The American Enterprise articles from September 2004

The American Enterprise archives from September 2004

How to make an American.(Birds's Eye)
September 1, 2004... Browsing through my grandmother's citizenship textbook from the 1930s one day, I found Lesson 61 on the Americanization policies of Theodore Roosevelt: [Roosevelt] loved America above all else and his last public message was a plea...

Sidelights.
September 1, 2004... The week of Ronald Reagan's death, more than 11,000 items of Reagan memorabilia went for sale on eBay.... Reagan was the tenth President to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. * Just 9 percent of Americans believe Bill Clinton will be...

Want an Al-Qaeda job? Apply now--with references, please.(Scan)
September 1, 2004... An al-Qaeda application form? It sounds like a skit from Saturday Night Live, but it's all too true. In the wake of the fall of the Taliban, the FBI recovered thousands of documents from al-Qaeda strong-holds in Afghanistan, a good number of...

Something that didn't make the news.(Scan)
September 1, 2004... Maybe you'd like to hear about something other than idiot Reservists and naked Iraqis. Maybe you'd like to hear about a soldier who honored the uniform he wears. Meet Brian Chontosh. Upstate New York boy. Proud graduate of the Rochester...

Cities need religion.(Scan)
September 1, 2004... Los Angeles County's recent decision to remove a tiny cross from its seal has inspired enormous protest, one that seems likely to embroil the county in a storm of lawsuits and possibly lead to a divisive ballot measure during the next few...

Reagan gaining currency.(Scan)(Ronald Reagan)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... The idea of memorializing former President Ronald Reagan on American currency has much merit. However, the specific proposal championed by Grover Norquist and Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell to replace Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill does...

Government protection: heaven help us.(Scan)
September 1, 2004... While ordinary citizens and their elected representatives are thinking about immediate issues like the war against terror, federal judges are concerning themselves with the future. The long-term future. In July, a three judge panel of the...

Teresa Heinz Kerry's philanthropy.(Scan)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... Americans know the nation's would-be First Lady, Teresa Heinz Kerry, as an heir to her late husband's fortune. Between 1995 and 2001, the Howard Heinz Endowment gave nearly $5 million to the Tides Foundation. Here's a look at a few of the...

Abuse, torture, and videotape.(Scan)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... When the Abu Ghraib prison scandal became big news in May, several prominent Democratic politicians claimed that the abuse inflicted by American soldiers was on the same scale as that dished out by Saddam Hussein and his thugs. Senator Ted...

No-character Kerry.(Scan)(John Kerry)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... Democratic candidate John Kerry turned heads on July 4 while speaking with the Dubuque Telegraph Herald in Iowa. He said, "I oppose abortion personally. I don't like abortion. I believe life begins at conception. But I can't take my Catholic...

India: poised for greatness.(Scan)
September 1, 2004... Let's imagine two developing countries: Country "A" has spent the last two decades abandoning socialist autarky, embracing the free market, and dramatically reducing poverty. It appears poised to double its middle class over the next ten years...

Moore's law.(Scan)(Michael Moore)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... "If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under...

E.U. economy behind the U.S.(Indicators)(European Union)(Brief Article)(Illustration)
September 1, 2004... A new report from the Swedish research institute Timbro begins with the question: "If the European Union were a part of the United States of America, would it belong to the richest or the poorest group of states?" The study then reveals that...

The standard-of-living gap.(Indicators)(Brief Article)(Illustration)
September 1, 2004... The gap between Europeans and Americans grows wider still when one considers individual consumption and standards of living, rather than just economic output. Thanks to lower taxes and cheaper consumer goods in the U.S., Americans can buy more...

Tax burdens.(Indicators)(Brief Article)(Illustration)
September 1, 2004... To finance their large welfare states, Europeans pay much higher taxes than Americans. The European countries that are now performing best economically, however (Ireland, Spain, Great Britain), are those with tax rates closer to which prevail...

