Spring 1992
The Media Make the Campaign
In Essence
the assassination of former Con- gress (I) Party Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in the midst of the nation's parliamentary elections. Yet Rao's government has acted with stunning boldness to deal with India's accumulated economic woes.
"[Tlhe pace of reforms has been breath- taking," the Economist (Mar. 7-13, 1992) reports. "The Rao government has slashed red tape, liberalized trade, made exports attractive through devaluation, wooed for- eign investment, loosened interest rates and...
John Lukacs, in The American Scholar (Winter 1992), 1811 Q St.Of Nationalism? N.w., Washington, D.C. 20009.
We are living at the end of an era domi-
u
nated the clash of two great ideas-not democracy and communism, but national- ism and socialism. That is the unorthodox view of Lukacs, the noted Chestnut Hill College historian. The implications for American politics, he suggests, are likely to be profound.
American political terminology-con- servative and liberal, Right and Left-is borrowed...
Frank M. Coffin, in The Brookings Review (Winter 1992), 1775 Mass. Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.
Over the past three decades, the burden on the federal court system has grown enor- mously. The caseload has tripled in federal district courts and increased tenfold in the courts of appeals. And there is no end in sight, notes Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Cof- fin, given the "unceasing flow of federal statutes and entitlements, resulting in in- exorably increasing federal litigation." H...
Frank M. Coffin, in The Brookings Review (Winter 1992), 1775 Mass. Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.
Over the past three decades, the burden on the federal court system has grown enor- mously. The caseload has tripled in federal district courts and increased tenfold in the courts of appeals. And there is no end in sight, notes Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Cof- fin, given the "unceasing flow of federal statutes and entitlements, resulting in in- exorably increasing federal litigation." H...
IODICALS
now return to isolationism, or, as the lone remaining superpower, should it take the lead in creating and enforcing the rules for a new world order? Should the United States now pursue only its own narrow in- terests as a nation, strive to promote de- mocracy around the globe, or try to do whatever needs to be done in the world, with little thought for its own selfish inter- ests? Casting a skeptical eye on the whole "disappointing" debate, Foreign Affairs edi-tor Hyland contends...
the spring of 1966, nearly 50,000 Chinese soldiers were in North Vietnam, although Beijing did not officially acknowledge their presence. Some Chinese People's Liberation Army anti-aircraft units actively engaged U.S. air- craft in combat.
"Most probably," Garver writes, "Chi- na's policy toward the Vietnam War was not governed hard and fast principles, but evolved in response to U.S. actions and other international developments." Never- theless, during the critical mid-1960s...
.*
PERIODICALS
Persona! Saving The Real Estate Effect
AS Percent Of Income
20
1 Adjusted
/ 1
0
I I I
I 1
I
I
I
1950
1960
1970
1980
1985
Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
Official statistics show an alarming decline in personal saving since the early 1970s. But mak- ing an adjustment for rising returns to horne- owners produces a different story.
their nest eggs thus...
the wayside in keeping up with its demands." Each year, one-third of all U.S. employers are penalized in con- nection with the payroll tax deposit rules, which are so complicated that even Inter- nal Revenue Service officials apparently don't understand them. The GAO found that 44 percent of the penalties meted out under those rules were wrongly imposed.
Surely, however, simply raising taxes a little should not increase the system's costs. But Payne contends that not only do the economic-disincentive...
Thomas Sowell, in Society (Nov.-Dec. 1991), Rutgers-The State Univ., New Diversity' Means Brunswick, N.J. 08903.
"Cultural diversity" is frequently invoked today as a shining ideal. Some of its cru- sading advocates, notes Sowell, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, "seem to want to preserve cultures in their purity, almost like butterflies. . . in amber." That. he points out, is not the way in which, over the centuries, cultures and civilizations a...
Thomas Sowell, in Society (Nov.-Dec. 1991), Rutgers-The State Univ., New Diversity' Means Brunswick, N.J. 08903.
"Cultural diversity" is frequently invoked today as a shining ideal. Some of its cru- sading advocates, notes Sowell, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, "seem to want to preserve cultures in their purity, almost like butterflies. . . in amber." That. he points out, is not the way in which, over the centuries, cultures and civilizations a...
Leigh Eric
Mother's Day Schmidt, in The Journal of American History (Dec. 1991), Or- ganization of American Historians, 112 N. Bryan St., Blooming- ton, Ind. 47408-4199.
