The American Enterprise articles from October 2002

The American Enterprise archives from October 2002

Better health at lower cost? It won't equate unless we educate. (Pfizer forum).(better health education)
October 1, 2002... The twenty-first century has arrived, carrying with it the benefit of ongoing medical innovation and the promise of additional scientific breakthroughs. Today, Americans have the possibility of better health and more effective healthcare than...

They're one of a kind, and all around you. (Bird's Eye).(individual freedom and innovation )
October 1, 2002... "The end of national freedom is individual freedom." That was Irish patriot Patrick Pearse's reminder that the whole purpose of creating and defending a nation is to allow everyday people to live as they choose. I would go even further:...

Sidelights.(new tidbits from around the world)
October 1, 2002... Big Brothers Big Sisters of America now requires its local affiliates to enlist homosexuals as volunteers and mentors. Parents with children enrolled in school-based BBBSA programs will not be informed if their child is matched with a...

Afghan promise. (Scan).(new Afghan government official Abdullah Abdullah on rebuilding Afghanistan)(Interview)
October 1, 2002... Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan's foreign minister, is one of his troubled homeland's brightest lights. A medical doctor by training, he joined Ahmad Shah Massoud's mujahedin fighters against both the Soviets and the Taliban. As the Taliban...

The purpose of freedom. (Scan).(excerpts from President George W. Bush's commencement speech at Ohio State University)(Transcript)
October 1, 2002... Excerpted from remarks by President George W. Bush at the Ohio State University commencement: Some needs government cannot fulfill, like the need for kindness, and for understanding, and for love. A person in crisis often needs more than a...

If only our president spoke so clearly. (Scan)s.(quotations on Saudi Arabia by analyst Laurent Muraweic at Pentagon briefing)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... "The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader." "Saudi Arabia supports our enemies and attacks our allies." Saudi Arabia is "the...

Sugarcoating poison. (Scan).
October 1, 2002... Millions of decent Americans are forced today to wage a continual battle to preserve the innocence of their children--particularly in sexual matters--against a rising tide of corrupting influences in the media, public schools, and the culture...

Stick with stocks. (Scan).(investing)
October 1, 2002... The U.S. stock market has wobbled through this summer with some heart-stopping swings, scaring many investors in other directions. They are making a mistake. Under any sensible analysis of return and risk, a diversified portfolio of shares in...

New element discovered! (Scan).(academia humor)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... This science bulletin is floating around the Internet: A major research institution recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science, tentatively named "Administratium." Administratium has 1 neutron, 12...

Chinese-Americans learn the victim game. (Scan).
October 1, 2002... The Committee of 100, an organization composed of prominent Chinese-Americans like cellist Yo-Yo Ma and architect I. M. Pei, has recently been busy apologizing for the communist regime in China. In July, the Committee wagged its finger at the...

Gun bans don't cut crime. (Scan).(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Guns are used defensively about 2 million times each year in the U.S., according to national surveys. Physically weaker victims (women and the elderly) and those most likely to be victims of crime (particularly the poor and blacks) benefit the...

Thank you, lawyers. (Scan).(state of medical malpractice insurance in Florida)
October 1, 2002... Three of the largest insurance companies that provide medical malpractice insurance in Florida have recently gone bankrupt or stopped writing policies. Those remaining are escalating rates to cover costs. Why? Because of runaway lawsuits that...

Progress? (Scan).(humor about math education)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Teaching Math in 1950: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit? Teaching Math in 1960: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the...

Too true. (Scan).(joke)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... A doctor, a lawyer, and a mathematician were debating which profession appeared first in the Bible. "God removed a rib from Adam to make Eve," said the doctor. "That's a surgical procedure, so doctors came first." "No, no," countered...

The conservative calm. (Politico).(why conservatives support Pres. George W. Bush )
October 1, 2002... George W. Bush campaigned as a Reagan conservative and has now signed the liberal campaign finance legislation that assaults our First Amendment, enacted a budget-busting farm subsidy bill, created 20,000 new federal employees by federalizing...

Andres Duany: he's a Cuban emigre, a popular author and lecturer, a fearless popper of radical pretensions, and the flamboyant leader of an influential movement to return American community and home design to its pre-world war II golden age. ("Live" with TAE).(Cuban-American architect)(Interview)
October 1, 2002... Yale-educated architect Andres Duany presides over Miami's DPZ design firm with his wife, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, dean of the University of Miami architecture school. Over the last decade, they have built a school of Traditional Neighborhood...

