Reason articles from May 2004

Reason archives from May 2004

Express yourself.(Editor's Note)
May 1, 2004... THESE ARE GREAT times for free expression, one of the underpinnings of an open, vibrant society. By virtually every measure, it's never been easier for more people to express themselves, whether we're talking about politics or poetry or,...

"Dominate. Intimidate. Control.".(Letters)
May 1, 2004... While the litany of horribles James Bovard cites concerning the Transportation Security Administration's ineptitude and high-handedness ("'Dominate. Intimidate. Control.,'" February) is certainly enraging, his alternative--putting airlines and...

A Week of Eating Dangerously.(Letters)
May 1, 2004... Neil Steinberg's essay on eating any and all kinds of meat ("A Week of Eating Dangerously," February) reminds me of a child who steals a piece of candy from the drugstore just because his mother told him it was wrong. Stuffing himself with foie...

Injustice by Default.(Letters)
May 1, 2004... Congratulations on Matt Welch's article "Injustice by Default" (February). Welch's article was well-written but missed a larger point: What business does government have in the alimony and support collection business? Should government be...

In God's Country.(Letters)
May 1, 2004... Tim Cavanaugh's review of the new Madalyn Murray O'Hair biography ("In God's Country," February) was interesting, if not especially perceptive. I am interested, however, in his rather strong and gratuitous characterization of Martin Luther as...

Every Man a Demiurge.(Letters)
May 1, 2004... Jesse Walker's "Every Man a Demiurge" (February) traces the rise and demise of an entertainment genre depicting reality as an illusion or simulation. A similar genre also had a smaller rise and fall during that time: the idea that our universe...

Correction.(Letters)(Correction Notice)
May 1, 2004... CORRECTION: In "Injustice By Default" (February), Raegan Phillips was misidentified as Raegan "Kelly," and the article incorrectly stated that Taron James frequently flies to Sacramento, when in fact he drives.

Let the love flow: student drug testing.
May 1, 2004... ACCORDING TO President Bush, nothing says "I love you" like a demand for urine. Pretty kinky-sounding stuff for a State of the Union address, and more interesting than anything else he had to say that night. Alas, the president was talking...

25 years ago in reason.(Citings)
May 1, 2004... "My advice to teachers is to go on strike in the classroom.... You can't teach them anyway, so stop trying.... Who cares? Certainly not the children or their parents." --Theresa Hale De Soubiese, "Surviving the Blackboard Jungle" "If...

Fishy business: a bad case of crabs.
May 1, 2004... FISHING FOR Alaska Bering Sea crab is one of the most dangerous jobs in America. But a good haul can net each crewman $50,000 to $60,000, so wily fishermen are still eager to find ways around regulations that limit crab seasons to prevent...

Net nannies: you're on cafe camera.
May 1, 2004... IF YOU WALK into an Internet cafe in Garden Grove, California, you should smile. In January the state's 4th District Court of Appeal upheld a city ordinance requiring Net cafe owners to install video surveillance systems. The ordinance, wrote...

Capital choices: voucher progress.
May 1, 2004... BEGINNING IN fall 2004 the D.C. School Choice Initiative will provide $14 million for approximately 2,000 low-income children in falling D.C. public schools. Students will receive grants of up to $7,500 each to attend parochial or private...

Big boxing: banning bargains.
May 1, 2004... Do POLITICIANS stick up for the little guy or suck up to big corporations? In the nation's largest brawl over big-box retailers, California pols are anxious to prove they're in the little guy's corner. Wal-Mart wants to open 40...

Quotes.
May 1, 2004... "Perhaps the genitals have not been named before in such a straightforward and open manner in works of mass media and art in China." --Zhang Baoquan, owner of Beijing's Today Gallery, on government censors' cancellation of The Vagina...

Source.
May 1, 2004... Apple's 1984 commercial for the Macintosh was hailed as groundbreaking advertising, but it can't touch the notorious "Daisy ad" of 20 years earlier, which darkly intimated that voting for Barry Goldwater invited nuclear Armageddon. In fact,...

