It Pays to Discover
Frank I. Michelman’s Brennan and Democracy 01.03.00 | reviewed by Jeremy Derfner Frank I. Michelman is a political theorist with a problem. He believes in democracy-all the people deciding for themselves how they will be governed. He also believes in the Consti tution, a 200-year-old document that sets down the fundamental rules of governance, “a…
Perot, Revised
Pat Buchanan’s recent defection to the Reform Party has led to a lot of soul-searching within the Republican Party. Spurred in part by fears that “Pitchfork Pat” could siphon off votes from the next GOP nominee, Republicans of all stripes have been harshly critical of their onetime ally. That’s understandable. What’s more surprising, however, is…
Comment: Schlemiel, Schlimazel
One of my favorite hoary bits of Jewish humor explains the difference between a schlemiel (a fool) and a schlimazel (one prone to misfortune): A schlemiel is the traveler who spills his coffee on a fellow passenger. A schlimazel is the fellow he spills it on. Vice President Al Gore has to be the schlimazel…
The Nanny Chain
Vicky Diaz, a 34-year-old mother of five, was a college-educated schoolteacher and travel agent in the Philippines before migrating to the United States to work as a housekeeper for a wealthy Beverly Hills family and as a nanny for their two-year-old son. Her children, Vicky explained to Rhacel Parrenas, were saddened by my departure. Even…
Taiwan on the Brink
Speaking to a German radio interviewer last July, Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui sparked a diplomatic fire storm with three seemingly innocuous words: Taiwan, he announced, would henceforth treat contacts with mainland China as “state-to-state” relations. The Chinese government responded to this announcement with a furious barrage of invectives and a rapidly escalating chorus of threats…
Clinton’s Bequest Reconsidered
Will Bill Clinton’s brand of fiscal prudence save liberalismor kill it? An economist and a journalist discuss the president’s economic policies and the hidden dangers of fiscal conservatism. Barry Bluestone on Fiscal Conservatism’s Hidden Dangers It was wonk heaven. Flush from his victory over George Bush in 1992, President-elect Bill Clinton convened more than 300…
Crazy for Bush?
There are basically two kinds of New Hampshire voters. The first kind–not very different from those in the rest of the country–is represented by Frank Claik, a local dignitary from Littleton, who recently shook hands with George W. Bush. Claik is a former Democrat who switched parties out of disgust with Bill Clinton; he now…
The Savings Lottery
Perhaps millions of Americans play state lotteries because they are dreamers or, more prosaically, just mathematically challenged. A good libertarian might argue that policy makers should simply shrug and let people spend money as they choose. It’s a free country, after all. The rich have portfolios, stockbrokers, and shrinks; the middle class have stocks, computers,…
It’s the Year 2000 Economy, Stupid
Exactly eight years ago, I trudged through New Hampshire sleet and slush, telling anyone who’d listen that Bill Clinton would do wonders for the American economy. Now, as the nation lurches into a millennial election year, most Americans seem largely content. The economy has faded as an election-year issue. But it shouldn’t havethere are Two…
Potemkin Villages
Works Discussed in this Essay: Celebration, U.S.A.: Living in Disney’s Brave New Town, by Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins. Holt, 342 pages, $25.00. The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property Values in Disney’s New Town, by Andrew Ross. Ballantine, 340 pages, $25.95. Home Town, by Tracy Kidder. Random House, 349 pages, $25.95.…
When Congress Plays Doctor
When HMOs deny life-saving care to their patients, members of Congress fulminate. Recently, 275 of them, including 29 Republicans, voted for a patients’ bill of rights. “Deny American citizens effective, life-saving treatments or palliatives for pain?” I imagine them saying indignantly to the HMOs. “That’s our job.” In the past few months, Congress and the…
Shades of Green
More than two-thirds of Americans call themselves environmentalists. Their rank includes every serious presidential candidate, a growing list of corporate executives, some of the country’s most extreme radicals, and ordinary people from just about every region, class, and ethnic group. Even allowing for some hypocrisy, finding consensus so tightly overlaid on division is reason for…
Punishing Policies
Christian Parenti’s Lockdown America: Police and Prisons In The Age of Crisis 01.03.00 | reviewed by J. W. Mason Over the past 20 years, the United States has carried out an experiment in punitive policing that has no precedent in a democracy. The prison population has increased fourfold, to nearly two million. Though these figures…
Reading the American Mind
Works discussed in this essay: Reading Mixed Signals: Ambivalence in American Public Opinion about Government, by Albert H. Cantril and Susan Davis Cantril. Woodrow Wilson Center Press (distributed by the Johns Hopkins University Press), 253 pages. “Retro-Politics: The Political Typology, Version 3.0,” report by the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press, 163…
Setting Limits on Free Speech
Rod Smolla’s Deliberate Intent: A Lawyer Tells the True Story of Murder by the Book 01.03.00 | reviewed by Franklyn S. Haiman Rod Smolla, a professor of law at the University of Richmond, is one of the country’s most able and articulate First Amendment experts. In this engrossing narrative, he explains how and why- contrary…
Justice Brennan Prevails
Frank I. Michelman’s Brennan and Democracy 01.03.00 | reviewed by Jeremy Derfner Frank I. Michelman is a political theorist with a problem. He believes in democracy-all the people deciding for themselves how they will be governed. He also believes in the Consti tution, a 200-year-old document that sets down the fundamental rules of governance, “a…
Inside John Malkovich
Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness was forecast by his 1938 novel La Nausee, in which a solitary named Antoine Roquentin, in the privacy of his journal, analyzes the agony of his existence: “La nausee … c’est moi.” The comedy Being John Malkovich opens with a similarly pain-infused intimacy, in a stunning solo “Dance of Despair…
Diversity Follies
Here’s what I saw on TV last week: Good-looking, doe-eyed white youngster to his good-looking, doe-eyed sister: “It’s not like I’m still in the closet. Dad already knows I’m gay.” Click. Black guy in suit to white guy in suit: “This is important. I want to show the gay community that I stand out here…
Too Good to Be True
Who’d have ever thought that Texas, famous for finding all sorts of silly things to boast about, would suddenly find cause to brag about its educational achievements? Not a little, but a whole lot. And who’d have thought that what some people have come to call the Texas Miracle would be regarded with great respect,…
Without a Net
The welfare rolls have fallen by almost half since 1994. To assess the impact of this dramatic change, both journalists and social scientists have been talking to families that have left the rolls. But these families are only half the story. Even without welfare reform, nearly half the single mothers on the rolls in 1994…
The e-GOP
As the high-tech sector has grown as an industry, its bankroll of financial contributions to politicians has swollen as well (over $3.8 million so far this year). So it’s no surprise that presidential candidates are now flocking to Silicon Valley, or that firms like AOL and eBay are forming their own political action committees to…
Few Good Men
It is no secret that the institution of marriage is in trouble. The median age at first marriage is at its highest since the United States began keeping reliable statistics: 24 for women and 26 for men. Nearly six of every 10 new marriages will end in divorce, and the propensity to remarry has also…
