The American Enterprise articles from September 1999

The American Enterprise archives from September 1999

Scouting for Fathers.
September 1, 1999... Where are the fathers? Largely absent, as a look around America will show. Many impregnate women and then disappear, to be replaced by a welfare check. Others divorce or are divorced, and see their child a few days a year or never. Others don't...

Sidelights.
September 1, 1999... Columnist Jonah Goldberg jokes, "The Census Bureau announced... that for the first time the number of aging, SUV-driving, liberal suburban orthodontists and accountants claiming they attended [the original] Woodstock surpassed the number of...

AN AMERICAN SPORT REVS UP.(stock car racing)
September 1, 1999... Almost 35 years ago, Esquire magazine sent writer Tom Wolfe to Hamptonville, North Carolina, to look up a moonshine-runner-turned-stock-car-driver named Junior Johnson. Wolfe went back to New York with a story about men who drove so fast that...

RULES FOR URBAN DRIVING.
September 1, 1999... 1) When on a one-way street, stay to the right to allow oncoming traffic to pass. 2) Always look both ways when running a red light. 3) Never use directional signals when changing lanes. They only warn other drivers to speed up and not...

WORRIED TO DEATH.
September 1, 1999... Franklin Roosevelt famously proclaimed, "All we have to fear, is fear itself." How appropriate in the phobia-filled 1990s, when new data show the world is a much safer place than ever before. Consider: * Airline crashes. Last year there...

BLOODLESS HORRORS.
September 1, 1999... Hollywood is turning to horror as of late, but the results haven't been as nasty as you might expect. Sure, we're about to be pummeled by Arnold Schwarzenegger's big-budget and inevitably gruesome bout with Satan in November's End of Days. And...

OLD-FASHIONED POPULARITY.(television series 'Providence')
September 1, 1999... The Wall Street Journal recently outlined more evidence of Hollywood's biggest commercial blind spot: The industry's inability to comprehend the widespread American longing for traditional family life and religion. The case in point is...

REQUIEM FOR THE DINOSAURS.
September 1, 1999... Miraculously, W. J. T. Mitchell's The Last Dinosaur Book uses the subject of dinosaurs to attack capitalism. Mitchell brings up Barney, fossil fuels, Jurassic Park, off-road vehicles, McDonald's commercials, Andrew Carnegie--somehow it all adds...

FORMER HOMEMAKERS OF AMERICA.
September 1, 1999... Feminists and their bosom buddies among the cultural elite sneer at stay-at-home moms. Who would proudly call herself a "homemaker" these days? Not many people. Even the most prominent holdouts recently bowed to pressure. This July, the Future...

SAVING LIEUTENANT RYAN.
September 1, 1999... Quick: What's the difference between a witch, a drug-smoking Indian, a Playboy reader, and a faithful Catholic? Today, all but the Catholic have accommodations on U.S. military bases. In 1996, American Indians were granted permission to use...

RODNEY DANGERFIELD ONE-LINERS.
September 1, 1999... I worked in a pet shop and people kept asking how big I'd get. My father carries around the picture of the kid who came with his wallet. I remember the time I was kidnapped and they sent a piece of my finger to my mother. She said she...

SCHOOL VOUCHERS AREN'T RISKY.
September 1, 1999... New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani wants to test vouchers for two to three years in just one of his city's 32 school districts. Of the 1.1 million public school students in New York, about 3,000 poor kids would get vouchers averaging $6,500,...

LET'S BE HONEST.
September 1, 1999... For years, opponents of gun control have derided the other side as "gun-grabbers" and charged that supporters of gun control seek outright confiscation, The charge usually receives an indignant reply that only "moderate" restrictions are...

MURDERER'S PAYDAY.
September 1, 1999... Wendell Williamson's pathway to courtroom riches opened up when he went on a shooting spree in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with an M-1 rifle, killing two people--Ralph Walker, 42, a restaurant worker, and Kevin Reichardt, 20, a student and...

