Reason articles from January 2003

Reason archives from January 2003

Jury nullification. (Editor's Note).
January 1, 2003... I WAS DISMISSED from the only jury on which I've ever been seated. To be fair, I asked for it. I was in my early 20s, and the case was about a fender bender on that greatest of all roads, the New Jersey Turnpike. (It is great, some natives...

A challenge to parents who would never dream of buying insurance online: have nearly two decades of dogged determination and relentless attention to detail now produced the perfect insurance Web site? (Insure.com).
January 1, 2003... Let's face it. We know dozens of friends who would never consider buying insurance online. Is their wait for the perfect insurance Web site now over? Consider these facts: 1. Insurance markets are in a chaotic state. While life insurance...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2003... History Lesson Nick Gillespie writes, "The system that delivers greater material wealth and greater personal freedom will triumph" ("Life After 9/II," October).That statement ignores history. Rome would still be an empire, and there would...

Blue blockers: the crusade against hotel porn. (Citings).(efforts to have access to pornographic movies not available in hotels)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... FOR A GUY who hates pornography, Phil Burress seems to know an awful lot about it. In a September 24 story about his campaign to eliminate "adult" movies from hotels across America, LISA Today reported: "Hotel room pay-per-view offerings have...

Operation Free State: moving for social change. (Citings).
January 1, 2003... IF YOU'D LIKE to put some political ideas into practice, you've got several options. One is to convince your neighbors to vote your notions into law. Another is to find some like-minded ideologues and start a new community from scratch. ...

30 years ago in Reason.(excerpts from previous articles)(Brief Article)(Excerpt)
January 1, 2003... "The John Birch Society has abandoned its old conspiracy theory, which held that the liberal establishment is riddled with Soviet agents.... Their 'new' theory holds that international communism was created by a small clique of international...

Child careless: Florida caseworkers lose kids. (Citings).(poor state of child welfare system)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... FLORIDA'S CHILD WELFARE sytem has sported a black eye since it finally admitted last April that 5-year-old Rilya Wilson, allegedly under its supervision, was missing. It turned out the caseworkers hadn't done their monthly check-ins on Rilya...

Critical defect: the New York Times just says no. (Citings).(booklet about drug use is not objective)
January 1, 2003... "THE BASIC ETHIC of news reporting," explains a booklet produced by the New York Times Newspaper in Education Program, is to "convey reliable information from trustworthy sources, present the information objectively, and acknowledge both sides...

Problem Gambling Foundation. (Brickbats).(director of foundation under investigation in New Zealand)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Ralph Gardelan, executive director of New Zealand's Problem Gambling Foundation, is under investigation for running up a NZ$281,000 bill on the foundation's credit card in the last year. That included NZ$18,000 in cash advances from money...

Auburn City Clerk Mary Lou Magno. (Brickbats).(regulations limit political signs on private property in Auburn, Maine)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Police in Auburn, Maine, have been ripping up signs from people's yards. The city bans any political signs on private property until 30 days before an election. "It's designed to protect people from having to look at, say, my 20 signs on my...

Philadelphia Police Department. (Brickbats).(rejected federal air marshal accused of excessive force)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Shawn B. McCullers, a federal air marshal accused of holding passengers at gunpoint and arresting a man for "observing too closely," had been rejected by the Philadelphia Police Department in the mid-1990s after failing a psychological test. He...

A poll of Iranians has revealed that 74 percent of those over 15 want the nation to engage in talks with the United States. (Brickbats).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... A poll of Iranians has revealed that 74 percent of those over 15 want the nation to engage in talks with the United States and 46 percent believe Washington's policy toward their government is "to some extent correct." How did the government...

A SWAT team burst in, pointing their guns at her. (Brickbats).(SWAT team enters wrong house)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Sandy Cohen, 85, had just finished taking a shower when Philadelphia police started knocking on her door, clutching a search warrant for drugs. She reached the door just as an explosive device they had planted blew it off its hinges. A SWAT...

Sunnmore Finland. (Brickbats).(man accused of drug trafficking found to possess flour, not amphetamines)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... The police in Sunnmore, Finland, claimed it was the largest amphetamine bust of the year. Prosecutors and a judge believed them, holding in jail the 27-year-old man found with the white powder while police pursued his suppliers. But when the...

The Bureau of Land Management. (Brickbats).(facility in Oregon closed due to smell)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... The Bureau of Land Management office in Prineveille, Oregon, was closed for three days after several employees who complained about strange vapors were taken to the hospital. An investigation found the odor was apparently someone's Mexican...

Vouching for vouchers: school choice in Sweden. (Citings).(evaluation of voucher program in Sweden)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... A NEW STUDY by two Swedish economists examines whether the Swedish voucher program has hurt education in public schools. Yes, that's right: Sweden, that vaunted social democratic paradise, operates the world's most robust and wide-ranging...

The day idealism died: fed up with soup kitchens. (Citings).(Santa Monica, California, ordinance)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... IT'S A SAD irony: Santa Monica, California, which has long been one of the nation's most compassionate cities, has passed an ordinance that restricts feeding programs for the hungry. For the homeless, Santa Monica has long been a sweet...

Balance Sheet.(brief observations on current events)
January 1, 2003... Stock Stuffer A market finds value in previously worthless Enron and WorldCom shares. Not the stock market, though. Collectors pay $40 a pop for the notorious pieces of paper. Clear Code A U.S. district court judge jettisons nine...