Officials at the Pentagon's Defense Contract Audit Agency are supposed to uncover fraud and waste in government contracts.(Brickbats)
May 1, 2004... Officials at the Pentagon's Defense Contract Audit Agency are supposed to uncover fraud and waste in government contracts. But the agency is now charged with spending 1,139 man-hours altering its own files to pass an internal review. The agency...

As France prepares to ban religious symbols from public schools, one official says the government could also ban beards if they are expressions of religious faith.(Brickbats)
May 1, 2004... As France prepares to ban religious symbols from public schools, one official says the government could also ban beards if they are expressions of religious faith. "As soon as it becomes a religious sign and the code is apparent, it would fall...

Police searched a 13-year-old student at Okeeheelee Middle School in West Palm Beach, Florida, who was suspected of having a gun.(Brickbats)
May 1, 2004... Police searched a 13-year-old student at Okeeheelee Middle School in West Palm Beach, Florida, who was suspected of having a gun. When they found nothing, Principal David Samore still wanted to question the student and allegedly held a toy gun...

The Greek Cypriot army is trying to find out how top-secret ground plans for military bases wound up in a dump.(Brickbats)
May 1, 2004... The Greek Cypriot army is trying to find out how top-secret ground plans for military bases wound up in a dump. A truck driver found the papers, which contain details such as the technical specifications for weapon launch sites and the...

A test by the U.S. Department of the Interior to see how Park Police would handle a suspicious package yielded disturbing results.(Brickbats)
May 1, 2004... A test by the U.S. Department of the Interior to see how Park Police would handle a suspicious package yielded disturbing results. A black plastic bag was first placed at the rear of the Washington Monument for 20 minutes, then at a security...

It's not just American law enforcement officials who enjoy a good nap on the job.(Brickbats)
May 1, 2004... It's not just American law enforcement officials who enjoy a good nap on the job: The judge who convicted three men of plotting to steal more than $400 million in diamonds from London's Millennium Dome has admitted to dozing off during the...

The Iranian government has barred hundreds of reform candidates from running in the country's upcoming parliamentary elections.(Brickbats)
May 1, 2004... The Iranian government has barred hundreds of reform candidates from running in the country's upcoming parliamentary elections. Reformist members of parliament say more than 80 percent of current reform-minded deputies--including the current...

Robert Neal and Francis Jones, former senior procurement officers in the Pentagon, each were sentenced to more than 24 years in federal prison for conspiracy, extortion, money laundering, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice.(Brickbats)
May 1, 2004... Robert Neal and Francis Jones, former senior procurement officers in the Pentagon, each were sentenced to more than 24 years in federal prison for conspiracy, extortion, money laundering, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice. The two...

Your papers, please: ID demands DOA?
May 1, 2004... THE SUPREME Court is once again considering the nuances of when it's OK to arrest an American citizen simply for refusing to show a cop an ID. The case, Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, involves a Nevada man, Larry...

Culture club: managing the sublime.
May 1, 2004... THE INTERNATIONAL Network on Cultural Policy (INCP), a group of some 60 culture ministries, exists "to develop strategies to promote cultural diversity," diversity meaning creative works that haven't been exported from the U.S. Called into...

Job core.(Balance Sheet)
May 1, 2004... IBM creates a $25 million training fund for IBMers afraid that their jobs will be outsourced. The move tries to get ahead of outsourcing hype and, more importantly, actually help someone.

Maize phase.(Balance Sheet)
May 1, 2004... The British government edges closer to allowing the cultivation of a genetically modified corn, which would move the U.K.'s biotech policy closer to the U.S.'s than to the biotech-spooked E.U.'s.

Hemp day.(Balance Sheet)
May 1, 2004... The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals finds that strict regulation of hemp foods simply because they contain trace elements of THC makes no sense. The feds had sought to ban the sale of foods containing or flavored with hemp.

