Reason articles from August 2003

Reason archives from August 2003

Uncertain futures. (Editor's Note).(Editorial)
August 1, 2003... MOST PEOPLE I'VE asked can't remember the first time they had to show a picture ID in order to get on a domestic flight. I can't even be certain of my own first time, although I definitely remember doing so in June 1995, when my family and I...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
August 1, 2003... Pulling Our Own Strings Philosopher Daniel Dennett's analysis of free will and determinism is fatally flawed ("Pulling Our Own Strings," May). Based on his reasoning in Ronald Bailey's interview, "avoidance" is an illusion when the onion...

Albino blues: the Winter of copyright discontent. (Citings).
August 1, 2003... "COME ON AND take a free ride," Edgar Winter urged us all in 1972. But when DC comics took the Texas rock legend at his word he sued. A 1995 issue of the comic book Jonab Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such uses the image of Edgar and his...

Rape behind bars: cell block sexual abuse. (Citings).
August 1, 2003... PRISON RAPE OCCUPIES a peculiar place in the penal system. Some institutions try to fight it, while others make few such efforts, At times, it's discussed as though it's an unofficial part of the system: one last incentive to obey the law, in...

Warrantless tracking: eyes in the sky. (Citing).
August 1, 2003... CAN COPS PUT aglobal-positioning-sateilite tracker on your car without a warrant? That question will soon be decided by Washington state's Supreme Court. Strangely, in the case in question, the police did have a warrant. Accused murderer...

Bad ad: peanuts, candy, heroin. (Citing).(Office of National Drug Control Policy)
August 1, 2003... THE OFFICE of National Drug Control Policy (ONDOP) once occupied itself with protecting Americans from the total ruin that follows inexorably from that first puff on a joint. Its new mission is apparently to protect us (and, coincidentally, its...

The morning after: pharmacies and medical freedom. (Citing).
August 1, 2003... MAKERS OF PLAN B, one of the two brands of "morning after" pills-high-dose birth control pills that are only effective within 72 hours of unprotected sex-are planning to petition the FDA for over-the-counter status. Such a move would make the...

Reporters sans entree: Dept. of Homeland Scrutiny. (Citing).(Department of Homeland Security)
August 1, 2003... WHEN THE FEDERAL government disbanded the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) on March I, few of the millions who had braved its byzantine ways lamented the bureaucracy's passing. But now that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)...

Channel change: more TV for kids. (Citing).
August 1, 2003... WE'RE WELL ACQUAINTED with perennial complaints that children are hooked too tightly to the boob tube. Now an Oakland-based group called Children Now (www.childrennow.org) is arguing that children don't have enough opportunity to watch TV, due...

25 years ago in reason.
August 1, 2003... "Egyptian President Anwar Sadat has new powers to protect Egypt from the Red Menace. Adherents of 'any ideology incompatible with religion' (how coy!) are barred from the press and other areas, and journalists are required to support 'socialist...

British police. (Brickbats).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... When British police told Mark Smith where to pick up his stolen Ford Focus, they left out one little detail. The vehicle was still in the possession of the gang that stole it.

James Robertson. (Brickbats).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... During an argument, James Robertson threatened a fellow city worker with an ax. For that, Robertson--who had previously served 13 years for kicking a man to death--was given five years in prison. As you might expect, he was also fired by the...

Florida school. (Brickbats).
August 1, 2003... When Kyle Fredrikson, 12, stomped in a puddle and splashed classmates and school officials, he thought it was a just a prank. But the resource officer at his Florida school saw it differently. Deputy Tim Langer cuffed the sixth grader and...

New Yorker's cell phone bill. (Brickbats).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... Since 1991 New York state has collected at least $200 million from a surcharge added to every New Yorker's cell phone bill. The money is earmarked for installing a service that uses GPS technology to trace the location of 911 callers on their...

Peter Tsimortos. (Brickbats).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... Peter Tsimortos's house has stood on a mountain outside Dover, Vermont, for 15 years. But the state only learned two years ago that he never got the permit required to build a house above 2,500 feet. So did it impose a big fine? No: It's...

New Zealand's Ministry of Health. (Brickbats).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... To battle obesity, New Zealand's Ministry of Health is thinking of banning minors from eating high-calorie fast food and hamburgers. Some officials want to add soft drinks, sweets, and chocolate to the list of forbidden foods. Officials are...

World Health Organization. (Brickbats).(ignorance of Mel Lastman, mayor of Toronto)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... Toronto residents are buzzing about Mayor Mel Lastman's recent appearance on CNN to discuss that city's problems with SARS. Lastman said he had not heard of the World Health Organization, didn't really seem to know how many SARS cases Toronto...

Balance sheet.
August 1, 2003... Packet Catcher Sprint is the first phone company to switch its local phone traffic to an Internet-like packet-switched network. Although the upgrade will take years to finish, it could be the start of a real 21st-century phone network. ...

