Reason articles from November 2003

Reason archives from November 2003

Cultural freedom.(Editor's Note)
November 1, 2003... DURING THE PAST few years, reason has beefed up its cultural coverage, supplementing articles on public policy and politics with stories such as "Still Fab: Why We Keep Listening to the Beatles" (June 2001),"Pornocopia Deluxe: Behind the...

The anti-pleasure principle.(Letters)
November 1, 2003... Jacob Sullum has made something of a career pooh-poohing the dangers of tobacco, so I wasn't exactly surprised to learn that he's similarly dismissive ("The Anti-Pleasure Principle," July) of the concerns the Center for Science in the Public...

Cutting the tripwire.(Letters)
November 1, 2003... I think that Doug Bandow ("Cutting the Tripwire," July) makes many important points about the North Korean crisis. Surely we should have left Korean issues to South Korea and the rest of the Asian community a long time ago, but I am...

Socialized gambling.(Letters)
November 1, 2003... As an old Illinois politics watcher, I believe that a great deal of the nuttiness over casinos that Joe Bob Briggs identifies ("Socialized Gambling," July) comes from a combination of a moralistic political culture north of I-80; hardcore...

Media critic, critique thyself.(Letters)
November 1, 2003... I have to take issue with a minor element of Cathy Young's dissection ("Media Critic, Critique Thyself," July) of Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media? She quotes Alterman's prodding of Ann Coulter about footnotes, but anyone who even opened...

Back to the future.(Letters)
November 1, 2003... Thank you so much for Michael Valdez Moses' article ("Back to the Fixture," July); I so rarely have the occasion to read anything worthwhile about the macro-trends in filmmaking. A minor point from the opening of the article, though: Lucas...

Intelligence failure: protecting us from Gore supporters.(Citings)
November 1, 2003... Envy your kids; California's surprising economy; anti-consumerist capitalism; librarians fight filters; keeping psychics honest; reality TV tames nationalism; dirty words. IN MARCH, CITING the heightened threat of terrorism, U.S. District...

Envy your kids: income keeps growing.(Citings)
November 1, 2003... IN LESS THAN a lifetime, the $10.7 trillion U.S. economy could grow more than 12-fold, to $128.6 trillion by 2077, according to a new report issued by the nonpartisan Employment Policy Foundation (EPF). Taking population growth into account,...

25 years ago in reason.(Citings)
November 1, 2003... "It should be clear that, far from the cry of the tax-consuming hordes against Proposition 13, cutting taxes will not cause a depression; it will rather cause living standards to spurt." -Christopher P. Weber, "Slashing Taxes Is Good for...

Golden bear? California's surprising economy.(Citings)
November 1, 2003... IF THERE'S ONE thing the 135 candidates for California governor could agree on before the October 7 recall election, it was that the state economy is a shambles, thanks to Gov. Gray Davis. "Of course, the first thing he did in office is...

Anti-consumerist capitalism: culture jammers, sneaker peddlers.(Citings)
November 1, 2003... READERS of Adbusters got a shock when they picked up the September/October issue of the anti-corporate, anti-consumer culture set's flagship magazine. The back cover sported riot one of the publication's famous ad spoofs but a genuine...

Quotes.
November 1, 2003... "An unelected, non-accountable, arrogant, imperialistic judiciary determined to shove their beliefs down our throats." --radio host James Dobson, describing opponents of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore's unlawful crusade to keep a 2.6-ton...

Source.
November 1, 2003... The big brains at the MIT Media Lab are doing their bit to help make ours a sousveillance society--one in which observation from beneath counterbalances state spying. Inspired by the Pentagon's proposed Terrorism Information Awareness project,...

District of Columbia health officials were adamant: the cafeteria had to be closed down.(Brickbats)
November 1, 2003... District of Columbia health officials were adamant: The cafeteria had to be closed down. They'd found water leaking from the ceiling, cooks not wearing hair restraints, and poorly cleaned ice machines, cabinets, surfaces, and equipment. Worst...