Rocky mountain sheriff: Bob Cote changes lives, one bum at a time.(manager of privately owned substance abuse rehabilitation facility)
October 1, 2002... Bob Cote is a one-man alternative to the welfare state. Take one part Florence Nightingale, add three parts John Wayne, and one part cowboy poet, and you've got a 6-foot-3 former Golden Gloves boxer who crashed into an alcoholic gutter in 1983,...

The real Bobby Knight.(supporter of education)
October 1, 2002... On September 9, 2000, just as the students were returning to campus, Bob Knight, the legendary coach of Indiana University's basketball team for 29 hectic years, was fired by IU President Myles Brand. Knight was summarily convicted of a...

Calamity in Klamath: meet some American patriots who are being sacrificed for suckers.
October 1, 2002... Paul Christy flew fighter planes in World War II, enlisting within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor. He earned a Silver Star and a Purple Heart, and is extremely proud to have served his country. But today, when he talks about how he and his...

No thanks: to affirmative action.
October 1, 2002... Back in 1974, when I was part of the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee, I learned that Senator Alan Cranston, a liberal Californian, was about to lose the only Mexican American on his staff, a young lawyer with whom I was...

On high: the quirky preacher who first conquered America's mightiest peak.(Hudson Stuck's ascent of Mount McKinley)
October 1, 2002... When gold was discovered in the United States territory of Alaska in the 1870s, the prospectors found that the north and south of the territory were divided by an unbroken range of sharp mountain peaks. On clear days, a colossal dome could be...

Orwell misses America: the author of 1984 and Animal Farm was one of the twentieth century's keenest social observers. But when it came to apprehending the USA, his vision was foggy.
October 1, 2002... George Orwell was an admirer of the American essayist Thomas Paine, and a student of his truth-telling style. But when it came to Paine's adopted country, Orwell exhibited a curious blind spot. He never visited the U.S., and showed little...

Latin America on the brink.
October 1, 2002... Recent news from the nations to America's south is worrisome. Some major economies seem to be on the brink of collapse. Strongmen and left-wing radicals have taken the reins (or threaten to) in countries that have been important U.S. allies....

Defending dignity. (Transcript: words worth repeating).(Leon Kass, head of the Presidential Advisory Council on Bioethics)(Interview)
October 1, 2002... Condensed from an interview with Leon Kass, head of President Bush's Advisory Council on Bioethics, and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. The interview was conducted by Nigel Cameron and published in Christianity Today, May 23,...

Busted. (In real life: first-person American).(getting tickets for moving violations)
October 1, 2002... DANVILLE, CALIFORNIA--The odd squawking sound wasn't coming from my radio. It was a motorcycle cop trying to get my attention. I spotted him in the rearview mirror and felt 15 again. My cheeks flushed hot and red. My checkered driving past had...

Generation two. (In real life: first-person America).(second-generation homeschoolers )
October 1, 2002... WHITEHALL, MONTANA--Steve Wagner a soft-spoken landscaper who runs a little commonwealth located 1,915 miles from Washington, D.C. What he calls the Education Station is a community center here in the Rocky Mountains for homeschooling families...

The Bellamy boys pledge allegiance. (Flashback: to know nothing of what happened before you were born is to remain ever a child--Cicero).(Frances Bellamy, author of the Pledge of Allegiance)
October 1, 2002... If one man's heaven is another man's hell, what do we call Edward Bellamy's novel Looking Backward? Back in 1887, Bellamy imagined an America of the year 2000 in which all residents have been drafted into an "Industrial Army." Individual...

Freedom fighter. (Working lunch: wisdom ... is social. She seeks her fellows--Thomas Jefferson).(Polish politician Radek Sikorski)(Interview)
October 1, 2002... Radek Sikorski, a snappily dressed Polish citizen who speaks English better than most Americans, heads the New Atlantic Initiative, a project that encourages free trade between the U.S. and the European Union, military cooperation, and...

Nothing new under the Web. (Beat the press: the hand that rules the press ... rules the country--Judged Learned Hand).(blogging, also known as web journals)
October 1, 2002... Opinions are like Dershowitzes (my term for a portion of the human posterior not printable in magazines of this caliber... you get the point): Everyone has one. Just because a person has something to say doesn't mean it's worth hearing....

Racing spirits.('Seabiscuit: An American Legend')
October 1, 2002... Seabiscuit: An American Legend By Laura Hillenbrand Ballantine Books, 399 pages, $15 In the last issue of TAE (LIVE), university president John Silber cites his favorite definition of an intellectual: "a person who has a commanding...

What's right?('Principles and Heresies: Frank S. Meyer and the Shaping of the American Conservative Movement')
October 1, 2002... Principles and Heresies: Frank S. Meyer and the Shaping of the American Conservative Movement By Kevin Smant ISI Books, 381 pages, $29.95 The life of Frank Meyer (1909-1972) encapsulates most of the great political and intellectual...