Government performance anxiety. (Data).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently attempted to find out whether federal government programs actually do what they're supposed to do. The OMB so far has assessed about 230 programs, asking questions such as "Does the program...

Joystick engineers. (Sountbite).(Paul Gee)(Interview)
August 1, 2003... First-person-shooter video games have taken the rap for every cuckoo violent teenager who makes the news. Now games Like Doom are finally getting some good press: They improve visual attention skills by 30 percent or more, according to a study...

Anything but the Ombudsman! Why newspapers should avoid in-house watchdogs.
August 1, 2003... THE New York Times scandals have been a godsend to people who enjoy arguing about the media. Is the push for newsroom diversity obscuring good judgment? Do dateline policies and stringer-crediting rules pass the smell test? Should editors think...

Tammy Bruce's journey: the politics have changed, but the style remains the same. (Columns).
August 1, 2003... WHEN TAMMY BRUCE, then president of the National Organization for Women's Los Angeles chapter, dashed with the national leadership of NOW over the O.J. Simpson murder case in 1995, it was a thrilling spectacle of two leftist ideologies...

Account balance: can the government really ensure "corporate accountability"?
August 1, 2003... WHATEVER HAPPENED TO responsibility? These big corporations pollute our environment endanger our citizens, trade sensitive information about law-abiding Americans, lie about profits, and screw shareholders. And do any of them pay a price? Heck...

Suspected terrorist: multimillionaire John Gilmore is suing the government to remain anonymous. Is this the last stand for privacy?
August 1, 2003... IT'S JANUARY, AND I'm entering the federal court-house in San Francisco to attend the opening hearing in the case of Gilmore v. Asheroft, et al. John Gilmore, a computer industry multimillionaire and libertarian activist, is suing the federal...

Something's in the air: liberties in the face of SARS and other infectious diseases.(Singapore)
August 1, 2003... VISITING SINGAPORE IS a little like flying into some twisted Father Knows Best time warp. Lining the streets next to such familiar stores as Reebok, Esprit, and Timberland are government ministries with names like "Board of Film Censors," along...

Havana hustle: Cuba's new socialist man learns to wheel and deal.
August 1, 2003... I MET PABLO IN December at a rooftop bar offering cheap cocktails, lives salsa, and an expansive view of Havana Harbor. Pablo--his name and the names of other Cubans in this story have been changed to protect them from punishment--was 28 years...

Forcing freedom: can liberalism be spread at gunpoint?(libertariansim)
August 1, 2003... EARLIER THIS YEAR, Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey published a short, provocative column at reason online that sketched the outlines of what he considered a properly libertarian foreign policy. Based on the large and heated response--pro...

Really creative destruction: economist Tyler Cowen argues for the cultural benefits of globalization. (Culture and Reviews).(Interview)
August 1, 2003... WHAT ARE WE to make of the fact that Saddam Hussein selected Frank Sinatra's version of "My Way" as the theme song for his 54th birthday? Cultural pessimists and critics of globalization would tend to view such a curious choice with alarm...

Is big bad? SUV critics hold consumers in contempt.(High and Mighty: SUVs: The World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way)(Book Review)
August 1, 2003... High and Mighty: SUVs: The World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way, by Keith Bradsher, New York: PublicAffairs, 468 pages, $28 TALK ABOUT STUPIDITY! What kind of idiot would pay thousands of dollars extra for a poorly...

To cheers of totalitarian art: some of it's good, and the rest is ripe for mocking.
August 1, 2003... The propaganda art of totalitarian countries falls into three rough categories. At the lowest level, there are the ubiquitous portraits of the Beloved Leader--Stalin, Mao, Kim II sung--that come bundled with a personality cult. A small step up...

Journalism's identity crisis: what is the news for?(Democracy and the News)(Book Review)
August 1, 2003... Democracy and the News, by Herbert F. Gans, New rork: Oxford University Press, 240 pages, $26 WHAT KIND OF news do we need for democracy to flourish? This question bedeviled journalists and scholars throughout the 20th century, and now it...

Why buffy kicked ass: the deep meaning of TV's favorite vampire slayer.(Buffy, the Vampire Slayer)
August 1, 2003... WHEN Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered on the WB Network in 1996, American culture was in trouble. Americans were bowling alone, pursuing individual interests to the detriment of the communal good. Business leaders were celebrating creativity...

Vase deferens. (Artifact).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... HERE'S THE 5,000-year-old Warka Vase; it was missing from Iraq's National Museum when Baghdad fell, but was returned injune by three men who had it in the trunk of their car. According to Denise Schmandt-Besserat (the scholar who determined...

Democracy as a new international norm?
August 1, 2003... Critics of the American-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq cited the violation of state sovereignty as their chief concern. Invoking the United Nations Charter, opponents of these wars warned that American violation of Afghan and Iraqi...