Andre Millard, in Business and Economic Hisloy (Fall 1991), Dept. of Economics, College of William and Mary, Williams- burg, Va. 23185.
"Well, it's all gone, but we had a hell of a good time spending it!" Thomas Edison (1847-1931) exclaimed after losing his light bulb fortune in 1900 on a disastrous plan to mine iron magnetically. Henry Ford called his friend the world's greatest inventor and worst businessman, a reputa- tion that has stuck unfairly, in the view of Millard, a professor...
1910, Thomas
A. Edison Incorporated (TAE) was making phonographs, film projectors, electric fans, and storage batteries. Edison was also an early practitioner of "vertical integra- tion": His company controlled each stage of production, from the raw materials to the finished product. To better serve his
SOCI ET17
lowed him to impose his old-fashioned tastes on TAE. Because he hated jazz, his company completely missed the great boom in popular music of the 1920s. Edi- son also hired pr...
the Na- tional Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) found that low birth weight has a much lower correlation with poverty than with heavy smoking pregnant women. Ba- bies born to mothers who smoked 15 or more cigarettes a day had an incidence of low birth weight three times greater than those born to nonsmokers.
Bearing a child out of wedlock is an- other symptom of irresponsibility, Eber- stadt notes, and it too significantly reduces an American child's chances of survival. A college-educated woman...
Norman Podhoretz, in Coii~tiiei7iaiy Date Rape? (Oct. 1991), 165 E. 56th St., New York, N.Y. 10022.
In the space of a few years, "date rape" has rape and thus to brand nearly all men as emerged as a major national concern, dis- rapists. cussed in campus seminars and on TV talk For millennia, he points out, there was shows. This, says Podhoretz, Commentary's no question about the definition of rape. It editor-in-chief, is a great victory for a femi- occurred when a man used violence or...
IODICALS
Rape has always been viewed as one of the most abhorrent of crimes. The new cate- gory of date or acquaintance rape expands the definition to cover a multitude of situa- tions ,in'which, as the editors of Acquaint-ance Rape: The Hidden Crime (1991) put it, "verbal or psychological coercion" is used to "overpower" the woman. Over-coming a woman's resistance with words, Podhoretz observes, "has in the past been universally known as seduction."
But to many feminists,...
the "evenhandedness" of the news, he contends. "The idea that all 'viewpoints' are somehow equal is the reason that we
do so badly in arguing our great social is-
sues." Yet at the same time, the news me-
dia-in the absence of any agreed upon
scale of values-may arbitrarily make
some particular value or cause, such as
helping the homeless, supremely impor-
tant. But only for the moment. Tomor-
row's news is almost sure to bring some
newer and more urgent concern. The...
47 percent, and almost two-thirds of the new clients credited the program as the catalyst for their visits.
Other countries have since begun to use television to promote family planning and other social causes, including several Latin
Vasectomies increased in Brazil after a pro-va-sectomy TV spot featuring animated "inale" and
"female" hearts was aired in 1989.
American countries, Kenya, Turkey, and India. In the Philippines, to encourage sex- ual responsibility among young...
Maurice Cranston, in Quud-rant (Mar. 1991), 46 George St., Fitzroy, Victoria, 3065, Austra-
Toleration lia.
Voltaire (1 694- 1778), battling religious ex- tremism in France but lacking any influ- ence on government or politicians, sought to persuade his countrymen to exercise more personal tolerance. English philoso- pher John Locke (1 632-1704), contrast, championed toleration as public policy- but thought it had limits. Locke's biogra- pher, Maurice Cranston, believes that both men's views ar...
cal disguise."
"Saving Therapy: Exploring the Religious Self-Help Literature' ~e ligion Wendy Kaminer, in Theology Today (Oct. 1991), P.O. Box As Therapy 29, Princeton, N.J. 08542.
Millions of Americans read religious self- help books. M. Scott Peck's first tome, The Road Less Traveled (1978), was on the best-seller list for years, and works by such authors as Charles (Grace Awakening) Swindoll and Gordon (Renewing Your Spiritual Passion) MacDonald also have worldwide audiences. Such...
cal disguise."
"Saving Therapy: Exploring the Religious Self-Help Literature' ~e ligion Wendy Kaminer, in Theology Today (Oct. 1991), P.O. Box As Therapy 29, Princeton, N.J. 08542.
Millions of Americans read religious self- help books. M. Scott Peck's first tome, The Road Less Traveled (1978), was on the best-seller list for years, and works by such authors as Charles (Grace Awakening) Swindoll and Gordon (Renewing Your Spiritual Passion) MacDonald also have worldwide audiences. Such...