Reason articles from April 2002

Reason archives from April 2002

Editor's note.
April 1, 2002... STEPHEN HAWKING, the subject of this month's cover story; "Leaping the Abyss" (page 24), prompts a fascinating and perhaps sordid question: How does such a brilliant mind exist in such a warped and wizened body? By my reckoning, the story's...

Letters.
April 1, 2002... Kill the Messenger Did Nick Gillespie really need to list all the illegal drugs he's used (Editor's Note, January)? I have written to reason before about its apparent conversion into a druggie fan magazine. My breaking point has been...

Child-Free dining: A smoking ban backfires. (Citings).(Manitoba restaurants keep smoke and bar children)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... CHILLY WINNIPEG, Manitoba's metropolis, kicked off its new year with the best of intentions, at least from the viewpoint of smoke prohibitionists. In an effort to separate children from ambient smoke, the Canadian city banned smoking, beginning...

25 years ago in reason. (Citings).
April 1, 2002... "Sometimes you can't believe that we live in the same country with some perverts--but the headlines scream at you: 'Hustler Magazine Chief Gets Prison Term.'...The perverts in this case are the honorable members of the Ohio Legislature." ...

Cyber-Trespassing: Actionable e-mail. (Citings).(disgruntled former Intel Corp. employee sends mass e-mail to former co-workers; censured by courts)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... SENDING UNWELCOME e-mail can now be considered trespassing, according to a December ruling by a California court. The case grew out of a squabble between Kourosh Kenneth Hamidi and Intel Corp., which fired him after a workman's compensation...

Corrupt CDs: Locking up music. (Citings).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... IF YOU'RE HOPING to rev up More Music from The Fast and the Furious while you drive, you may be in for a disappointment--even if you like the music. The compact disc features a copy protection system aimed at preventing fans from turning its...

Slow learners: Union financial capers. (Citings).(Washington Education Association )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... IN DECEMBER A Washington state Superior Court judge schooled the Washington Education Association (WEA), the state's largest teachers union, on the nuances of labor law, handing it a $770,000 bill for the lesson. The union, a potent force...

Fake IDs: No face time. (Citings).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... FACIAL RECOGNITION technology is often billed as a tradeoff between privacy and security. A recent American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) report suggests that it's closer to a no-win deal, resulting in less privacy and precious little added...

Pot stops: British drug reform. (Citings).(proposal to make marijuana "Class C" drug)(Abstract)
April 1, 2002... ACCORDING TO FBI figures released last fall, American police arrested more than 734,000 people for marijuana violations in 2000-a new record. About nine out of 10 arrests were for possession, and the other category, sale/manufacture, included...

Lawmaker Dorothy Pelote. (Brickbats).(introduces bill banning people from answering the door nude)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Steamy Georgia afternoons apparently have taken their toll on Southern gentility. Lawmaker Dorothy Pelote has introduced a bill in the state House of Representatives to ban people from answering the door in the nude. Currently, "the law allows...

A Chinese court. (Brickbats).(Li Guang-qiang sentenced)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... A Chinese court has charged Hong Kong trader Li Guang-qiang with using "an evil cult to damage a law-based society." He will spend two years in prison for his crime: bringing Bibles into mainland China.

Cocaine seized in drug raids. (Brickbats).(finely crushed Sheetrock)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Lab tests show that almost half of all purported cocaine seized in drug raids by Dallas police in 2001 was actually finely crushed Sheetrock. The same goes for almost one-fourth of all methamphetamine seized. Unfortunately, some of the...

European Union's Customs Code Committee. (Brickbats).(vegetable tariffs)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Here's a zen riddle: How lumpy must a sauce be before it can be called a vegetable? That's the stumper facing the European Union's Customs Code Committee. The E.U.'s current "lump limit" is 20 percent, designed to nab importers who avoid higher...

Want to golf in Germany? (Brickbats).(licenses golfers)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Want to golf in Germany? Start studying now. Germany is the only country in the world that licenses golfers. To qualify, potential golfers must pass a written test on the rules and etiquette of the game. And they must be able to play 18 holes...

Tougher gun-control laws. (Brickbats).(British murders increase)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Since the British passed tougher gun-control laws in 1997, the murder rate for victims killed with guns has soared, and police officials say the number of illegal handguns grows daily. How have the nation's conservatives reacted? Oliver Letwin,...

Genesee county. (Brickbats).(Michigan Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence)(flier to firearms owners)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Residents who qualified for concealed weapons permits in Genesee County, Michigan, got a little something extra. Along with the notice to pick up their permits, many applicants also received fliers from the Michigan Partnership to Prevent Gun...

A Swedish anti-E.U. (Brickbats).(European Union)(poster hanging crime)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... A Swedish anti-E.U. activist hanging posters in Belgium was surprised when police told him the act was a crime in the kingdom -- "disturbing the peace." But he was shocked when the authorities banned him for two weeks from Belgium and 13 other...

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. (Sources).(tracks law enforcement operations)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Curious about how federal law enforcement agencies spend their time and our money? The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (www.trac.syr.edu) supplies the goods. The group tracks day-to-day operations at the FBI, the IRS, the Immigration...

Balance sheet.
April 1, 2002... Dressed to Kill The Pentagon reverses a policy that forced women on duty in Saudi Arabia to don native dress. Still in place: restrictions on leaving the base without a male escort, driving a vehicle, or even riding in the front seat. ...