Cynics might assume that Mother's Day was invented the florist and greeting- card industries. Not exactly, says Schmidt, a Drew University historian. The popular holiday (celebrated on May 10 this year) was actually the brainchild of Anna Jarvis. A schoolteacher who lived in Grafton, W. Va., with her mother (also named Anna)...
Charles Murray and R. J. Herrnstein, in The Public Interest (WinterAre Falling 1992), 1112 16th st. N.w., Ste. 530, Washington, D.C. 20036.
Virtually every year, the announcement of the latest Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores is greeted with alarms over the state of American education. The scores de- clined sharply during the 1960s and '70s, bottomed out in the early '80s, and have made only halting improvement since. Av- erage scores for college-bound seniors in
1990-91 fell to 422 of a...
Barry S. Sapolsky and Joseph 0.Tabarlet, in Journal of Broadcasting &Consequences Electronic Media (Fall 1991), Broadcast Education Assn., 1771 N St. N.W., Washington, D.C.20036.
Every couch potato knows that primetime television is full of sex. How full? To find out, Sapolsky and Tabarlet, both profes- sors of communication at Florida State University, scrutinized a week's worth of 1989 primetime TV. Along with a team of graduate students, they hunted for in- stances of touching, kissing,...
Barry S. Sapolsky and Joseph 0.Tabarlet, in Journal of Broadcasting &Consequences Electronic Media (Fall 1991), Broadcast Education Assn., 1771 N St. N.W., Washington, D.C.20036.
Every couch potato knows that primetime television is full of sex. How full? To find out, Sapolsky and Tabarlet, both profes- sors of communication at Florida State University, scrutinized a week's worth of 1989 primetime TV. Along with a team of graduate students, they hunted for in- stances of touching, kissing,...
calling a "900" num- ber (and paying 95 cents per minute). Now some dailies are attempting to incorporate facets of the alternatives' formula, such as 900 number personals, and at least one daily, the Scranton Times, has purchased its own alternative.
Magazine-length investigative articles are "the real heart, the real soul of an al- ternative paper," asserts Bruce Schimmel, the Philadelphia City Paper's editor. Cover- age in the Sun Francisco Bay Guardian, for example, prompted...
Ren6
A Place for
Vincente Arcilla, in Teachers College Record (Winter 1991), Me tap hysics Teachers College, Columbia Univ., 525 W. 120th st., BOX 103, New York, N.Y. 10027.
"How can we consider man's destiny un- less we ask what he is? How can we talk about preparing men for life unless we ask what the end of life may be? At the base of education, as at the base of every human activity, lies metaphysics." So insisted Robert M. Hutchins (1899-1977), the long- time president of the U...
themselves, did not constitute knowledge in his eyes; their only use was in forming theoretical hypotheses to explain empiri- cal facts. Shaping education according to perceived metaphysical truths, Dewey ar- gued, would mean giving it an authoritar- ian cast. As he saw it, Arcilla explains, metaphysics "prevents us in principle from investigating whether empirical and practical facts may to some degree also de- termine, and help us criticize, the meta- physical truths we hold. Yet we need...
the time the show was over, the curtain had been brought down
Tycho Brahe, with his pre-telescope instruments. on the traditional theory.
Call of the Tame "In From the Cold" Stephen Budiansky, in The New York Times Magazine (Dec. 22, 1991), 229 W. 43rd St., New York,
N.Y. 10036.
Strident animal-rights activists insist that dogs, cattle, horses, and other domesti- cated beasts have been enslaved by that tireless despoiler of nature, man. And most other people take for granted that ma...
Phyllis Austin, in Garbage (Nov.-Dec. 1991), Old House Journal Corp., 2 Main St., Gloucester, Mass. 01930.
First in autos, first in TVs, and first in the management of solid waste as well. That is the view of a number of environmentalists who have studied Japan and estimate that the island nation recycles about 50 per- cent of its solid waste. After a visit to Ja- pan, however, journalist Austin reports the reality there is far less rosy.
Second only to the United States as a garbage producer, J...
Phyllis Austin, in Garbage (Nov.-Dec. 1991), Old House Journal Corp., 2 Main St., Gloucester, Mass. 01930.
First in autos, first in TVs, and first in the management of solid waste as well. That is the view of a number of environmentalists who have studied Japan and estimate that the island nation recycles about 50 per- cent of its solid waste. After a visit to Ja- pan, however, journalist Austin reports the reality there is far less rosy.
