Big Labor view (Fall 1984, Heritage Foundation,
214 Massachusetts Ave. N.E., Washing-
ton, D.C. 20002.
Leftists have long criticized the American labor movement for its polit- ical conservatism. Now, says Green, a former labor union official, they have less room for complaint.
He contends that the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), which includes 96 labor unions representing 13.7 million workers, is veering sharply to the left.
There was some truth...
"Public Attitudes about Health-CareControlling U.S. Costs: A Lesson in National Schizophre- nia" Robert J. Blendon and Drew E.Medical Costs Altman, in The New England Journal of Medicine (Aug. 30, 1984), 1440 Main St.,
P.O. Box 9140, Waltham, Mass. 02254.
Faced with a hefty and fast-growing national bill for medical care, Americans are telling public-opinion pollsters that they would wel- come an overhaul of the U.S. health-care system-as long as no one asks them to make any sacrifices.
In...
H. Roy Kaplan, in The
Annals of the American Academy of Politi-
cal and Social Science (July 1984), Sage
Publications, 275 South Beverly Dr., Bev-
erly Hills, Calif. 90212.
State governments are gambling that lotteries will provide a painless way to increase revenues. But to H. Roy Kaplan, a sociologist at the Florida Institute of Technology, lotteries are a poor substitute for "de- pendable, equitable, and responsible methods of revenue generation."
Using games of chance to finance...
as little as one quarter of one percent would raise the same amount. Lotteries are not only less efficient than taxes, they are less fair. The poor spend a larger proportion of their income on such games of chance than do the well off. Finally, the hope that legalized gambling would hurt orga- nized crime has proved to be an illusion.
Above all, Kaplan is critical of state governments that encourage their citizens to hinge "their aspirations for better lives on the ephem- eral possibility...
David Skylar, Post-Mortem for in The Quill (July-Aug. 1984), 840 North Newspapers Lake Shore Dr., Ste. 801W, Chicago, 111.
6061 1.
During the past 35 years, 253 U.S. daily newspapers have ceased publi- cation, and 145 have merged with other papers. During 1982 alone, the presses stopped at three major dailies-the Philadelphia Bulletin, the Cleveland Press, and the Buffalo Courier-Express.
"Television is killing newspapers," lament failing publishers. Non- sense, says Skylar, a consultant...
First Tabloids Alexander Saxton, in American Quarterly
(Summer 1984), 307 College Hall, Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.
19104.
In 1830, the United States could claim only 65 daily newspapers, all of them published and for the urban gentry. Within just a few years, says Saxton, a University of California, Los Angeles, historian, a "favor- able coincidence of technology, flush times, and politics" paved the way for a new breed of popular mass-circulation tabloids.
The pre...
Alice Gold- farb ~ar~uis,
in Journal of ~ontem~orary History (July 1984), Sage Publications, 28 Banner St., London EC1 8QE, England.
Radio's golden age occurred during the 1930s in both Great Britain and the United States. Apart from that coincidence, virtually all that radio broadcasts in the two lands had in common was the English language.
So argues Marquis, a California historian. In America, both the Na- tional Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), founded in 1926, and the Co- lumbia Broadcasting...
1928, industry giant NBC was taking in $10 mil-
lion annually from advertisers. Meanwhile, intellectuals regularly
flailed the networks for pandering to low tastesÃ?â??Uth tastes of the .
mentally deficient," as literary critic Henry Volkening put it.
The BBC faced no such accusations. In fact, it was frequently taken to task for ignoring the preferences of its mostly working-class audi- ence. Directed until 1940 the dour and opinionated John C. W. Reith, the BBC was a rather...
stripping him of his profes- sorship in Catholic theology. Yet, Sheehan believes that the new theolo- gians, undermining the Vatican's claim to infallibility in theological matters, are having an effect. The Catholic Church's growing involve- ment in secular issues, such as nuclear war and abortion, he lays to a retreat from the theological arena.
Sheehan believes that any effort by the Vatican to quash the theolo- gians' revolt is doomed to fail. Yet, it also seems unlikely that a church that...
the year 2076. The Ortho- dox, with their far higher birthrate, hope to prevent that.
But above all, Gittelson concludes, the return of some Jews to "old- time religion" is a personal quest for spiritual meaning. And the new Orthodox, in their strict practices and deep faith, "seem to feel con- stantly exhilarated that they are carrying out God's plan."
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Missing: Most "The Invisible Universe" John D. Bar-row and Joseph Silk, in New Scientist (Au...