Reason articles from January 2002

Reason archives from January 2002

Editor's Note.
January 1, 2002... IF THE TOPIC is illegal drugs, then a little candor is in order: I first smoked dope late one spring afternoon in the seventh grade, on a shady corner of the playground behind good old St. Mary's grammar school in New Monmouth, New Jersey....

Letters.
January 1, 2002... School's Out I just read Daniel H. Pink's article on individualized education: very well done ("School's Out," October). As an "unschooling" mom, I found quite useful his analogy of unschooling to free agency. Both come from a love and...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
January 1, 2002... Robert C. Bonner's name was inadvertently truncated in Jacob Sullum's "Drugs and Thugs" (December). We regret the error.

Delicious Irony: Foot-shooting philanthropy. (Citings).(Capital Research Center finds large corporations often give money to social movements working against them)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... WHY IN THE world would an enormous multinational corporation give millions of dollars to pesky anti-globalization groups? It's all about the ice cream. On October 16, Britain's Financial Times ran an almost humorous piece on how consumer...

Erogenous Zones: Uninhibited Web porn. (Citing).(Voyeurdorm.com; sex site's court battle to stay open)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... IN SEPTEMBER, STAY-at-home strippers won a two-year battle to let 30 webcams at voyeur dorm.com keep recording every move they make. The Web site is not actually a dorm of coeds, but a fully wired house in Tampa's Wellswood neighborhood. For a...

30 years ago. (Citings).
January 1, 2002... "It was some time before I realized what was so sorely missing in Russian cities; but when I flew into Moscow at night, and in all that vast city the one thing most conspicuous from the air was the large red star in Red Square, it came home to...

Tasty Animals: Intellectual property rules. (Citings).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... DON'T MOCK ANIMAL rights activists--they might take you to court. Michael Doughney found that out when he borrowed the acronym of the world's most prominent animal rights group to create www.peta.org, the People Eating Tasty Animals site--"a...

Free Money: Currency across borders. (Citings).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... FRENCH PRIME MINISTER Lionel Jospin, a likely presidential candidate in his country's 2002 elections, has thrown his support behind a plan to tax all currency speculation transfers originating in Europe. In August, Jospin told a group of young...

Sources. (Citings).(websites promoting freedom of information)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... With mainstream media focused on today's more corporeal threats--exploding bombs, anthrax scares, the economy--online town criers have highlighted less tangible dangers, such as infringement of Constitutional rights. Three impromptu Web...

Plate Debate: Political motorists. (Citings).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... "SINCE WHEN HAS protecting, honoring, and celebrating a freedom that we have become a controversial statement?" asks Florida state Rep. Ken Littlefield, a Republican. He's introduced a bill to add a license plate for gun lovers to the...

Sue the Reviewer: Cyber complainers. (Citings).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... IF YOU'RE GOING to Fullerton Community College, you might not want to take Biology 101 from Prof. Beta Meyer--word has it she's "always late, and never prepared. Plays favorites." Or so it says on whototake.com a Web site that allows students...

Staying Well: No insurance, no health care? (Citings).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... IT'S LONG BEEN assumed that the 44.2 million Americans who don't have health insurance aren't getting health care. A recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research casts doubt on this correlation, at least among those who are...

Seeds of Discord: Sowing bemp hysteria. (Citings).(hemp laws, United States)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... IT TURNS OUT that the hand cream you bought at The Body Shop last year was a controlled substance. But it's not anymore. Probably. This is the upshot of two rules the Drug Enforcement Administration unveiled in October. The first announced...

"Arabian Soldier". (Brickbats).(Colorado Free University catalog)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... The cover of Colorado Free University's latest course catalog pictures a Japanese swordsman in traditional uniform wielding a large sword. The picture, submitted by a teacher of japanese fencing and martial arts, has caused a stir. Many local...

Maryland, Police paid Informers. (Brickbats).(Montgomery, Maryland/caging prostitutes)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... In Montgomery County, Maryland, police paid informers to hire prostitutes for sex during investigations. The men went into massage parlors, had sex, and then reported their activities. The police then raided the parlors, arresting the women...

Immigration and Naturalization Service. (Brickbats).(lost weapons, United States)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... A national audit of the Immigration and Naturalization Service found that 61,000 items worth nearly $70 million were missing. Among the lost items were 539 weapons, including a gas-grenade launcher and 39 machine guns. Six missing guns were...

Unzips. (Brickbats).(humor consultants in Ohio)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Since 1998, 12 Ohio state agencies have paid a total of $50,986 to a humor consultant. The man charges up to $2,000 an hour and unzips his pants in public. His job is to reduce stress among state workers. He does this by cajoling them into...

Charles Schrader of Inverness. (Brickbats).(Wiccan prayers at school board meeting wins an ouster)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... For months, Charles Schrader of Inverness, Florida, had been complaining about the local school board opening its meetings with Christian prayers. Finally, Schrader, a Wiccan, started saying his own prayers out loud during the invocations....

Jefferson Middle School in Fort Wayne. (Brickbats).(Indiana, colonial minute man mural painted over to remove musket)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... In these troubled times, some say children need to be shielded from scenes of violence. So Michael Morris, principal of Jefferson Middle School in Fort Wayne, Indiana, had a mural of the school's mascot, a colonial minuteman, painted over to...

Gov. Samak Sundaravej. (Brickbats).(curses crooked police, Thailand)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... In Bangkok, police officers are notorious for extorting money from street vendors. Gov. Samak Sundaravej is trying to crackdown on the practice. Having had little success through political methods, he has now placed a curse on all the crooked...

