Son of God, CEO
In 1925 the publishing world was rocked by an up-and-coming advertising executive named Bruce Barton, who’d written a book called The Man Nobody Knows. The man in question was Jesus Christ, the “most popular dinner guest in Jerusalem,” who had “picked up twelve humble men and created an organization that won the world.” Jesus, Barton…
Concern for the Masses?
In 1956 a young seminary student named Charles Curran bet a conservative classmate that Adlai Stevenson would beat Dwight Eisenhower in the fall presidential election. When Stevenson went down to defeat that November, Curran’s classmate, Edward Egan, took great pleasure in exacting payment. “He made me read Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind,” Curran, now a…
A Republic, Not an Empire: Reclaiming America’s Destiny.
Pat Buchanan is a serious subject because he is a serious America Firster who might get a considerable fraction of the vote for president this year. It seems quite possible, at this writing, that though now at only 4 percent in the polls, he will be the Reform Party nominee for president with $12.6 million…
Gore’s Mating Ritual
To those of you who’ve been feeling socially inadequate because your mind goes blank whenever the subject of Who Should Be Al Gore’s Running Mate comes up at barbecues or on white-water rafting trips: relax. The American Prospect’s poll of the experts conducted in late June has uncovered a similar dearth of suggestions among the…
The Curse of the Vice Presidency
Until the election of George Bush the elder in 1988, no incumbent vice president had been elected president since Martin Van Buren in 1836. (Bush opened his first post-election news conference by saying, “It’s been a long time, Marty.”) Yet it also is true that, starting with Harry S. Truman in 1945, five of the…
The Upside of Unemployment Insurance
To many economists, the unemployment insurance system is, at best, a necessary evil: The system helps laid-off workers survive hard times, but at the cost of economic efficiency. Unemployment benefits, the argument goes, reduce the incentive that unemployed workers have to seek and accept new jobs. But a new study concludes that the nation’s unemployment…
Boycotts Will Be Boycotts
Flip the political calendar back to 1997: Led by the Southern Baptist Convention, social conservatives targeted the Walt Disney Corporation with a nationwide boycott in response to, among other sins, condoning “Gay Day” at Walt Disney World, having relatively gay-friendly corporate policies, and producing the sitcom Ellen. Now, back to the present: Gay civil rights…
It’s Alive!
On June 10, amid much hoopla, the House of Representatives voted by a margin of 279-136 to repeal the federal estate tax–along with the federal gift tax and the so-called generation-skipping transfer tax. While the legislative initiative was orchestrated by the House Republican leadership, 50 Democrats joined as co-sponsors, and 65 voted for the bill.…
The Taxonomist
Hatching Tax Cuts for the Rich Why is it that when Republicans in Congress try to address a real problem–whether it be an inadequate minimum wage, the tax code’s marriage penalty, or whatever else happens to catch their attention–they so often end up calling for big tax cuts for the rich? The latest example comes…
The Colombia Quagmire
Realizing that darkness was quickly approaching, the naval sergeant frantically pulled out his yellow lighter and tried to get a flame going. But it did not light, so he turned to his fellow soldier for help. “Do you have any matches?” he asked. For an interview with the author, see Colombia’s War from…
Speech Isn’t Cheap
Despite the materialism that defines American culture and our reverence for financial success, a suspicion that money really is the root of all evil retains its appeal, especially among progressives. The association of wealth with corruption is particularly clear in debates about campaign finance reform. Reformers are self-proclaimed proponents of “clean elections”; their opponents are…
Comment: Taking It with You
As Sheldon Pollack writes in this issue [“It’s Alive,” page 29], Republicans in Congress are close to killing the estate tax. Some remnant will survive, but it could be significantly cut, and with the collusion of many Democrats. Why get rid of a tax paid only by the richest 1 percent of Americans? Why scrap…
Why Business Should Love Gore
If they were true profit-maximizers–textbook illustrations of rational self-interest–American corporations and their top executives would be flooding Al Gore’s campaign with money, and not George W.’s. Rather than gamble on an unknown W., they’d bet on a proven Al Gore. No administration in modern history has been as good for American business as has the…
The New Politics of Abortion
In 1980 the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) and other pro-life lobbies put out a “hit list” of 18 pro-choice incumbents they aimed to topple in that fall’s election, but this year NRLC Political Director Carol Tobias says the organization is not disclosing which races it will target. By contrast, NARAL, the main pro-choice…
There’s Something About Shaft
Just as you’re getting ready to crack the latest beach paperback, The New York Times comes along with another idea about what makes for good summer reading. “How Race Is Lived in America” is what the newspaper called the month-long series that ran in June. “Race relations are being defined less by political action than…
The Souls of White Folk
When the U.S. Census Bureau asked residents to count off for the new millennium, sharp-eyed individuals noticed a slight oddity in the form’s race question: While Asians or Pacific Islanders could pick from among nine boxes (Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Native Hawaiian, Guamanian, or Chamorro and Samoan), Caucasians had only one box…
Breakdown Lane
The American automobile will soon change dramatically. The Ford Taurus of the future will be the same size as today’s Taurus, deliver the same performance, and cost about as much, but it will have a new engine efficient enough to go from Washington to Miami on a single tank of fuel. Without great sacrifice, Americans…
Energy Insurance
The vast majority of scientists who study climate issues now agree that carbon emissions are a potentially disastrous problem. However, economic fears have obstructed even the mildest remedies. Particularly in the United States, voters resist taxes that would raise fuel costs, and there has been little political support for massive investment in new technologies or…
History’s Heisenberg Principle
In September 1941, Werner Heisenberg, at the time Germany’s pre-eminent scientist and the head of its atom bomb program, traveled to Nazi-occupied Copenhagen to visit his old friend and mentor, Niels Bohr. Both were Nobel laureates; both were among the giants of modern theoretical physics. Eighteen months later, Bohr would escape and work on the…
Charter Schools in Action: Renewing Public Education
Fifteen hundred charter schools have been established nationwide since 1991, enrolling 300,000 schoolchildren. The original idea was for parents and teachers, with educational visions, to establish independent publicly funded schools, free from regulations that impede innovation. Superior results would stimulate imitation by regular schools. Charters have been endorsed by both liberal reformers and conservative critics…
Second in Command
ACROSS: 1 AR(M)RESTS (ref. radio code for letter M); 5 WOR + K (row rev.); 8 U-BOAT (anag.); 9 CH(APT)ER; 11 ERITR + EA ([w]riter anag.); 12 ROMAN (2 defs.); 13 S(A)TRAP; 15 E(VOL)VE; 18 TWAIN (anag.); 19 MEDIA + T.E.; 21 RE + SERVE (verse anag.); 22 RITES (writes hom.); 23 TO ME; 24…