Liquor run.(Balance Sheet)
May 1, 2004... The state house in Vermont modifies alcohol laws to allow bar hoppers to order two drinks at once or actually walk from the bar to a dance floor with a drink. Both practices had been banned out of fear that... well, it's not exactly clear why....

Interactive action.(Balance Sheet)
May 1, 2004... Researchers at eMarketer find that the Net has surpassed cable TV in household penetration. The Net is used in 68 percent of households; cable reaches 66 percent. Net penetration continues to grow while cable TV has remained flat for years.

Market change.(Balance Sheet)
May 1, 2004... A U.N. commission finds entrepreneurship crucial to attacking poverty in developing countries. Former Mexican President Zedillo, a commissioner, notes that "property rights aren't truly protected, and government regulation of businesses is...

Back spin.(Balance Sheet)
May 1, 2004... Spin maven Bill O'Reilly vows to be much more skeptical about the Bush administration after the WMD snipe-hunt winds down. Doesn't make up for questioning the IQ, motives, and very sanity of those who took that position before him, but it's a...

Yes? and?.(Balance Sheet)
May 1, 2004... A study by the Columbia University School of Nursing spawns breathless headlines reporting that antibacterial soaps do not kill viruses. Nor do they save the rainforest, make you taller, or do any number of things they are not designed to do.

Patriot Jr.(Balance Sheet)
May 1, 2004... Rhode Island joins New York, Virginia, Florida, Massachusetts, and other states in creating its own homeland security law. These statutes make some previous public records secret and, duplicating federal law, create new felonies for things like...

Weak teacups.(Balance Sheet)
May 1, 2004... Fear of lawsuits infects the Magic Kingdom: Disney World neuters its famous spinning Mad Tea Party ride after a disabled rider falls. The cups are now nearly impossible to spin, park visitors report.

Roman excess.(Balance Sheet)
May 1, 2004... The Italian Parliament votes in a strict ban on assisted reproduction. Freezing embryos and egg donation are among the mainstream fertility techniques outlawed.

Gateway drugs.(Balance Sheet)
May 1, 2004... The Food and Drug Administration flips out over a Minnesota state program to buy cheap drugs from Canada. The FDA labels the practice unsafe, unsound, and ill-considered. Worse, it operates "outside of our regulatory system." The horror.

Ex copy.(Balance Sheet)
May 1, 2004... A U.S. District Court in California declares there is no such thing as fair use in the digital age. The court bans DVD X Copy software as a violation of copyright laws and explicitly tells consumers that they may only make analog backups of...

Government tithe.(Balance Sheet)
May 1, 2004... Federal officials fine a Maine man $10,000 for repeatedly crossing the Canadian border to attend church. His mistake was failing to drive three hours each way to the only Sunday-manned border checkpoint, opting instead to cross, as he has for...

State squeeze.(Data)
May 1, 2004... Debates about tax policy and the economy usually focus on federal taxes. But even as President Bush argues for the extension of his tax cuts, a study conducted by Ernst & Young for the Council on State Taxation finds state and local taxes on...

DJ Clampdown: illicit turntablism.
May 1, 2004... THE MUSIC industry's copyright crackdown entered a new phase late last year. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is now pushing police to raid record stores that sell DJ mixes--CDs assembled by disc jockeys to advertise their...

Nookie monster: the unwritten rules of scandal.
May 1, 2004... WHEN RUMORS erupted on the Internet that John Kerry had cheated on his wife, the mainstream media dithered over whether to cover it. Average news consumers could be forgiven if they didn't quite understand the rules in play. The old roles have...

Net savvy.(Soundbite)
May 1, 2004... Cascading failures in the power grid, the spread of epidemics, bubbles in the stock market, the sudden popular rejection of a repressive political regime--can these disparate phenomena, in so many different realms, have anything in common?...

Gossip wants to be free: in defense of online scandal mongering.(Columns)
May 1, 2004... ON JANUARY 17, 1998, Matt Drudge posted a siren-decorated "World Exclusive" declaring that Newsweek had spiked a story regarding President Clinton and a certain 23-year-old former intern. The report and several follow-ups sat there on his site...