The Gininderra Christian Church. (Brickbats).(Satanism scare and Harry Potter books)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... The Gininderra Christian Church in Canberra recently passed out a leaflet to members warning of the perils of Harry Potter books. The tract, purporting to show how the books seduce readers into Satanism, was largely plagiarized from the...

Balance Sheet.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
January 1, 2002... Herbal Remedy Britain will no longer arrest citizens for possessing pot. The drug is now in the same category as anti-depressants and steroids. Penalties for selling pot will also be reduced. Officials say they will focus more on heroin...

Army of More Than One. (Data).(Marine Corps service inquiries up, United States)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... After the September 11 attacks, rocker-actress Courtney Love inquired about joining the Marines, according to The New York Observer. She wasn't alone. U.S. military officials report a doubling of recruiting contacts since September 11,...

Beneficial Bankruptcy. (Soundbite).(Debt's Dominion)
January 1, 2002... As U.S. businesses struggle to rebuild after the tragic events of September 11, Washington, D.C., is auditioning for the role of economic savior. So far, Congress has responded by giving the airline industry, which was acutely and immediately...

Hear Dick Talk, Occasionally: Why Cheney is the Bush administration's best propagandist. (Columns).
January 1, 2002... ONE UNUSUAL ASPECT of the war on terrorism is that its most effective propaganda--on both sides--has come from elusive leaders holed up in secret locations. They surface just long enough to let everyone know they are still alive, still fuming,...

The Feminist West: Acute schizophrenia, left and right. (Columns).
January 1, 2002... WITH ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISTS making war on the West, the left's schizoid relationship to feminism and multiculturalism has come into full view. If one regards respect for women's rights as good, it's very difficult to maintain the notion that...

Trivial Pursuits: In defense of the unnamable '90s.(Abstract)
January 1, 2002... AS THE 1990S RECEDE further into history and seeming irrelevance to our terrifying new world of suicide bombers, anthrax scares, flat-lining stocks, and comebacks by Michael Jackson and Garth Brooks, perhaps the oddest thing about the past...

Sex, Drugs & Techno Music: Why the rap against Ecstasy has a familiar ring to it.
January 1, 2002... LAST SPRING, THE Chicago City Council decided "to crack down on wild rave parties that lure youngsters into environments loaded with dangerous club drugs, underage drinking and sometimes predatory sexual behavior," as the Chicago Tribune put...

Battlefield Conversions: reason talks with three ex-warriors who now fight against the War on Drugs.(Interview)(Statistical Data Included)
January 1, 2002... Interviewed by Michael W. Lynch Like any war, the War on Drugs has its good soldiers--a varied bunch, coming from all walks of life and filling all ranks. They include eager volunteers, from the drug czars at the top of the command chain to...

Who Cares? The World Health Organization cares more about its own life than the lives of the poor.
January 1, 2002... PAUL DIETRICH WAS visiting Mozambique's capital city, Maputo, during its civil war in 1984, when an educational billboard taught him a lesson he never forgot. Dietrich, a former publisher of the old weekly Saturday Review, was in Africa...

Virtual Warriors: Nostalgia, the battlefield, and boomer cinema. (Culture and Reviews).
January 1, 2002... WHEN IMAGES OF the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were first broadcast, American journalists almost immediately invoked the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Even as that analogy became standard rhetoric of political...

Franzen's Folly: the novelist vs. high art's Dark Other. (Culture & Reviews).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... By now, you may have already forgotten Jonathan Franzen. Only last October, however, he was the most reviled author in America. In one of the few stories that managed to break through the bio-terror fog, Franzen became The Snob Who Dissed...

Napster for Novels?: Not even pirates like e-books. (Culture & Reviews).
January 1, 2002... Is THE AMERICAN book publishing industry headed for its own Napster crisis? To judge from a recent report from Envisional Ltd., a British digital rights management company, Napster-like online trading of bestsellers may be accelerating even as...

A Splendid Little Drug War: Tragedy, farce, and fake brass cojones south of the border. (Culture & Reviews).(Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw)(Shooting the Moon: The True Story of an American Manhunt Unlike Any Other, Ever)
January 1, 2002... Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw, by Mark Bowden, New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 295 pages, $25 Shooting the Moon: The True Story of an American Manhunt Unlike Any Other, Ever, by David Harris, Boston: Little,...

Commuter Virus: Is American literature too soft on the suburbs? (Culture & Reviews).(White Diaspora: The Suburb and the Twentieth-Century American Novel)
January 1, 2002... White Diaspora: The Suburb and the Twentieth-Century American Novel, by Catherine Jurca, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 238 pages, $19.95 AMONG THE ATTITUDES that seem required of American intellectuals, loathing of the suburbs...

Bert and the Infidels: How a puppet joined the jihad. (Culture & Reviews).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... THE TRAIN STATION was probably built in the 1940s. Situated between the Elbe and Vitava rivers, somewhere near the border with Poland, the small Czech hub had two sets of tracks and a deserted general store. It was the only stop on an...

Revolutions Per Minute. (Artifact).(future of classical music)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Is orchestral classical music reaching its coda? If one believes the press, the form is dead. CDs with big symphonic performances (like these) are selling poorly; such music is fading from radio; concert audiences are made up of geezers; and...

Solving Shortages through Teacher Cooperatives.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Although evidence is mixed about whether there is a national shortage of teachers, big-city schools definitely have trouble finding capable people. There are also general shortages in science, mathematics, and special education. Civil...