Big talkers. (Data).(Dept. of Justice hypes terrorism to justify budget)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Post-September 11, it seems strange that terrorist threats once needed to be hyped. But that's exactly what the Department of justice did to help justify its $22 billion budget, according to a Miami Herald investigation. In its 2000 annual...

Skin Show: Indecency in Utah. (Citings).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... UTAH'S PORN CZARINA, Paula Houston, says her most important job is to educate. This legislative session she's teaching the legislature that its 12-year-old indecent public display law is unconstitutionally strict. "I realized that you...

Stale Granola: Laissez-forget it. (Citings).(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
April 1, 2002... CORPORATIONS DON'T get much more civic street cred than the Whole Foods grocery chain. Even ultra-hip, ultra-socially aware rocker Ani DiFranco has been spotted wandering its aisles. The company, founded two decades ago in Austin, Texas,...

Dissent via satellite. (Soundbite).(Zia Atabay of National Iranian Television)(Brief Article)(Interview)
April 1, 2002... Before the revolution of 1979, Zia Atabay was a successful pop singer in Iran. Now 60, he presides over National Iranian Television (NITV), a two-year-old, Los Angeles-based satellite TV station that broadcasts cultural and political...

Political returns: Washington wants to manage your 401(k) account. (Columns).
April 1, 2002... ENRON OFFICIALLY BECAME the winter's leading media circus when Jesse Jackson, the nation's pre-eminent itinerant clown, arrived to pray with Enron's fallen CEO, Kenneth Lay, and to rally former employees. The Enron show could have been...

Sound judgment: Does curing deafness really mean cultural genocide? (Columns).
April 1, 2002... EVEN THE LEAST reactionary among us may sometimes agree that the celebration of difference and pluralism has brought modern Western culture to the brink of lunacy. One such occasion was the recent broadcast on public television of a...

Back to Bedrock: George W. Bush vs. Fred Flintstone. (Rant).(Brief Article)(Editorial)
April 1, 2002... WHOSE MIND DIDN'T get to wandering during George W. Bush's second State of the Union address, the "great speech" (as many commentators dubbed it minutes after its finish) that has already become a vague, did-it-really-happen TV event, the...

Leaping the Abyss: Stephen Hawking on black holes, unified field theory, and Marilyn Monroe.(Interview)
April 1, 2002... STEPHEN HAWKING SEEMED slightly worse, as always. It is a miracle that he has clung to life for over 20 years with Lou Gehrig's disease. Each time I see him I feel that this will be the last, that he cannot hold on to such a thin thread for...

Finance on the Fringe: America's check cashers don't exploit the poor; they serve them.
April 1, 2002... THAT ANNA HAS a problem becomes clear shortly after I sidle up next to her on the cold stone steps of the First Union Bank in downtown New Haven on a chilly fall afternoon. In fact, the 56-year-old woman has many problems--including, she's...

Asthma attack: When "zero tolerance" collides with children's health.
April 1, 2002... "If a student placed a plastic bag over a teacher's head for a brief moment, the student would be charged with assault. But a school board voting to restrict a child's access to his life-saving asthma medication is no less guilty of a crime. Is...

Legal loan sharking or essential service? The great "payday loan" controversy.
April 1, 2002... FEW THINGS FIRE up professional consumer advocates as quickly as a whisper of "payday lending." "Payday loans are a transfer of wealth from the poor and the poor-risk to the predatory and the powerful," says Jean Ann Fox, director of...

Empire Burlesque: The profoundly silly book that has set the academic left aflutter. (Culture and Reviews).(Empire)
April 1, 2002... Empire, by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 478 pages, $36.95/$18.95 paper EMPIRE WAS THE academic press success story of last year. First published in March 2000 (the paperback appeared in August...

Bloviation Nation: Why are we so ashamed that pundits rule? (Culture and Reviews).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... When Nielsen Media Research announced recently that the Fox News Channel had topped rivals CNN and MSNBC in monthly ratings, the news was greeted as the gravest blow to leftist media bias since Bernard Goldberg's imaginatively titled book Bias...

Torturing History: A military historian abuses the past. (Culture and Reviews).(Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power)
April 1, 2002... Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power, by Victor Davis Hanson, New York: Doubleday, 320 pages, $29.95 YOU'RE IN A crowded room, watching someone rail about some issue of politics or culture. He's loud, sloppy...

America's Black History: Reconciling patriotism with slavery's legacy. (Culture and Reviews).(Jefferson's Pillow: The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism)
April 1, 2002... Jefferson's Pillow: The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism, by Roger Wilkins, Boston: Beacon Press, 163 pages, $23 WHEN PRESIDENT CLINTON called for a national dialogue on race in 1997, he probably imagined a conversation...

Rose-Colored Glasses: What even disillusioned Marxists missed. (Culture and Reviews).(The God That Failed)
April 1, 2002... FEW ANTI-COMMUNIST works have had more influence or a longer shelf life than The God That Failed (1950), edited by Richard Grossman, a leftwing Labour member of the British Parliament. Its essays of political disillusionment by eminent...

Behind the drip. (Artifact).(art historian studies Jackson Pollock's "drip technique" for regualr patterns)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... DO JACKSON POLLOCK'S notorious post-war "drip" canvases--above is a detail from his famous Number 22--actually contain a bidden mathematical pattern? According to a story in Discover magazine, the physicist and art historian Richard Taylor is...

Globalization versus imperialim.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Globalization, some say, is a form of imperialism. Along with the supposed invasiveness of American culture--via Hollywood movies, McDonald hamburgers, and Coca Cola products--globalization is seen by some as the equivalent of international...