Hey, big spender. (Data).(state spending)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Usually, it's the federal government that takes most of the flak for taxing and spending. But the Cato Institute periodically gives state governments the evil eye, courtesy of its "Fiscal Policy Report Card on America's Governors." That's a...

Safety for profit: traffic light cameras questioned. (Citings).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... MANY SPY-CAM critics have charged that traffic light cameras are geared toward ticket revenue more than safety. Now the leader of Washington, D.C., has admitted as much. "The cameras are about safety and revenue," Mayor Anthony Williams...

Pardon me? The Bush administration defends Clinton. (Citings).(former president Bill Clinton's to keep his records closed supported by President George W. Bush)
January 1, 2003... JUDICIAL WATCH, A gadfly legal organization founded by the colorful Larry Klayman, became famous for hounding former President Bill Clinton with lawsuit after lawsuit. Written off by Clintonistas as part of the vast right-wing conspiracy,...

Sin in moderation. (Soundbite).(columnist Dan Savage discusses his new book)(Interview)
January 1, 2003... For 11 years, Dan Savage has written "Savage Love," a highly entertaining, wildly raunchy syndicated sex advice column. But it was his satirical claim that he tried to infect 2000 Republican presidential hopeful Gary Bauer with the flu--by...

Man trouble: what does male-on-male sexual harassment mean for discrimination law? (Columns).
January 1, 2003... SIXTEEN YEARS AGO, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Meritorv. Vinson that sexual harassment violates the federal prohibition on sex discrimination in the workplace. Many feminists hailed the decision as a major victory for women. They probably...

Tears of a clown: Michael Moore and the impotence of leftist politics. (Rant).('Bowling for Columbine' )(Movie Review)
January 1, 2003... HOT OFF THE succes of his best-selling book Stupid White Men...and Other Sorry Execuses for the State of the Nation!, guerrilla documentarian Michael Moore has struck it big again with his latest film, Bowling for Columbine. The documentary,...

Courting stupidity: why smart lawyers pick dumb jurors.(Cover Story)
January 1, 2003... IF A DRUNK driver plows into you from behind at 70 miles an hour while you are stopped at a red light, you are not likely to live long enough to talk to a lawyer about it. However, Patricia Anderson and her passengers were lucky enough to be...

Pumped-up hysteria: forget the hype. Steroids aren't wrecking professional baseball.
January 1, 2003... HAD KEN CAMINITI been a less famous ballplayer, or had he merely confessed his own sins, then it would have been a transient controversy. But it wasn't. Last May, Caminiti, in a cathartic sit-down with Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated, became...

Should we invade Iraq? A reason online debate.
January 1, 2003... IN THE WAKE of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration has articulated a new foreign policy for the United States. The "containment" of hostile states has been replaced by a policy of military "pre-emption" and "defensive...

The radical 'burbs: tracing the surprising roots of social experimentation. (Culture and Reviews).('Suburban Alchemy: 1960s New Towns and the Transformation of the American Dream')(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... Suburban Alchemy: 1960s New Towns and the Transformation of the American Dream, by Nicholas Dagen Bloom, Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 333 pages, $27.95 ONE OF THE most idealistic manifestos of the 1960s took the unlikely...

Tempest in a coffeepot: Starbucks invades the world. (Culture and Reviews).(reaction to globalization of Starbucks coffeehouses)
January 1, 2003... THE SEVENTH INTERNATIONAL Festival of Arts and Ideas, held last June in New Haven, Connecticut, was one of those upscale boho fairs filled with puppets and Andean pan pipes aimed at the Birkenstock-and-Volvo set. A guest speaker was explaining...

Lenny Bruce's real legacy: he wasn't funny. Just important. (Culture and Reviews).('The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of an American Icon')(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... As its title makes plain, the interesting new book The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of an American Icon (Sourcebooks), by Ronald K.L. Collins and David M. Skover, traces the myriad legal troubles of arguably the most influential...

Head games: what are the rules for defining mental illness? (Culture and Reviews).('Pharmacracy: Medicine and Politics in America' and 'Creating Mental Illness')(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... Pharmacracy: Medicine and Politics in America, by Thomas Szasz, Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 212 pages, $24.95 Creating Mental Illness, by Allan V. Horwitz, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 289 pages, $32.50 I'VE NEVER MET Zacarias...

When Ludwig met Chelsea: Austrian economics hits Manhattan's art scene. (Culture and Reviews).(John Morris, drawings, D'Amelio Terras, New York, New York)
January 1, 2003... A HALF-CENTURY AGO, one of the leading lights of the increasingly influential "Austrian school" of economics, Ludwig von Mises, found it impossible to nab a tenure-track gig at a respectable American college or university. In an age when...

News from Airstrip one. (Artifact).(posters in London, England celebrate intrusion into individual privacy)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... THESE ASTONISHING POSTERS first graced London in October; this one was photographed by blogger Perry de Havilland of Samizdata.net. Although some Londoners originally perceived the posters as a clever protest against the state's intrusion into...

A label we don't need.(European Union requires genetically-altered food to have a label)
January 1, 2003... If you were designing a label to inform consumers that, for safety reasons, certain foods need to be cooked or handled in a certain way, what would it say? How about "Made in Brussels"? No way, ridiculous and irrelevant, you say. Right on...