Comparing locales.(Indicators)(Brief Article)(Illustration)
September 1, 2004... Even relatively low income American states are better off than the European average. Only one European country, tiny Luxembourg, has a per capita GDP that would sit in the ranks of the top U.S. states. Germany, on the other hand, is poorer than...

Thomas Sowell: not many academics win fame for being both a scholarly theorizer and a popular writer. This prolific researcher has done so, in the process pioneering a niche once thought to be an oxymoron: the black conservative thinker.("Live" with TAE)(Interview)
September 1, 2004... A senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, economist Thomas Sowell has written extensively on race, culture, and economics. While most economists focus on rational man, Sowell has shown a particular interest in irrational...

One nation, out of many: why "Americanization" of newcomers is still important.
September 1, 2004... America's core culture has primarily been the culture of the seventeenth and eighteenth century settlers who founded our nation. The central elements of that culture are the Christian religion; Protestant values, including individualism, the...

The festering problem of Indian "sovereignty": the Supreme Court ducks. Congress sleeps. Indians rule.
September 1, 2004... Foxwoods, the King Kong of casinos, was brought to Connecticut with dreams of untold riches. Now, locals are trying to kill the beast. Foxwoods and its sister institution, Mohegan Sun, (the world's two most profitable casinos), pay host state...

So what's happening in the rest of the Middle East? A survey of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and Libya.
September 1, 2004... Saudi Arabia A Successful Anomaly (So Far) by Hume Horan Of all the strange forms of nationhood that fill the world today, none stands out like Saudi Arabia. It is the only country named after a family--the Sauds, who have ruled...

Fact or fable? Digging up the truth in the evolution debate.
September 1, 2004... I write as neither a creationist nor a Darwinist, but as one who knows what is probably the most disreputable scientific secret of the past century: There is no plausible scientific theory of the origin of species! Darwin himself was not sure...

Life with father.(In real life: first-person America)
September 1, 2004... My father never tossed a softball with me. He never took me hiking. He never taught me how to start a campfire. Thank goodness. Had he been the type of person to do those things, he wouldn't have been the exceptional force in my life...

The prophet who ran for president.(Flashback)
September 1, 2004... Q: Who was the first U.S. Presidential candidate to be assassinated? The folks in the best position to win this toughest of all bar bets are, alas, usually absent from the bar. They are the Mormons, and the answer to this question is none other...

The God-fearing media.(Beat the Press)
September 1, 2004... "Do most Americans realize just how fervent the President's evangelical faith is?" So asks the New York Times' Alessandra Stanley, in her review of the PBS "Frontline" documentary, "The Jesus Factor," which examines the role of faith in...

Who's pulling the strings?(Now Playing)
September 1, 2004... Forget rocking the vote. The movies, not MTV, may have normally disinterested voters going to the polls this November. On the heels of such issue-minded summer fare as The Day After Tomorrow and Fahrenheit 9/11 comes nothing less than a...

Sex, religion, and AIDS.(Forward Observer)
September 1, 2004... You would think the country that contributes twice as much money to fight AIDS globally as the rest of the world combined, and whose drug companies developed the medicines that stopped the progression of HIV, would get a little applause, or at...

Tribune of the trial lawyers.(Politico)
September 1, 2004... On June 28, the United States transferred power from the occupying coalition to the Iraqi provisional government led by Iyad Allawi. A little more than a week later, John Kerry's selection of North Carolina senator John Edwards as his...

Doctoring the data.(the Health Care Economist)
September 1, 2004... The national debate over health care is so polarized that many people don't seem to care about the facts any more. An article in the prestigious journal Health Affairs comparing the quality of health care in the U.S. and four other...

Real business, real small.(Enterprising: business as an act of creation)(microfinance institution )
September 1, 2004... The concept of giving very small loans to the poorest of the poor to help them establish businesses first emerged some 30 years ago. Since then, "microfinance" programs around the world have exploded. And they have proven very successful and...

