert Nilsson, a toxicologist at Stockholm University, recently explained at a Cato Institute forum that thanks to environmentalist overreactions, consumers can't buy or use many useful products in his country. Wite-Out, for example, is...

A last drag? (Scan).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... You probably didn't know that the National Gay Smoke-Out took place this November. Why homosexuals need their own occasion to quit puffing is not clear. The whole idea is a bit ironic, given the fact that engaging in gay sex is much more...

Those vital social programs. (Scan).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... The Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported in November that federal AIDS prevention money is paying for workshops that encourage sexual activity and meet the legal definition of obscenity. Government...

Government health care at its best. (Scan).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Britain's National Health Service is the Rolls-Royce of socialized health care when it comes to government spending and coverage requirements, but it has long performed like a Yugo from the point of view of patients. Recently, the European...

The dirt on San Fran. (Scan).(visiting San Francisco, California)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... My family recently spent some time vacationing in San Francisco. After a few days I was glad to go back home to San Diego. I couldn't help but notice the change in this aesthetically stunning city. San Francisco seemed, in many senses, dirty....

Low-flying high schools. (Scan).(statistics on high school graduates)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... For years, bureaucrats around the country have bandied about high-school graduation rates of around 86 percent as evidence that America's public schools work. But many of these high-school "graduates" did little more than warm a chair for four...

Small investors show grace under pressure. (Forward Observer).(social security reform)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... During the 1990s stock-market boom, opponents of Social Security reform repeatedly warned of a day when share prices would decline, and the allure of personally owned and managed retirement accounts would vanish. Americans would become grateful...

"Live" with TAE: A founding father of American conservatism talks about the magazines of the Right, pop culture, left-wing children, battling communism and spies, and Elvis Presley: William F. Buckley, Jr.
January 1, 2002... In November 1955, William F. Buckley, Jr., a World War II Army veteran, Yale graduate, and former Central Intelligence Agent (his main job was editing a document describing Soviet communism's aims for world domination), founded National Review....

Art as an expression of love: Andrew Wyeth's homely devotion.
January 1, 2002... Traveling Pennsylvania's Route 100, winding alongside the Brandywine River and passing by many stunning estate properties and colonial-style farmhouses, it is easy to miss the old converted schoolhouse just south of Chadds Ford. Hundreds drive...

Avant garde against humanity: the rise and fall of anti-social architecture.
January 1, 2002... The 1960s were a heady time for architects--the last decade in which they were treated like demigods--and the American landscape still has the scars to show for it: the belligerent monolith of Boston City Hall, the regimented grandiosity of...

The death of modern art.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... A few years ago, when I was married to a charming, wealthy woman, we went around our town shopping for a house. Virtually all of the homes the realtors dragged us through were large, expensive, even historic, owned by doctors, lawyers,...

Teaching tradition: new schools train artists and architects in old ways.
January 1, 2002... At age 50, Minneapolis resident Jacqueline Hamlett Capp might seem a little old for an art student with professional ambitions. But after a profoundly discouraging experience decades ago with an art class she took at Indiana's DePauw University...

Regional vigor: the ace card of American art.
January 1, 2002... National reaction to the events of September 11 showed that New York maintains its indisputable dominance as cultural capital of the United States. Americans in all corners of the continent, though sometimes grumbling over the arrogance of New...

Are movies art? A symposium featuring: Jonah Goldberg * Chris Weinkopf * Brandon Bosworth * Josh Larsen * Cristopher Rapp * Jonathan Last * Terry Teachout.
January 1, 2002... In Art, Popular is OK By Jonah Goldberg There are several problems with the "art vs. mere entertainment" debate. The first is the language itself. We don't have a good middle-ground word that describes something that is both artful...

Gone to the dogs. (In real life: first-person America).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... DANVILLE, CALIFORNIA--Getting the dog was Michelle's idea. She is our youngest of three daughters and the only bleeding heart tree-hugger in our otherwise conservative family. When she developed her dog interest a few years ago at age nine, my...

Road trips for God. (In real life: first-person America).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... LACEY, WASHINGTON--Each summer, scores of young people from Faith Assembly Church fill their school vacations with activities that may not appeal to the average teenager. They take on difficult jobs, in hot climates, under unpleasant...

Hunker down for the long haul. (Terror Watch).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... September 11 and the subsequent anthrax threats are much more profound than we have yet come to grips with psychologically. We were nearly paralyzed by a few envelopes containing anthrax. Imagine if we faced an opponent who had a large quantity...

