The Week.(current political events)

Steven Spielberg quit the board of the Boy Scouts-thereby earning a merit badge in Hollywood.

The leaders of 34 nations met in Quebec to reiterate their interest in a "Free Trade Area of the Americas" including every Western Hemisphere country but Cuba. To make this zone a reality is going to be tough work for the administration. NAFTA was easier by comparison because the Mexican government wanted it so much. Latin American countries are not as eager for a free-trade deal; Brazil, the largest economy in South America, is the most reluctant. The Bush administration, if it really wants a free-trade agreement, is going to have to make it attractive to others. It may, for example, need to reconsider our "anti-dumping" laws, which protect U.S. firms from the "unfair competition" of cheap imports. These laws punish American consumers and rankle our trading partners-notably Brazil. Trade agreements happen when the participating countries face down protectionist lobbies at home for the greater good of their economies. By putting the anti-dumping laws on the table, Bush can lead by example.

Any world trade conference now comes accompanied by a world anti-trade conference: rock- and bottle-throwing louts who move, like groupies, from Seattle to Quebec to wherever. The embers of the Left-professors, students who haven't cracked a book in years, bored, spoiled rich kids- have been looking for an organizing principle since the death of Communism deprived them of an enemy to appease. They seem chaotic and contemptible, but such people have produced serious revolutions, given the proper conditions. If there were a worldwide depression, global capitalism would take the blame and the rioters would gain adherents; some despot might later look back on the days of his Starbucks putsch.

For many years, death and violence have been slipping from daily life. Deathbeds have moved from homes to hospitals; people have moved from farms, where animals are regularly slaughtered, to cities; war has become professionalized. Similarly, public executions, tortures, and even humiliations (such as the stocks) have fallen by the wayside. Now attorney general John Ashcroft has decided that the May 16 execution of Timothy McVeigh will be broadcast on closed-circuit television for survivors of his crime and relatives of the victims who wish to see it, though no record will be kept. There are arguments both for and against public justice: Dr. Johnson thought Tyburn, London's scaffold, taught moral lessons; they were lost on his friend James Boswell, however, who attended hangings obsessively, and "partied" afterwards. But the impetus to buck the broad trend in McVeigh's case is mistaken. Because he committed a celebrity crime, his victims' families will get celebrity treatment. We are not executing him for their sakes, but for ours. We are expelling an evil man from our midst, and warning all like him to beware. Neither action requires an audience.

The results of a decade-long government-sponsored study of 1,300 children are in: The more time kids spend in day care, the more likely they are to be aggressive and disobedient in kindergarten. The finding is true for boys and girls, across income levels, and in all day-care arrangements. One of the researchers lamely concluded, "We don't understand why we got these findings." But this news does not come out of the clear blue sky. Studies began showing the negative effects of nonmaternal care 15 years ago. In 1986, Prof. Jay Belsky, then at Penn State, called the first year of life, in particular, a "window of vulnerability," and recommended that a parent be the primary caregiver. As a researcher on the latest report, he suggests that reducing the time in day care would reduce the negative outcomes. The "mommy wars" are bound to rage on, despite the mounting evidence of day care's dangers, but this most recent report about defiant kindergartners should generate sympathy for the working mothers of children being minded by someone else. Who can blame them for not wanting to be with the little brats?

Clear, honest English is among the casualties of the modern race riot. In Cincinnati, blacks indicted for looting, arson, and vandalism are referred to as "protesters." The press deodorizes anarchy, calling it "civil unrest." The "protesters" are "venting their frustration." Yet there is nothing civil about the violence practiced by these people, more than 800 of whom have been arrested in the city's worst racial spasm since 1968. One white woman was dragged from her car and beaten; a white man was pulled from his truck and beaten. Remember poor Reginald Denny, in Los Angeles? These are vile "hate crimes," but nobody will say so, least of all Cincinnati's black leaders. The Rev. Damon Lynch, pastor of the city's New Prospect Baptist Church, has said he wants the "protests" to continue until everyone charged with a crime is granted amnesty. This is pure incitement. The people of Cincinnati will certainly not be able to stop lawless mob violence until they learn to call it by its proper name.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is running a campaign against "tax havens": i.e., countries with low taxes and strong financial-privacy laws. Critics say that it is picking on weak countries. By the OECD's standards, Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, and Singapore are tax havens-as is the United States-but its list of 41 such havens is composed mainly of small, poor countries in the Caribbean. The OECD itself is a club for industrialized nations. What concerns OECD members such as France (where the group is based) is that people are using the tax havens to evade high taxes on capital in their home countries. The OECD wants the rich countries to impose trade and financial sanctions on the havens unless they change their laws. All of this is spelled out in two OECD reports with the ominous titles Harmful Tax Competition and Towards Global Tax Cooperation. America can sink the OECD plan by not participating in it. In Congress, opposition is being led by conservatives (who rather like "tax competition") and members of the black caucus (who are defensive of the Caribbean). Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill is on the fence. He says countries should be able to set their own tax rates, but has also supported "effective tax information exchange"-i.e., governments' sharing information about taxpayers. O'Neill has a choice: Side with privacy, free trade, and fairness for poor countries, or with double taxation and the government of France. It should be easy.