Sexual Congress
Feminists have long regarded rape as a hate crime, like lynching. The view of sexual violence as a particularly vicious form of bigotry and social control may oversimplify the dynamics of any given sex crime (and overlook the historic use of rape allegations to justify lynching), but it resonates with many women. Both self-identified and…
The Bradley Republicans
By most conventional standards, Robert L. Burch III is an unlikely supporter of Bill Bradley. A 65-year-old executive at a New York hedge fund, Burch detests teachers’ unions, trial lawyers, and liberal special interests. He believes in school vouchers, Social Security privatization, welfare reform, and, unhesitatingly, the Laffer Curve. “The press would call me conservative,”…
Primary New Hampshire
NASHUA, NEW HAMPSHIRE–Political lore says that George Bush (père) lost the 1980 primary when he sat grinning dumbly as Ronald Reagan proclaimed that he had “paid for this microphone” during a debate here. Of course, that this is not true (the debate merely helped turn a loss into a rout) matters less than its being…
Did Labor Jump the Gun?
If Vice President Al Gore wins the Democratic nomination for president, he will have John Sweeney and the AFL-CIO to thank. The AFL-CIO boosted Gore’s flagging campaign in October when it endorsed him over former Senator Bill Bradley. And in the primaries and caucuses, the labor movement could provide the winning margin in key states…
Southern Cross
George W. Bush has ducked the question of whether South Carolina should haul down the Confederate flag. But regardless of Bush’s position, the flag will likely come down, and soon. Even before the huge demonstration on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, some of South Carolina’s most venerable and conservative institutions (the Citadel, Bob Jones University,…
Taps for Caps
One problem the Republican leadership faces in boasting about the accomplishments of the 1999 congressional session is that one of them was the repudiation of the primary “success” they were trumpeting proudly in 1997. That was the year the Republican Congress passedand lamentably got Bill Clinton to signthe wildly misnamed Balanced Budget Act. It was…
The Parent Panacea
Gloria Molina has been Los Angeles County’s First District Supervisor since 1991, when courts ordered the creation of a protected Latino seat on the County Board of Supervisors. Akin to the mayoralty of the nation’s biggest Mexican-American “city,” the post has given the former congresswoman a chance to promote her view–widely shared across the country–that…
Death Row, Aisle Seat
Newt Gingrich once said that the key to building a new conservative majority in the United States rests with “low taxes and the death penalty.” At least insofar as the death penalty is concerned, a generation of politicians has cultivated exactly the public sentiment Gingrich was counting on. From Richard Nixon’s “law and order” rhetoric…
The Corporate ABCs
I knew something was odd when Microsoft’s spelling checker corrected my typing of Bertelsmann, the German corporation that controls most of the world’s English-language trade publishing. It’s not your average English word. Neither are Westvaco, Enron, and Supervalu; nor Chevron, Costco, and Ameritech. But all of those semi-words are among the corporate monikers Microsoft has…
AOL-Time Warner’s Kingly Prerogative
Any time now, government economists will decide whether America Online’s (AOL’s) $165-billion proposed take-over of Time Warner is likely to be good or bad for consumers. If good, the government will sign off. If bad, there’ll be negotiations with AOL and Time Warner until an agreement can be reached on what the new company would…
How the Economists Got It Wrong
The American Economic Association (AEA) met January 7-9 in Boston, for a millennial program distinguished by its attention to international policy issues, most particularly financial crises (as in Asia) and the failure of the so-called “economic transition” (as in Russia). And yet, in this odd rush to relevance, something was curiously awry. Apart from a…
Public Schools: An Ideal at Risk
Works Discussed in this Essay: Spinning Wheels: The Politics of Urban School Reform, by Frederick M. Hess. Brookings Institution Press, 228 pages, $16.95. The Tracking Wars: State Reform Meets School Policy, by Tom Loveless. Brookings Institution Press, 194 pages, $16.95. The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving beyond Traditional Classrooms and “Tougher…
And You Thought Tim Russert Was Tough
Back in September, subscribers to Red Herring magazine’s e-mail bulletin “The Red Eye” received a missive they probably weren’t expecting. “Tony Perkins here with a special invitation,” began the message. “As most Red Herring readers know, I’ve stuck my neck out early in the next presidential campaign by personally backing my friend Governor George W.…
The Poor Count
Determining precisely who are the poorest Americans would seem to be a simple enough things to do. But like many bureaucratic tasks, counting up the official poor is fraught with political complications. Last October the issue became front-page news when The New York Times suggested that the Census Bureau might raise the poverty level, boosting…
The Defining Issue
For liberals, it’s the lost crusade. For conservatives, it’s the emblematic case of overweening big government. Perhaps more clearly than in any other issue, federal action to achieve universal health coverage brings out ideological and partisan differences in America. In the early 1990s, health care became a defining conflict for the nation, and so it…
What Teachers Know
Works Discussed in this Essay: The Teaching Gap: Best Ideas from the World’s Teachers for Improving Education in the Classroom, by James W. Stigler and James Hiebert. Free Press, 224 pages, $23.00. Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics: Teachers’ Understanding of Fundamental Mathematics in China and the United States, by Liping Ma. Lawrence…
The Culture Wars
By far the most sensational moment of the Brooklyn Museum of Art’s “Sensation” exhibit–more exciting than the shark in a tank, the mutant mannequin girls with penises coming out of their foreheads, or the stinky, bloody, maggot-infested cow’s head; more thrilling than Mayor Giuliani’s scripted obscenity attack or the museum’s scripted First Amendment defense–was provided…
American Dream, American Opera
The Red Hook section of Brooklyn is only 20 miles from Manhasset Neck on Long Island, but the places stand worlds apart. Red Hook, as depicted in Arthur Miller’s 1955 play A View from the Bridge, is a sturdy working-class neighborhood that depends on the nearby dockyards for its livelihood. Manhasset Neck, in its incarnation…
Healing Medicare
Before enactment of Medicare in 1965, few elderly persons had reliable health insurance. When insurance was available, it was expensive and limited, and its renewal was uncertain. As a consequence, nearly 50 percent of the elderly had no health insurance at all, and faced bankruptcy from the costs of serious illness. Medicare provided all elderly…
Nurse, Interrupted
It’s May 13, the day after Florence Nightingale’s birthday, and as part of the annual celebration of Nurses’ Week–established in part to commemorate Nightingale’s role in the development of professional nursing–members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association have asked me to speak to a group of registered nurses (RNs) at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Health…
Comment: Incremental Reform Toward What?
How to cure the American health care system depends on what you think ails it. The center and the right identify three basic maladies. First, there is a cost crisis. This view reflects the concerns of “payers”–employers who face rising premiums, federal budget balancers projecting Medicare deficits, and insurance companies whose profits are squeezed by…
The Answers to Primary Colors (2.5.00)
ACROSS: 1. D(UP)ON + T 4. CA + U(CU)S 8. A + BET + TED 10. DONNA (anag.) 11. ELDER (2 defs.) 12. M(A + NH)OOD 13. RELOCATED (anag.) 17. A + LAB + AMA 19. O + R + BIT 21. RUIN + G 22. SE(G-MEN)T 23. LYNDON (hidden) 24. A(S)IDES DOWN: 1. D…
