Policy Review articles from January 1996

Policy Review archives from January 1996

Hundred-gallon heroes. (blood and plasma donors and other volunteers)
January 1, 1996... Eight million Americans donate blood each year, with the typical donor giving a pint every seven months. But Mike Hitt, an electrician from Katy, Texas, visits the Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center two times a week to donate plasma and platelets...

Bus-jacking the revolution.
January 1, 1996... Long before "devolution" became a Washington buzzword, Indianapolis mayor Stephen Goldsmith turned to private companies to deliver municipal services in Indiana's capital city. He started with trash collection and moved on to waste-water...

Charlotte, the queen of southern banking.
January 1, 1996... In the early 1980s, the Texas banking industry seemed like a sure winner. The oil industry was booming. The state's population was growing rapidly as workers came in search of Sun-Belt prosperity. Major Texas-based manufacturing and retail...

Block (grant) party.
January 1, 1996... What will the states do differently once they have block grants? The short and simple answer: We will put our ideas to work. Once a block-grant system becomes operational, several key areas of public assistance will be set loose from the dead...

Humble Clovis defies the education visigoths. (Clovis Unified School District)
January 1, 1996... In 507 a.d., at Vouille in present day France, the King of the Franks led a band of warriors against the Visigoths, the marauding barbarians who had sacked Rome a century earlier. The king, named Clovis, defeated the Visigoths and broke their...

Japan's parole models.
January 1, 1996... To bring America's crime explosion under control, new prisons and longer sentences will not be enough. Most criminals are eventually released, and most return to a life of crime. In addition to tougher law enforcement, we need to find ways to...

Our foundering fathers. (responsible fathering)(includes related article)
January 1, 1996... Are You a Sperm Dad? Perhaps the most important book written this decade on our greatest social crisis is Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem, by New York intellectual David Blankenhorn. The president of the...

Delta force. (religious community enlisted to reduce welfare dependency)(includes related article)
January 1, 1996... States across the country are trying to reduce welfare costs and attack the system's culture of subsidized family breakdown. They're capping benefits for additional children born into welfare families, booting childless recipients from the rolls,...

Can Congress revive civil society?
January 1, 1996... With responses from Gertrude Himmelfarb, Don Eberly & David Boaz In their 1975 book To Empower People, Richard John Neuhaus and Peter Berger challenged policy makers to protect and foster the "mediating structures" -- neighborhood, family,...

Preserve, protect, and defend: constitutional principles I promise to uphold.
January 1, 1996... The first act of an incoming president is to "solemnly swear (or affirm) " that he will "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."presidency, it is therefore important to examine whether they interpret the Constitution...

Clinton's AmeriCorps values: how the President misunderstands citizenship.
January 1, 1996... The greatest achievement of the Clinton presidency has been to incorporate a message of personal responsibility and citizenship into the rhetoric of the Democratic Party. On the campaign trail in 1992, candidate Bill Clinton stressed "individual...

How Washington subverts your local sheriff. (federal law enforcement)
January 1, 1996... In recent years, two tragic events have fundamentally changed the way many Americans view federal law-enforcement agencies and jeopardized public confidence in the federal government itself. In August 1992, U.S. marshals sought to arrest white...

Virtuous reality: character-building in the information age.
January 1, 1996... The Founding Fathers of this country understood that the survival of our democracy depends on the good character and virtue of the American people. George Washington declared in his Farewell Address that "virtue or morality is a necessary spring...

The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values.
January 1, 1996... The Value of Victorian Virtues The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values by Gertrude Himmelfarb (Knopf) Maybe it's not so bad being a Victorian moralist after all. True, writes Himmelfarb, the Victorians could be...

Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity.
January 1, 1996... The Economics of TrustTrust: The Social Virtues & The Creation of Prosperity by Francis Fukuyama (The Free Press) Fukuyama argues that America's greatness comes from a spirit of individual liberty balanced by ";a rich network of voluntary...

Building a Community of Citizens: Civil Society in the 21st Century.
January 1, 1996... Building Blocks Building a Community of Citizens: Civil Society in the 21st Century Don E. Eberly, ed. (University Press of America) The 23 essays that make up Building a Community of Citizens: Civil Society in the 21st Century explore the...

Loving Your Neighbor: A Principled Guide to Personal Charity.
January 1, 1996... Small is Beautiful Loving Your Neighbor: A Principled Guide to Personal Charity Marvin Olasky, ed. (Capital Research Center) Culled from Philanthropy, Culture and Society, the 12 practical essays in this book illustrate the virtues and pitfalls...

Clara's heart. (Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross)
January 1, 1996... Clara Barton struggled with bureaucratic insensitivity all her life. Her biggest problem was getting official permission to do good. Born Christmas Day, 1821, Barton showed a talent for organizing charity when she established the first free...