KNOW YOUR ENEMY.
September 1, 1999... Remember a couple years ago when a rash of church burnings were portrayed, by the President among others, as attacks on blacks? It eventually became clear there was no racist conspiracy, that more predominantly white than predominantly...

MTV VS. THE '60S.
September 1, 1999... MTV's "Loveline" is one of television's sleaziest shows, featuring sad and twisted kids who call in to prate about their messy sex lives. So it was shocking to see the show's resident therapist, Dr. Drew Pinsky, sound like a Baptist preacher in...

ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO PRATTLE.(Today Show)
September 1, 1999... "When I got this assignment I thought, `Whoa, slow news day!' But the importance of the sports bra to American women can't be overemphasized," gushed Katie Couric. Ah yes, great moments in women's history: the vote, the pill, the binding...

AL QUIXOTE GORE.
September 1, 1999... As his minions flounder, Al Gore in his campaign for the presidency begins to resemble Don Quixote in full tilt against the windmills. Adviser Elaine Kamarck, for instance, has blurted out, "The Democratic Party is going to take back God this...

LIFE AMONG THE BROAD-MINDED.
September 1, 1999... Ithaca, New York, is a typical college town. A hotbed, in other words, of leftwing Big Brotherism. At Ithaca's Boynton public middle school, all students were recently indoctrinated in a day-long "celebration" of homosexuality. For four...

"Live" with TAE.(Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham)(Interview)
September 1, 1999... BILLY GRAHAM'S PRODIGAL SON TALKS ABOUT HIS FATHER, MONICA LEWINSKY, POLITICAL ENTANGLEMENT, CHILDRAISING, AND GUNS. Franklin Graham Just after evangelist Billy Graham's son Franklin was born, the boy began receiving fan mail. "Welcome...

A Father to the End.
September 1, 1999... When was 16, he threw his father down the eight steps from the front porch to the sidewalk. The same year, when his father awakened him on a Sunday morning to get ready for church, he stood up and said, "Dad, I'm not going today, and I'm not...

An L.A. Dad Discovers Idaho Fatherhood.
September 1, 1999... IT is not easy to be a father in Los Angeles, and especially in Hollywood. There are no places to ride a bike, partly because it's so hilly, partly because the traffic is so dense, partly because even on the boardwalk by the beach--which is...

Defining Daddy Down.(includes related articles)
September 1, 1999... FOR the first time since the baby boom, America is making room for daddy. The President and Vice President sing the praises of fathers. Governors set up special task forces on fatherhood. "Responsible fatherhood" initiatives and programs are...

The Case Against Androgynous Marriage.
September 1, 1999... Candace Bergen has now admitted what her TV character, Murphy Brown, never did: Fathers matter. Social scientists have never been more sure, because fathers help boys become responsible men and teach girls good men will love them even if they...

Daughters Need Fathers Too.
September 1, 1999... We spend so much time worrying about fathers and sons that we often forget about daughters' need for fathers. On the personal level, daughters whose fathers are physically or emotionally absent are much likelier to develop serious problems with...

Fatherhood Is Not for Wimps.(Editorial)
September 1, 1999... MEN sometimes fear that when they enter fatherhood they will have to acquire a difficult and foreign set of skills. But fathers needn't remake themselves or put on masks to succeed in family life normal male traits are useful in the home. A...

THE DANGER OF UNISEX FATHERHOOD.
September 1, 1999... It is an unequivocal fact that societies today, to the degree they weaken the marriage bond and allow fathers to be absent, are causing their own destruction. What is less obvious is why societies are tolerating the destruction of the family....

The Army Knows Best.
September 1, 1999... Turning a Criminal into a Cop Detective Goliszeski squeezed a little farther down into the seat of his black unmarked Crown Victoria as he watched the two dark silhouettes slip by at 4:00 a.m. He was parked on a side street in a...

A Father at Columbine High.
September 1, 1999... ON a business trip to Trinidad, Colorado, I'm driving to the local Pizza Hut a few minutes after noon, when suddenly the radio's regular programming is interrupted by a news bulletin: Two or three gunmen with hand grenades and/or pipe bombs are...

