Reason articles from May 2002

Reason archives from May 2002

Editor's note.(downloading music)(Brief Article)(Editorial)
May 1, 2002... RECORDED MUSIC PRETTY much dropped out of my life during the 1990s. After years of spending most of my disposable income buying music and much of my personal and professional life listening to it, I don't think I purchased more than a handful...

Letters.
May 1, 2002... The Media and G.I. Joe I loved Chris Bray's "The Media and G.I. Joe" (February). But you should have given Bray a look at the cover. He probably could have told you that G.I. Joe is carrying a close replica of a Kalashnikov AK-47, the...

Correction.
May 1, 2002... Ruben Martinez's book Crossing Over was misidentified in "Porous Border" (March). We regret the error.

Copps on Patrol. (Cleaning up TV).(Michael J. Copps)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... RANKLED BY RACY television and by radio shock jocks, Michael J. Copps, one of four commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), has called on broadcasters to adopt a voluntary code of conduct. In a February 4 USA Today...

Freeing forests. (Privatizing Land Management).(charter forests)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... IT WAS JUST a suggestion in one paragraph of President Bush's proposed 2003 budget, but it has already generated many pages of controversy. The idea has become known as "charter forests" (analogous to charter schools): allowing segments of...

Artificial bust. (The Drug Law that wasn't there).(possession of drug paraphernalia)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... CHARGED WITH POSSESSION of drug paraphernalia, 15-year-old Joshua Krawiec won a dismissal by proving that the law he was accused of breaking didn't exist. In October a police dog sniffed out three film canisters in Krawiec's locker at...

Unsustainable promises. (Not-So-Green Architecture).(Adam J. Lewis Center for Environmental Studies)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... "A PARADIGM OF sustainable design," declared Landscape Architecture. "One of the most revolutionary structures of this century," gushed the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The subject of this praise is the Adam J. Lewis Center for Environmental Studies...

Source.(lifting FBI spying restrictions)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... Is it safe to talk here? Attorney General John Ashcroft reportedly is considering plans to relax decades-old restrictions on the FBI'S power to spy on U.S.-based religious and political organizations. A new American Civil Liberties Union report...

Remember when the FBI warned that a Yemeni man and more than a dozen associates might be plotting terror attacks against U.S. (Brickbats).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... Remember when the FBI warned that a Yemeni man and more than a dozen associates might be plotting terror attacks against U.S. interests at home and in Yemen? The bureau alerted all domestic law enforcement agencies of the threat. It held a...

The European Union has banned the live performance of Beethoven and Mozart--almost. (Brickbats).(noise control regulations)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... The European Union has banned the live performance of Beethoven and Mozart--almost. If proposed workplace regulations are enacted, musicians say it will be impossible to play orchestral works. At issue is a rule limiting noise in the workplace...

Doctors at Norway's national prison have prescribed Viagra to at least two prisoners serving time for sex crimes. (Brickbats).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... Doctors at Norway's national prison have prescribed Viagra to at least two prisoners serving time for sex crimes. One of the prisoners later raped his son in the prison visiting area. Medical officials are unapologetic. "If they have a problem,...

The Los Angeles Unified School District upheld a Tarzana school's expulsion of a second-grader for carrying a toy gun to school. (Brickbats).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... The Los Angeles Unified School District upheld a Tarzana school's expulsion of a second-grader for carrying a toy gun to school. It did agree to change the recorded reason for his expulsion from "Knife/ explosive/dangerous object" to...

First they went after the Second Amendment. Now they're after the First. (Brickbats).(banning firearms advertising)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... First they went after the Second Amendment. Now they're after the First. The Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence wants the state to forbid magazines, newspapers, and other publications to display classified ads offering firearms for sale....

British police are building a database of children they think might grow up to be criminals. (Brickbats).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... British police are building a database of children they think might grow up to be criminals. Kids as young as 3 can be listed, and they don't have to have committed a crime: Being disruptive at school or being considered a neighborhood nuisance...

Safiya Hussaini Tungar-Tudu sits in a jail cell in Nigeria facing a death sentence. (Brickbats).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... Safiya Hussaini Tungar-Tudu sits in a jail cell in Nigeria facing a death sentence. What was her crime? She was raped and is now pregnant. Under Islamic law, that means she committed adultery, although she's divorced. She has been sentenced to...

Classroom control. (Teachers' Power Grab).(California Teachers Association negotiations)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... TEACHER PAY, WORKING conditions, and benefits apparently aren't enough to keep the California Teachers Association busy. It wants to negotiate over everything that takes place in the classroom, setting curriculum standards, developing policies...

Balance Sheet.(TV turnoff week rejected by Virginia legislature)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... False Positive Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld nukes the Pentagon's new Office of Strategic Information after it is criticized as a potential source of false stories and propaganda. Tube Boobs The Virginia legislature rejects a...

Watching the kiddies. (Data).(child care subsidies)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... As the 1996 welfare reform law comes up for reauthorization this year, one statistic is sure to be heralded: Only 15 percent to 20 percent of families eligible for child care subsidies receive them. The implication is that government is...

Free will. (Helping Drug War Victims).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... "A LOT OF people tell me I give them hope," says Will Foster, "because I did have 93 years in prison, and now I'm free." Arrested in 1995 for growing marijuana in the basement of his Tulsa home, Foster received a sentence so onerous that it...