Corporate blame game.('The Funny Money Game')
October 1, 2002... The Funny Money Game By Andrew Tobias, 1970 As vice president of a rapidly growing $100 million corporation at age 22, Andy was on his way. National Student Marketing, a company that employed "no creative people over 25," was vaulting into...

Carry a smaller stick. (Politics).(analysis of 'Assessing the Department of Homeland Security in the July 2002 issue of the Brookings Institution by Ivo Daadler and others)
October 1, 2002... Ivo Daadler et al., Assessing the Department of Homeland Security, July 2002, The Brookings Institution (brookings.org) Big government made a resounding return to Washington this summer as the White House unveiled a mammoth proposal to...

Programs that bug. (Economics And Business).(analysis of 'Why Software is So Bad' by Charles Mann in the August 2002 issue of Technology Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Charles Mann, "Why Software is so Bad," in Technology Review, August 2002, (technologyreview.com) Computer software--programs that process words, crunch numbers, and let teenage boys massacre space aliens--frequently crashes, often fails...

Heal thyself. (Society).(analysis of 'Let's Put Consumers in Charge of Heath Care' by Regina Herzlinger in the July 2002 issue of Harvard Business Review)
October 1, 2002... Regina Herzlinger, "Let's Put Consumers in Charge of Health Care" in Harvard Business Review, July 2002, (harvardbusinessonline.org) Most observers agree that America's health care system is a mess: Expenses continue to rise, many...

Reward teachers. (Society).(analysis of Bryan Hassel's article 'Better Pay for Better Teaching: Making Teacher Compensation Pay Off in the Age of Accountability' in the May 2002 issue of Progressive Policy Institute)
October 1, 2002... Bryan Hassel, "Better Pay for Better Teaching: Making Teacher Compensation Pay Off in the Age of Accountability," May 2002, Progressive Policy Institute (ndol.org) This paper suggests that raising teacher pay may improve schools, but...

Practical vs. romantic. (Science And Environment).(report on 'AEI's Environmental Policy Outlook' in Environment Outlook, August 2002)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Steven Hayward and Christopher DeMuth, "AEI's Environmental Policy Outlook," in Environment Outlook, August 2002, (aei.org) In this first edition of a new publication on environmental issues put out by the American Enterprise Instiute, AEI...

Stem cell breakthrough. (Science And Environment).(Catherine M. Verfaillie's report on stem cell research in the July 2002 issue of Nature)
October 1, 2002... Catherine M. Verfaillie, et al."Pluripotency of Mesenchymal Stem Cells Derived from Adult Marrow," in Nature, July 2002 (nature.org) Stem cells are "generic" cells that divide to replenish specific cells lost due to injury or routine wear...

Autumn of the patriarch? (Other Countries).(analysis of Mark Falcoff's 'Cuba: An New Crisis Brewing' in Latin America Outlook)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Mark Falcoff, "Cuba: A New Crisis Brewing," in Latin America Outlook, July 2002, (aei.org) Cuba, one of the last bastions of hard-core Marxist dictatorship, has undergone a precipitous economic decline since Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution....

Voter poem. (Now Playing).('Secret Ballot')
October 1, 2002... As I write, U.S. Congressional election campaigns are well underway. The cynical, of course, may be inclined to view these as exercises in futility. But if you're so inclined, I suggest you look to an unlikely source for electoral inspiration:...

How's business? (Opinion Pulse).(American opinion on big business)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... As the figures below show, the business scandals in 2001 and 2002 have soured Americans on big business. What's more, as polls on the next page show, Americans believe the practices that came to light are not rare. Concern that big business...

Sinking CEOs. (Opinion Pulse).(American opinion of chief executive officers)
October 1, 2002... People don't have high opinions of the ethical standards of CEOs. Fifty-four percent believe most CEOs are not honest. Tempering this negativity is the widespread belief that the CEOs and financial officers at people's own companies are honest....

Two cheers for divided government. (Opinion Pulse).(public opinon about the divided government of the United States)
October 1, 2002... Divided control of government in Washington has been the rule for most of the past 50 years, and Americans appear to like it that way. When the pollsters ask about divided government in general terms, people are split. But when pollsters raise...

The mail.(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2002... As a retired professor and former department chair at a state university, I was particularly interested in The American Enterprise's issue on higher education (September). None of the articles, however, mentioned the dumbing down of...

Last gasp.
October 1, 2002... "Apparently it's some kind of chemical imbalance. I'm happy all the time." "Actually our son downloaded it off the Internet." The special tonight is the GUILTLESS CHICKEN SALAD. It is made from a chicken who lived a long, happy life in...