An upstart makes money on high culture. (Enterprising: business as an act of creation).(Naxos, a classical music recording company)
January 1, 2002... Most classical music recording companies these days suffer from falling sales and rising costs. Many of the once-great labels, such as RCA Red Seal, Deutsche Grammophon, and Decca, have dramatically cut back or even eliminated new record...

A president, his paperboy & the socialist. (Flashback: To know nothing of what happened before you were born is to remain ever a child--Cicero).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Once upon a time, before the American small town had been reduced to a quaint prop in beer and truck commercials, its residents possessed a common understanding and mutual sympathy so strong as to overcome differences like those that separate...

Kids get Hollywood's best stuff. (Now Playing).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Who gets the most respect from Hollywood today? After taking a look back at 2001, you could easily argue that it's young children. The ratio of quality films to clutter hasn't been good for adults--we faced the usual high chances of being...

J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. (BookTalk: the master of middle-earth).
January 1, 2002... J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century By Tom Shippey Houghton Mifflin, 347 pages, $26 Ask a typical literary critic to name he most important novel of the twentieth century, and he might cite a gloomy German tome such as Thomas Mann's...

The Business of America. (BookTalk: taking care of business).
January 1, 2002... The Business of America By John Steele Gordon Walker & Co., 285 pages, $27 Business writing has long been clotted with morality plays of arrogant tycoons and monopolistic corporations. Businessmen have created our tools, anti-businessmen...

The Metaphysical Club. (BookTalk: principle over pragmatism).
January 1, 2002... The Metaphysical Club By Louis Menand Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 546 pages, $27 The Metaphysical Club is an intellectual history of the lives and thoughts of the individuals who comprised the late-nineteenth-century intellectual movement...

Put judges above the state. (Politics).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Paul Mahoney," The Common Law and Economic Growth: Hayek Might be Right," in The Journal of Legal Studies (June 2001), University of Chicago Press, Post Office Box 37005, Chicago, Illinois 60637 Most nations use one of two systems to shape...

Politics and the IRS. (Politics).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Marilyn Young, Michael Rekuslak, and William Shughart, "The Political Economy of the IRS," in Economics & Politics (July 2001), Blackwell Publishers, 350 Main Street, Malden, Massachusetts 02148 The Internal Revenue Service claims that it...

Multiculturalism damages liberalism. (Politics).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Thomas E Powers, "The Transformation of Liberalism, 1964 to 2001," in The Public Interest (Fall 2001), 1112 Sixteenth Street, N.W., #530, Washington, D.C. 20036 Multiculturalism, contends University of Minnesota (Duluth) political...

When juries send messages. (Society).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Mark Curriden, "Power of 12," in ABA Journal (August 2001), American Bar Association, 750 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60611 In January 2000, a jury in Delray Beach, Florida found Humana, a health-maintenance organization,...

Beware of mountain people with guns. (Other Countries).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... S. Frederick Starr, "Altitude Sickness: Poverty and Violence in the Mountains" in The National Interest (Fall 2001), 1112 Sixteenth Street, N.W., #540, Washington, D.C. 20036 What do the Taliban in Afghanistan, e Shining Path in Peru, and...

Is China a paper tiger? (Other Countries).(China's economic conditions)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Gordon Chang, The Coming Collapse of China, Random House, 299 Park Avenue, New York, New York, 10171 China appears to be on the verge of becoming an economic powerhouse. But Gordon Chang, a lawyer with extensive experience in China,...

Good art, bad art. (Opinion Pulse).(Polling Data)(Statistical Data Included)
January 1, 2002... In 1978, two Russian artists, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, emigrated to the United States. They continued their artistic work, and, in 1993, embarked on an unusual project. They surveyed Americans about their tastes in art and then...

The mail.
January 1, 2002... After reading "Fight Terror: Drill in America" (SCAN, December 2001) I find I am in agreement with everything said--except the mention of "economic, safe, and dean power from nuclear energy." Economic? Safe? The Long Island Lighting Company's...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
January 1, 2002... The photo reproduced on page 45 of our December issue was used without the permission of the photographer, because true ownership of the image was misrepresented to us. The photo is property of Nigel Parry.

Last gasp.
January 1, 2002... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: "Our family safety software won't let me visit any online clothing stores where the prices are obscene." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: "You know what I miss? The twentieth century." ...