A Survey of Recent Articles
The 1990 census made it official: The United States has become a suburban nation. Nearly half of all Americans live in suburbs, only about one-third in cities. Yet some thinkers argue that terms such as bed-room community and suburb are no longer ad- equate to describe places that have been trans- formed from bucolic retreats into centers of commerce and industry. For all intents and purposes, many suburbs have become cities. Robert Fishman, a historian at Rutgers...
what they see as a "suburban ide- ology" of exclusion and "female subordination." On TV, for example, outsiders such as the young black star of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air are made "objects of humor and suspicion." In films such as Fatal Attraction (1987) and Presumed Innocent (19901, more or less traditional housewives do battle witli career women who threaten to steal their husbands and tlieir way of life.
Garreau and Fisliman agree that what might be called the...
the 15th century. Not even criminals or prisoners could be turned into chattel slaves, if they were Euro- peans. Enslavement had become, in European eyes, "a fate worse than death and, as such, was reserved for non-Europeans." And the line divid- ing "insider" and "outsider," Eltis says, "was never drawn strictly in terms of skin color or race."
Among Africans and American Indians, how- ever, much narrower notions of who should not be enslaved prevailed;...
Tom Rosenstiel, in Fork Mediacritic (Vol. 1, No. 3,1994), P.O. Box 762, Bedminster, N.J. 07921.
There is nothing new about news editors using Associated Press (AP) or other "wire" stories to second-guess their own reporters. But inforrna- tion technology has taken the second-guessing to new heights-and that is a very mixed bless- ingr Rosenstiel/ writes politics and the media for the Los Atz2eles Times.
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Editors at major news organizations now re- ceive a torrent of information fro...
rivals at AP, Reuters, the Mu York Times, the Washington Post, Nezusday, and other organizations. Drawing upon these sources, editors, with or without the assistance of the reporter, often turn the story into a seem- ingly comprehensive "take" on the day's subject, a presentation of the collective journalistic wis- dom of the day. It may not be the best that jour- nalism could offer, however. "Theoretically," Rosenstiel notes, "more sources of information should make the...
Daniel Cere, in Theological Studies (Mar. 1994), Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Mass. 02167.
In the modem academy, there is "a strange si- lence about ultimate questions of good and evil, life and death," observes Cere, a lecturer in reli- gion and theology at Concordia University, Montreal. Theology-the tradition of inquiry into the "God-question," the question of the "su- preme good-has been pushed to the margins of academic debate, replaced "religious stud- ies,"...
Kenneth R. Miller, in Technology Review (Feb.-Mar. 1994),Bldg. W59, MIT, Cambridge, Mass. 02139.
Creationists today tout "intelligent-design theory" as an alternative to evolution. They con- tend that living organisms have features that are so perfect that they cannot be the result of the random workings of evolution but must be the product of conscious design. However, says Miller, a biologst at Brown University, scientists argue "that complex organisms not only could have evolved...
Kenneth R. Miller, in Technology Review (Feb.-Mar. 1994),Bldg. W59, MIT, Cambridge, Mass. 02139.
Creationists today tout "intelligent-design theory" as an alternative to evolution. They con- tend that living organisms have features that are so perfect that they cannot be the result of the random workings of evolution but must be the product of conscious design. However, says Miller, a biologst at Brown University, scientists argue "that complex organisms not only could have evolved...
"The Once and Future Sun" Ron Cowen, in Science News (Mar. 26,1994), 1719 N St. N.W., Washington,
D.C. 20036.
The sun's extinction may not be one of humankind's more pressing concerns, but the star that gives us life appears, like today's baby boomers, to be approaching middle age. At about 4.5 billion years of age, it is more than one-
PERIODICALS 143
third of the way through its expected life span.
Like a baby boomer, the sun is going to get
fatter, but it's also going to get b...
boomer, the sun is going to get
fatter, but it's also going to get brighter. The
long-term outlook for the sun's earthbound cli-
ents is not good. Astrophysicist I.-Juliana
Sackmann of the California Institute of Technol-
ogy and two colleagues recently tried to chart
the sun's fate, reports Science News writer
Cowen. During the next 1.1 billion years or so,
its brightness will increase 10 percent. Accord-
ing to a model proposed six years ago James
F. Kasting of Pennsylvania State University,...