the politics of selfishness."
Congress passed the Railroad Retirement Act in 1934, over the pro- tests of the Roosevelt administration. The act nationalized existing pension plans into a Railroad Retirement Fund (RRF) that taxes both workers and employers in a manner similar to (but separate from) Social Security. Lobbying retiree groups has kept pensions generous. Railroad pensions range up to 125 percent of a worker's final salary.
Railroads pay for these generous pensions through high...
Richard A.
and Easterlin, in Population and Development Re-
view (June 1987), The Population Council. 1
Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, New York, N.Y.
10017.
In 1968, fully 25 percent of Americans over the age of 65 lived in poverty, but only 15 percent of children under 16 did so. In 1985, only 13 percent of the aged were poor, but 21 percent of children were in poverty.
Why are the elderly prospering and children not? Easterlin, an econo- mist at the University of Southern California, finds "independent...
Richard A.
and Easterlin, in Population and Development Re-
view (June 1987), The Population Council. 1
Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, New York, N.Y.
10017.
In 1968, fully 25 percent of Americans over the age of 65 lived in poverty, but only 15 percent of children under 16 did so. In 1985, only 13 percent of the aged were poor, but 21 percent of children were in poverty.
Why are the elderly prospering and children not? Easterlin, an econo- mist at the University of Southern California, finds "independent c...
forcing more recourse to doctors, have an indirect effect in reducing illness, but patients with com- plex ailments will see a physician regardless of whether a prescription is required. "Consumers," he notes, "are able to understand the value of a doctor's advice even if they are not required to seek it."
Schools and "Business-Led School Reform: The Second Wave" Denis I? Doyle, in Across the Board (Nov. 1987), The Conference hard, 845 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10022.
Even...
Lowell Edmunds, in Johns Hopkins Magazine (Dec. 1987), 203 White- head Hall, Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, Md. 21218.
The dinner party, says Edmunds, a classics professor at Johns Hopkins University, "was a prime form of self-expression" for the Roman aristoc- racy. But what did hosts want their banquets to say about themselves? The answer, Edmunds believes, is that meals were a means to transmit and preserve traditional virtues.
Hosts usually invited nine men to dinner; guests reclined...
serving exqui- site food brought from their simple country houses.
The Romans loved disguising food to express the distinction between appearance and reality. The poet Martial (circa A.D. 40-103), for example, once "knew of a chef who could make a whole banquet out of gourds." Edrnunds concludes that culinary deception derives from the belief that a person's outward appearance masked his inner nature. "The Roman ban- queter," he notes, dined "upon his world view."
PRESS &am...
the Civil War, many newspapers covered sports, yet some papers did so reluctantly. New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley, for example, once gave six columns to a prize fight, but added an editorial denouncing the brutality of the boxing match. As sports news drew more readers, sportswriters gained influence. Baseball writer Henry Chadwick (1824- 1908) helped create the National League (which in 1876 became the first organization of professional sports clubs in the United States), and also founded...
a nuclear power accident, but fail to report the actual number of people killed so far nuclear power, a miniscule total. Moreover, only 16 percent of the stories sur- veyed compared the possible costs and benefits of a risky activity. In most stories, journalists imply that the costs of an activity outweigh its benefits, while failing to give the reader the information needed to reach an inde- pendent assessment. "None of the media," say the authors, "is very infor- mative in providing...
rejects the establishment of an elite ruling class or a dictatorship.
Because Muslims are combating the erosion of their faith, the jihad (holy war) is considered defensive in nature. Thus the mujahideen (war- riors in the way of God) in Afghanistan, while they may take the offensive against Soviet forces, have been "involved in a wholly defensive war."
The primary goal of today's Muslim leaders is to cleanse their society of foreign influence and help Muslims "rediscover and re-embrace...
Mary Midgley, in Philosophy (July 1987), Cambridge Univ. Press, 32 East 57th St., New York, N.Y. 10022.
English philosopher G. E. Moore (1873-1958) was acclaimed most British intellectuals when his major work, Principia Ethica, was published in 1903. But the Fabian socialist Beatrice Webb was an exception. The book, she wrote in a letter, was "a metaphysical justification for doing what you like and what other people disapprove of." Its effect on young men was "to disintegrate their...