Trading Places: Transatlantic Fatherhood.
September 1, 1999... We have now been abroad eight years, and I sometimes think we're living in Switzerland to give our children an American childhood. We live in a village that, were it not Swiss, could be the Midwest or the Great Plains in the 1950s. The...

The Riches of a Poor Father.
September 1, 1999... Americans know many social problems--school drop-outs, drugs, crime, illegitimacy--are rooted in fathers' failure to help rear their children. What, then, does it take to attach fathers to their offspring? One remarkable story is told by...

the SHOCKING TRUTH about Gun Shows.
September 1, 1999... For nigh 30 years Dr. Bud Spink of Attica, a retired veterinarian, has run the Alexander Gun Show in western New York. Yuppie editorialists and the fabled soccer moms--the women in these parts are baseball moms--apparently imagine gun shows are...

Gun Control is Racist, Sexist & Classist.
September 1, 1999... A Liberal Democrat's Lament Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very...

Marksmanship Kept My Son out of Trouble.
September 1, 1999... I am the mother of two boys, now grown men, and I reared them at home. When they were very young, people told me I was overprotective. I knew what they were up to almost all the time, and when they did something positive I would encourage it....

Armed Citizens Stop Criminals and Help Cops.
September 1, 1999... The middle-aged woman didn't hear the knocking on the door. She didn't get many visitors to her home in the remote north end of our city. But she did hear the shattering of the door frame as three teenaged burglars kicked in her door. Panicked,...

How to Count Votes on Gun Control.
September 1, 1999... The recent House of Representatives food-fight over gun shows, trigger locks, and a grab bag of new restrictions on firearms ownership had far less to do with guns, crime, and the Littleton tragedy than with politics. That's why many...

Gun Owners Are Not the Problem.
September 1, 1999... One fact is irrefutable about the ownership of guns: It has never been more difficult to legally purchase a firearm than it is today. When I entered high school in 1980, we had no Brady Bill and no background check, l could buy a firearm in a...

How Today's Movies Distort & Denigrate the Past.
September 1, 1999... How Today's Movies Distort & Denigrate the Past Each age distorts history in its own way, reinforcing the age's carefully cultivated myths. Today, history's interpreters prominently include filmmakers. The movies are our great democratic...

PLANTING Wolves.
September 1, 1999... Early arrivals at the American Farm Bureau Federation convention, held this year in Albuquerque, New Mexico, were warned not to wear their convention badges outside. Organizers hoped to avoid confrontations with the Defenders of Wildlife, an...

LUCKY FOR US.(adoption)
September 1, 1999... FRANCONIA, VA--My wife, Mary, and I spent much of one Saturday afternoon last March engrossed in the second round of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. In the most memorable game of the day, North Carolina barely got past overmatched but...

Private Savings Work Around the World.
September 1, 1999... The pioneering pension reforms of Chile--where a big shift away from government entitlements and toward private savings accounts was instituted in 1981 with great success--have drawn kudos from nearly all who've studied them. "On pensions,"...

We Are All Reaganites Now.(Review)
September 1, 1999... Four hours of reading Lester Thurow leaves you feeling like you've just run a marathon. The famous MIT economist has so much to say and so few words to do it with! The facts, the pseudo-facts, the anecdotes, the leaps in logic--they all go by...

Beating Back the Greedy Hand of Government.(taxation and taxpayer reaction)(Review)
September 1, 1999... Amity Shlaes, an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal, has written The Greedy Hand: How Taxes Drive Americans Crazy and What to Do About It. Shlaes talked about her book at the American Enterprise Institute on May 21. Commenting on the...

Changing the World, One Pixel at a Time.
September 1, 1999... The story is part of Silicon Valley lore. In 1979, 28-year-old Steve Jobs, trying to convince Pepsi-Cola president John Sculley to come work for Apple Computer, feeds the Pepsi Generation guru this line: "Do you want to spend the rest of your...

