For a country that claims to love kids, the United States sure seems to dislike parents. According to a 1999 survey conducted by the foundation Public Agenda, only 23 percent of Americans feel that parents are good role models for their children, while fully 49 percent believe that “irresponsible” parents–and not social and economic pressures […]
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Posted inBooks
State of the Debate: The Moral Meanings of Work
How should we think about work — as just a necessary burden that we’d like to cut to a minimum or as the organizing focus of our lives? A number of new books about work, culture, and family suggest that we need to work for more than bread alone.
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Family Valued:
Cecile Johnston and her husband Kevin Diffily have just filed for bankruptcy. Their mistake? They had a new baby, and Johnston took 12 weeks off to care for her, as is provided by the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. “I was working at part-time jobs for two agencies,” explains Johnston, who is a community […]
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House of Hope:
Brandy was crawling on the floor near her mother’s feet, dressed in her new denim jumper with tightly braided pigtails framing her dimpled face. Her smile hid any sign that in her nine months, Brandy has already been to jail, to a methadone clinic, and shuttled between three homes. Brandy was just four months old […]
Posted inFeatures
Learning to Count
The electoral circus in Florida shined a klieg light on the need to overhaul our elections across the nation. The debacle yielded a chorus of reform pledges from politicians. As if to prove they meant it, they introduced enough bills to level a small forest: at last count, more than 1,500 in state legislatures and […]
Posted inFeatures
Cornering the Airwaves
As the U.S. Senate gears up for a vote this spring on the campaign finance reform bill drafted by Arizona Republican John McCain and Wisconsin Democrat Russell Feingold, it would do well to consider a lament from one of its recent escapees: “Today’s campaigns function as collection agencies for broadcasters,” Bill Bradley observed a few […]
Posted inFeatures
The Bidness of Voting
Colin Goldman is trying very hard to break the law. But it hasn’t been easy. In the months leading up to the election, Goldman, a libertarian candidate for the California assembly, has been running an election sweepstakes. He promises a $1,000-cash prize to one lucky winner to be chosen from those who sign up on […]
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Echo Chamber of Horrors
Let’s get one thing straight right from the get-go. We would rather be last in reporting returns than be wrong… . If we say somebody has carried a state, you can pretty much take it to the bank, book it that that’s true. –Dan Rather, CBS News, early evening, November 7 We’ve always said, you […]