Here come the grooms?(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America By Jonathan Rauch Times Books, 224 pages, $22 If homosexual marriage is ever democratically (as opposed to judicially) legislated, it will be because of the...

Terror at sea.(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... The Outlaw Sea: A World of Freedom, Chaos, and Crime By William Langewiesche North Point Press, 256 pages, $23 Shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Italian maritime authorities stumbled upon a suspicious stowaway holed up in the bowels...

Knowing McCarthy, hating him.(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Eugene McCarthy: The Rise and Fall of Postwar American Liberalism By Dominic Sandbrook Alfred A. Knopf, 416 pages, $25.95 Eugene McCarthy's place in history is secure because of his 1968 Presidential campaign, which led Lyndon Johnson to...

Atari democrat.(Politics)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Atari Democrat John Kerry, "Technology Plan to Create Jobs and Empower Americans to Lead in the 21st Century," John Kerry for President (johnkerry.com) During his 1992 Presidential campaign, Bill Clinton gained the support of technology...

Tax troubles ahead.(Economics And Regulation)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Tax Troubles Ahead William Gale and Brennan Kelly, "The 'No New Taxes' Pledge," Brookings Institution and Tax Policy Center, June 4, 2004 (brookings.org) As of the middle of 2004, 258 members of Congress (slightly less than a majority) and...

Why college costs so much.(Culture And Society)
September 1, 2004... Why College Costs So Much Richard Vedder, Going Broke by Degree, AEI Press, June 2004 (aei.org) For years, college costs have risen seemingly without end. Despite large increases in government aid to colleges, many families find the bills...

A new look at national security.(National Security)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... A New Look at National Security Thomas Donnelly, "Mind the Gap," AEI National Security Outlook, June 2004 (aei.org) The gap between America's military objectives and its ability to carry out those objectives is large and growing, according...

A homeland mess.(National Security)
September 1, 2004... A Homeland Mess Eli Lehrer,"The Homeland Security Bureaucracy," The Public Interest, Summer 2004 (thepublicinterest.com) In a preliminary assessment, TAE associate editor Eli Lehrer finds that the Department of Homeland Security's agencies...

A missing particle.(Science And Environment)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... A Missing Particle "DO" Collaboration, "A Precision Measurement of the Mass of the Top Quark," Nature, June 10, 2004 (nature.com) Since the 1960s, physicists have followed the standard model of particle physics, in which the smallest units...

China's hard landing.(Other Countries)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... China's Hard Landing John Makin, "The Unplannable Planned Economy," AEI Economic Outlook, June 2004 (aei.org) China, AEI scholar John Makin contends, has become too dynamic to operate as a planned economy.... But it hasn't even seriously...

A closely divided electorate.(Opinion Pulse)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... When the Gallup Organization combined more than 40,000 interviews conducted in 2003, the pollsters found the country equally divided between Republicans and Democrats, 45.5 to 45.2 percent. Harris Interactive's decade-by-decade analysis of...

Education: the discipline problem.(Opinion Pulse)(Illustration)
September 1, 2004... Discipline in the schools has been a concern since the pollsters started asking about it more than half a century ago. Today, however, the problem is different. Fifty-two percent of teachers say their school has an armed guard. Seventy-eight...

Religion and politics.(Opinion Pulse)
September 1, 2004... Sixty percent of Americans say that religion is very important in their lives. Less than half would vote for a qualified atheist for President. Forty-seven percent describe George W. Bush as a man of strong religious faith. Seven percent give...

The mail.(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2004... What a great piece by Howard Blake about the Evil Rich Business People ("Confessions of a 'Rich' Businessman," July/August). As one of the ERBP myself, I appreciated hearing the same story from others of my kind. I was reviewing finances for...

Last gasp.
September 1, 2004... "When you say I mean the world to you, which part of the world are you talking about?" [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "You promised your mother you'd be a mogul by now." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]