More USDA news: a random audit of the department found that helping the nation's farmers requires some odd goods and services.(Brickbats)
November 1, 2003... More USDA news. A random audit of the department found that helping the nation's farmers requires some odd goods and services. Employees used government credit cards to, among other things, make a down payment on a car, pay tuition for...

If you are going to put one of those inflatable kiddie pools in your backyard, you had better have a strong set of lungs.(Brickbats)
November 1, 2003... If you are going to put one of those inflatable kiddie pools in your backyard, you had better have a strong set of lungs. And if you live in Ebensburg, Pennsylvania, you had better have a building permit. Cindy Lenz bought an 18-inch-deep pool...

Police in the United Arab Emirates municipality of Ras Al Khaimah raided a clothing store, seizing dresses that allegedly had the Star of David on them.(Brickbats)
November 1, 2003... Police in the United Arab Emirates municipality of Ras Al Khaimah raided a clothing store, seizing dresses that allegedly had the Star of David on them. City officials said the dresses would be destroyed. The UAE bans products from Israel.

When the power went out in New York City, ordinary citizens jumped in to direct traffic through the crowded intersection of West 79th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.(Brickbats)
November 1, 2003... When the power went out in New York City, ordinary citizens jumped in to direct traffic through the crowded intersection of West 79th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. Meanwhile, at least one city parking enforcement officer continued to calmly...

Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) has a lot on his mind.(Brickbats)
November 1, 2003... Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) has a lot on his mind. He's probably preoccupied with his presidential campaign and his duties in the U.S. Senate. That may explain why he's four months late paying the property taxes on his mansion in Georgetown....

Javier Checa, mayor of the Spanish town of Torredonjimeno, has ordered all men to remain in their homes on Thursday nights.(Brickbats)
November 1, 2003... Javier Checa, mayor of the Spanish town of Torredonjimeno, has ordered all men to remain in their homes on Thursday nights. Those found out on "ladies' night" will be fined. Checa says its his way of encouraging men to stay at home and help out...

No strings on me: Librarians fight filters.(Citings)
November 1, 2003... THE SAN JOSE Public Libraries receive about $20,000 each year from the E-rate program, a federal effort to finance public access to the Internet. Next year, though, they might not get any. San Jose is one of several library systems around the...

Balance sheet.
November 1, 2003... Benign Trend Death rates from cancer fall as prevention programs launched in recent years take hold. Lung cancer is hit by anti-smoking efforts, but all cancers get the one-two punch of better diagnosis and treatment. Tissue Issue ...

Free fall.(Data)
November 1, 2003... Perhaps it's the "oil curse"--the phenomenon of despots who rely on oil revenues to preserve their power without democratic support. Maybe some of the blame rests with Islam's doctrinal union of din (faith) and dawlah (state). The West bears a...

Keeping psychics honest: only in San Fran, part XXIX.(Citings)
November 1, 2003... TIME WAS, A self-respecting augur or necromancer could ply her trade in San Francisco without the long arm of the nanny state reaching into her pocket for money and the right paperwork. NO more. As of August 1, fortunetellers of all stripes...

Arabian idol: reality TV tames nationalism.(Citings)
November 1, 2003... A DIFFERENT SORT of conflict broke out this summer in the Middle East-one involving reality TV. While it offers more evidence that the region is in the grip of a liberationist pop culture frenzy (see "Look Who's Rocking the Casbah," June), it...

Dirty words.(Soundbite)
November 1, 2003... When President Clinton appointed her to a committee tasked with devising questions for a proposed national test of fourth-graders, Diane Ravitch was shocked to discover how stringent bias and sensitivity requirements had become. A reading...

Beyond public and private: business improvement districts don't fit our ordinary categories.(Columns)
November 1, 2003... WALK DOWN CHARLES Street, Howard Street, or Park Avenue in downtown Baltimore, and you'll see signs announcing that, "for your safety," the block is "a Video Recorded Area." Each sign bears the logo of the Video Patrol, and each is located just...