The John Wilkes Booth of Poetry.(Edgar Lee Masters)
September 1, 1999... Once upon a time, Americans bought books of poetry, and no volume was better loved than Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology (1915), that erstwhile staple of high school English class in which an Illinois town is revealed by the epitaphs on...

Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal Government in Modern America.(Review)
September 1, 1999... Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal Government in Modern America By Donald T. Critchlow Oxford University Press, 320 pages, $30 Donald Critchlow's Intended Consequences is as fair and comprehensive an account as...

Outlaw Machine: Harley-Davidson and the Search for the American Soul.(Review)
September 1, 1999... Outlaw Machine: Harley-Davidson and the Search for the American Soul By Brock Yates Little, Brown, 274 pages, $24 Ronald Reagan has received credit for many things, but no one, to my knowledge, has ever come out and said that he made...

No One Left to Lie to: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton.(Review)
September 1, 1999... No One Left to Lie to: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton By Christopher Hitchens Verso, 160 pages, $19 Just as the most powerful critiques of George Bush usually came from the right, Bill Clinton's most lucid critics have...

After Liberalism: Mass Democracy in the Managerial State.(Review)
September 1, 1999... After Liberalism: Mass Democracy in the Managerial State By Paul Edward Gottfried Princeton University Press, 185pages, $27.95 Recently I encountered a visiting Martian baffled by the governance of Western countries. The power elite calls...

Race and Economics.(Review)
September 1, 1999... Race and Economics By Thomas Sowell, 1975 Thomas Sowell has been churning out books since the early 1970s. Much of his writing examines the economic and social fortunes of ethnic groups, both in the United States and around the world....

POLITICS.(Review)
September 1, 1999... Americans' Ties Bind Everett Carll Ladd, The Ladd Report. Free Press, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020. In a celebrated 1995 essay, Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam warned that Americans were far less likely to...

ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS.(Review)
September 1, 1999... More Bang for the Surplus Buck Kevin A. Hassett and R. Glenn Hubbard, The Magic Mountain: A Guide to Using and Defining a Budget Surplus. AEI Press, 1150 17th Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036. Hassett and Hubbard, economists at the...

SOCIETY.(Review)
September 1, 1999... Hiding the Underclass Charles Murray, The Underclass Revisited. AEI Press, 1150 17th Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036. In the 1980s, argues American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray, "the underclass was in our face." Busing...

SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT.(Review)
September 1, 1999... Savage, But Not Noble Robert Whelan, Wild in Woods: The Myth of the Noble Eco-savage. Institute of Economic Affairs Environment Unit, 2 Lord North Street, London SW1P 3LB, England. In his essay "On the Cannibals" (1580), Montaigne was the...

OTHER COUNTRIES.(Review)
September 1, 1999... Russia: Sick and Drunk Nicholas Eberstadt, "Russia: Too Sick to Matter?" in Policy Review (June/July 1999), Heritage Foundation, 214 Massachusetts Avenue N.E., Washington, D.C. 20002. A decade ago, the Soviet Union was a totalitarian...

FATHERHOOD TODAY.
September 1, 1999... Americans are divided about whether the average man is more caring about his family today than in the past and whether fathers play a greater role in their children's lives than 20 or 30 years ago. A large majority agree being a father is more...

THE FAMILY DINNER HOUR.
September 1, 1999... When he announced his run for the presidency, Vice President Gore talked about the "time deficit in family life... dinner tables that sit empty, when working parents do not have the time to share a meal with their children." But recent polling...

RESPONSIBILITY FOR GUN VIOLENCE.
September 1, 1999... Although Americans support a variety of restrictions on guns, they are opposed to holding gun manufacturers responsible for gun violence. Four questions asked by major pollsters in the wake of the Littleton tragedy use different language to...

the Mail.
September 1, 1999... I am shocked by Pat Conroy's article in the July/August TAE ("Better than Georgetown-Oxford-Yale"). Although I have no love for our current President, I do not see any relationship between his behavior (good or bad) and his education at...