Traditional prejudices: the anti-Semitism of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.(Columns)
May 1, 2004... CONTROVERSY RAGES AS charges of anti-Semitism dog a beloved cultural icon. No, not Mel Gibson: The man at the center of this debate is the Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn, author of The Gulag Archipelago, was once a...

Guests, Si; workers, no: our most delicate thinkers have a problem with hard work.(Rant)
May 1, 2004... PRESIDENT BUSH'S immigration reform plan is garnering praise from many would-be immigrant workers and their would-be employers. But it has a substantial political downside for an important subset of opinion-makers, who are disproportionately...

Sluts for Jesus: where's my back end participation?
May 1, 2004... I'D LIKE TO DEDICATE MY NEXT SONG TO MY SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST... THROUGH WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW, AND TO WHOM I OWE ALL OF MY SUCCESS... ... OH YEAH BAYBUH DO ME ALL NIGHT LONG! UNGH! UGH! ... SHOW ME THE MONEY! ... IF DAT...

Xtreme measures: Washington's new crackdown on pornography.(Cover Story)
May 1, 2004... ONLY THE MAN himself can say for certain, but I'm pretty sure that Attorney General John Ashcroft would disapprove of the Realdoll, a life-size $5,999 sex dummy that boasts "a completely articulated skeleton which allows for anatomically...

Backstage passes: what it takes to run for president in the age of media intimacy.
May 1, 2004... AMERICA'S REAL-TIME political explainers are a game bunch. There's nothing that happens in the course of a campaign, a speech, a candidate's TV appearance, or any event inside or outside the Beltway that they can't quickly filter, analyze, and...

"It's so simple, it's ridiculous": taxing times for 16th amendment rebels.
May 1, 2004... "I WON'T GO TO JAIL." Bob Schulz announces this in late January to a rapt crowd of 200 gathered in an auditorium in Crystal City, Virginia. It's the first national conference of the We The People Foundation for Constitutional Education, a...

Five reasons you don't owe income tax, dammit! The most heartfelt beliefs of the "tax honesty" movement.
May 1, 2004... Here are some of the core arguments against the legality of the income tax one finds in the tax honesty movement. Devotees probably would regard them as oversimplifications. This is certainly not an all-inclusive list. 1) The IRS declares...

Temporary doves: why are the architects of Kosovo so down on Gulf War II?(Culture and Reviews)
May 1, 2004... Madam Secretary: A Memoir, by Madeleine Albright with Bill Woodward, New York: Miramax Books, 562 pages The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power, by George Soros, New York: Public Affairs, 207 pages ...

Anime dreams: the strange but familiar world of a Japanese TV cartoon.
May 1, 2004... A woman with purple hair stands on the edge of a skyscraper's roof, watching the green-lit cityscape beneath her. She jumps--not quite flying, not quite falling--while coolly preparing her equipment for a political assassination. Sound...

Not the same old hickory: the contested legacy of Andrew Jackson.
May 1, 2004... The Passions of Andrew Jackson, by Andrew Burstein, New York: Vintage, 320 pages THE RYMAN AUDITORIUM--Nashville's original Grand Old Opry--has become a concert stop for a variety of touring musicians, among them the singer-songwriter Tori...

The FBI files; federally funded art takes on new meaning.
May 1, 2004... "THE ONLY REASON the FBI stopped spying on me in 1973 is that their funding was cut off," says the 79-year-old artist and left-wing activist Arnold Mesches. "Otherwise they might still be on my tail." I can't refute an expert. Mesches...

Public offense.(Artifact)
May 1, 2004... WHAT KIND OF art belongs in public? In January, one cultural official in Los Angeles decided that "We need art that does not offend anyone." It was an unusually plainspoken, if rather plaintive, moment in the endless debate over public culture....

When jobs are illegal, only illegals will have jobs.
May 1, 2004... My headline may exaggerate a bit but not much. The controversy over President Bush's immigration plan overlooks the fact that some of our illegal immigration problem arises from government regulations mandating unsustainable wages and benefits....