Roy Moore's monument: religion has a place in the public square--but not an exclusive one.(Columns)
November 1, 2003... IN THE PERENNIAL debates about church-state entanglement, I have often argued against the strict separationists--those who regard any religious expression within a public institution as tantamount to government-sanctioned religion. This...

Tinselectomy: how much bad behavior does Hollywood cause?(Rant)
November 1, 2003... IN A COURAGEOUS admission that they no longer have any serious work left to do, attorneys general in two dozen states recently sent a letter to the Motion Picture Association of America asking that Hollywood minimize smoking in movies so...

Taking out Arnold: one soundbite at a time.
November 1, 2003... ... Moment after Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy for governor, we get word of a new book detailing his many alleged peccadilloes . Wow! Is that a Coincidence or what? Schwarzenegger's xenophobia is self-evident in his...

Show us your money: the USA PATRIOT Act lets the feds spy on your finances. But does it help catch terrorists?
November 1, 2003... "THIS IS REALLY A bill which, if enacted into law, will be [a longer] step in the direction of stopping terrorism than any other we have had before this Congress in a long time," one of the bill's sponsors declared. The legislation authorized...

Kroger Babb's roadshow: how a long-running movie walked the thin line between exploitation and education.
November 1, 2003... "ONCE IN A LIFETIME Comes A Presentation That TRULY PULLS NO PUNCHES! Now YOU Can SEE The Motion Picture That DARES DISCUSS AND EXPLAIN SEX AS NEVER BEFORE SEEN and HEARD! THE ONE, THE ONLY, THE ORIGINAL... MOM AND DAD... Truly The World's...

The spam wars: how should the Internet deal with junk mail?
November 1, 2003... JUNK E-MAIL is like seasickness: If you don't get it, you don't really understand how bad it is. In 1997, when I proposed my first article on spam, the English editor I approached insisted it was an "American problem." One of his colleagues and...

Queer science: a data-bending psychologist confirms what he already knew about gays and transsexuals.
November 1, 2003... The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism, by J. Michael Bailey, Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, 256 Pages, $24.95 THE PRIMITIVE IDEA about gay men, shared by many Christian fundamentalists and...

Eichmann in Hogwarts: Harry Potter and the banality of evil.
November 1, 2003... When we first met the young wizard-in-training Harry Potter some six years ago, he had spent a decade in the care of his overbearing "muggle" (non-magical) aunt and uncle after surviving the murder of his parents by the evil Voldemort. At the...

Defending tolerance: values liberty, and democracy.
November 1, 2003... Liberal Pluralism: The Implications of Value Pluralism for Political Theory and Practice, by William Galston, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 737 Pages, $19 Now THAT THE last smart bomb has fallen and soaring Predators have returned...

The gipper and the hedgehog: how an "amiable dunce" outsmarted the world.
November 1, 2003... Reagan's War: The Epic Story of His Forty rear struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism, by Peter Schweizer, New York: Doubleday, 339 pages, $26 THE INNATE AND possibly genetically mandated stupidity of Republicans has long been treated...

Talking with terrorists: Jessica Stern's new book reports from the front lines of the war on terror.
November 1, 2003... FOR THE LAST five years, Jessica Stern has been interviewing terrorists for her new book, Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill (Ecco). The book is a synthesis of the often-sensational popular literature on terrorism that has...

Weasels ripped our flesh: the forgotten world of men's adventure magazines.
November 1, 2003... GUYS, HERE'S A question just for you: What sort of daring adventure fantasies recharge your sense of your own masculinity? Do you think about yourself alone at sea, for example, just you against nature's power, facing off against a pack of...

Baghdad, prairie style.(Artifact)
November 1, 2003... The Wall Street Journal recently ran a column by Adam Cohen revealing that an ambitious scheme for renewing Baghdad had been gathering dust for nearly 50 years, a plan drawn up by Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1957 the aged architect had been invited...

The case for a dynamic economy.
November 1, 2003... Many people worry that the decline in U.S. manufacturing employment is a sign of U.S. economic decline. That worry is understandable, but a closer look shows that the loss of manufacturing jobs is a sign of economic health. Here are the...