Valuable heroism. (Trademark ad Absurdum).(Todd M. Beamer Foundation wants to trademark phrase 'Let's roll')(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... CAN YOU TRADEMARK a common phrase such as let's roll? The Todd M. Beamer Foundation has been attempting to do just that, so as to prevent anyone from exploiting the words commercially without its approval. Beamer was aboard United Airlines...

Bush's legions. (Soundbite).(President Bush plans to expand Bill Clinton's AmeriCorps)(Brief Article)(Interview)
May 1, 2002... President Bill Clinton's AmeriCorps--a federally funded network of paid "volunteers"--was once a favorite punching bag for conservatives, with the Heritage Foundation, among other right-wing forces, denouncing it as a $575 million boondoggle....

Developmental disability: HUD boondoggles show why bad government programs are so hard to kill. (Columns).(Housing and Urban Development)
May 1, 2002... WITH AMERICAN SPECIAL forces calculating smart bomb coordinates overseas and legions of students, seniors, and sociology graduates preparing to secure the home front in the USA Freedom Corps, commentators are hailing the return of big...

Intellectual warfare: Pseudo-intellectuals and pseudo-populists duke it out. (Columns).
May 1, 2002... IN THE MARCH 4 New Yorker, Aaron Sorkin, executive producer of NBC'S The West Wing, referred to President Bush as a "bubblehead." The ensuing flap found commentators across the political spectrum cast in familiar roles: liberals deriding...

Teenage wasteland: Prohibition was repealed 70 years ago, but the mind-set he behind it lingers on. (Rant).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
May 1, 2002... IN FEBRUARY, COLUMBIA University's Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) released the policy wonk equivalent of a Girls Gone Wild spring break video. Teen Tipplers: America's Underage Drinking Epidemic promised a salacious expose of...

Hollywood vs. the Internet: Why entertainment companies want to hack your computer.
May 1, 2002... IF YOU HAVE a fast computer and a fast Internet connection, you make Hollywood nervous. Movie and TV studios are worried not because of what you're doing now, but because of what you might do in the near future: grab digital content with your...

Hungry for the next fix: Behind the relentless, misguided search for a medical cure for addiction.
May 1, 2002... As DIRECTOR OF the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Alan Leshner toured the country with a PowerPoint presentation featuring brain scans. The show was a slightly more sophisticated version of the Partnership for a DrugFree America's...

Green with ideology: The hidden agenda behind the "scientific" attacks on Bjorn Lomborg's controversial new book, The Skeptical Environmentalist.(Critical Essay)
May 1, 2002... ON SEPTEMBER 5 the Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World, sat down at a Borders bookstore in Oxford, England, to promote his controversial book. A pie was thrown in...

Speaking lies to power: Ralph Nader fudges the truth just like a real politician. (Culture and Reviews).('Crashing the Party: How to Tell the Truth and Still Run for President')
May 1, 2002... Crashing the Gates: How to Tell the Truth and Still Run for President, by Ralph Nader, New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 383 pages, $24.95 THE SUBTITLE OF Ralph Nader's new campaign memoir is "How to Tell the Truth and Still Run for...

Shoot the messenger: Hollywood calls Western Union again.(message movies)
May 1, 2002... EVEN IN A cinematic culture where the studio that Sam Goldwyn co-founded thought a no-laugh-track version of Hogan's Heroes (Hart's War, with Bruce Willis in the Bob Crane role) was worth an $80 million investment, the triumphant return of the...

I'm ok you suck: Popular advice books get tough.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... The two best-selling advice gurus in the U.S. would like us to call them by their First names. But don't be fooled by such folksy familiarity. Dr. Phil (author of the chart-topper Relationship Rescue) and Dr. Laura (10 Stupid Things Couples Do...

Ill-Treated: The continuing history of psychiatric abuses.('Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill')
May 1, 2002... Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill, by Robert Whitaker, Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus, 334 pages, $27 ON JANUARY 18, 1959, 17-year-Old Jonika Upton was committed by her parents to the...

Maple leaf rag: Does Canada matter?('The Friendly Dictatorship')
May 1, 2002... The Friendly Dictatorship, by Jeffrey Simpson, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 238 pages, $25.9; By NOW, YOU may have forgotten about Joe, the flannel-clad twenty-something whose 30-Second stump speech on behalf of all things Canadian...

Sphere of influence: Sputnik's lingering effects.
May 1, 2002... WAS SPUTNIK, THAT beeping little beachball-sized sphere that so surprised the West in really "the shock of the century"? That might be a bit much, despite the subtitle hype of Paul Dickson's recent cultural history, Sputnik: The Shock of the...

Auto exotica. (Artifact).(art narrative from Robert Hughes)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... GALLERIES MAY INVITE spiritual contemplation, but that often masks art's worldly meaning. This object started out as Time art critic Robert Hughes' rental car. The author of The Shock of the New and The Fatal Shore, Hughes' views of his native...

Bureaucracy and school leadership.(policy research organization Public Agenda survey on finding strong leaders for schools)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
May 1, 2002... Nothing matters more to an organizations success than the quality of its leadership, and nowhere is that clearer than in public education. Twenty years of research have shown that effective schools nearly always have strong principals and that...