Second only to the United States as a garbage producer, J...
many more things, notably infant mortality, than just the survival of more people beyond 85. There may be a natural limit to life, but it is not necessarily 85.
Indeed, University of Minnesota demog-
ARTS & LETTERS
rapher James Vaupel has scrutinized un- usually accurate Swedish data on 85-year- olds and found drastic improvements in remaining life expectancy during the past 50 years. The same is true for Swedes as old as 100. If there is a biological limit to life, Vaupel suggests, it m...
Beniamin Filene. in American Quarterly (Dec. 1991), Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 701 W. 40th St., Baltimore, Md. 2121 1.
Leadbelly, the black singer and guitarist among the most important of America's (1889-1949) who is now considered folk musicians, was first thrust into the
WQ SPRING 1992
129
-. XRIODICALS
musical limelight John Lomax and his son, Alan. During the 1930s and early '40s, the Lomaxes traveled tens of thousands of miles and made thousands of recordings for the Library of Congress of...
John Lomax and his son, Alan. During the 1930s and early '40s, the Lomaxes traveled tens of thousands of miles and made thousands of recordings for the Library of Congress of obscure songs and singers. In time they won ac- claim for preserving America's endan- gered folk-music heritage. What has not been understood, says Filene, a Yale grad- uate student, is how much their personal vision, shaped the left-wing politics of the period, helped to define the very "tra- dition" they were purportedly...
"hack" writers rather than "name" authors.
The popularity of sci-fi movies and TV
OTHER NATIONS
shows has been of little help to writers of original science fiction, Disch says. Most hit sci-fi movies of recent years have been written "director-writer-producer teams who have dealt with [science fic- tion] as a pool of imagery, tropes, and plots in the public domain, which can be cobbled together as well by one creative team asby another."
Many veteran science-fiction w...
overwhelming margins in some areas with heavy concentrations of im- migrants-has achieved a national importance that a similar extremist party in the United States would find hard to win. Ethnic and racial concerns play no small role in American poli- tics, of course, but "the politics of integration or ex- clusion" in France, Horo-
Jean-Marie Le Pen, of the anti-immigrant Front National, was him- witz says, has "a bluntness self a key issue in 1988 elections in which Francois M...
Book Reviews
EXQUISITE CORPSE: Writing on Buildings
By Michael Sorkin.
Verso. 365 pp. $34.95
VARIATIONS ON A THEME PARK: The New American City and the End of Public Space.
Edited by Michael Sorkin. Noonday. 252pp $15
INVENTING THE MIDDLE AGES: The Lives, Works, and Ideas of the Great Medievalists of the Twentieth Century
By Norman F. Cantor.
Morrow. 477 pp. $28
By Thomas Pakenham.
Random House. 738 pp. $32
By Inga Clendinnen.
Cambridge. 398pp. $29.95
By Leila Ahmed.
Yale. 296 pp. $30
By Elizabeth Johns.
Yale. 250 pp. $40
By N. John Hall.
Oxford. 581 pp. $35
By Robert Pogue Harrison.
Chicago. 288 pp. $24.95
By Adam B. Ulam.
Scribners. 528 pp. $27.50
By Jacqueline Jones.
Basic. 399 pp. $25
By Edward Shorter.
Free Press. 419 pp. $24.95
By Gregg Herken.
Oxford. 323 pp. $24.95
By Robert S. Desowitz.
Norton. 288 pp. $21.95
Essays
Robert J. Donovan and Ray Scherer
s a young reporter for the
Richmond Times-Dis-
patch, Charles McDowell
was one of the first inside
witnesses to television's
impact on politics. sheer chance he observed at the Republi- can National Convention in Chicago in 1952 how people's reaction to what they saw on television influenced political deci- sions-a phenomenon that would pro- foundly change the workings of the politi- cal system.
The Republican convention in 1952 was the first at which te...
s a young reporter for the
Richmond Times-Dis-
patch, Charles McDowell
was one of the first inside
witnesses to television's
impact on politics. By sheer chance he observed at the Republi- can National Convention in Chicago in 1952 how people's reaction to what they saw on television influenced political deci- sions-a phenomenon that would pro- foundly change the workings of the politi- cal system.
The Republican convention in 1952 was the first at which television news had the technical re...
The tyranny of the sound
bite has been universally denounced as a leading cause of the low state of America's political dis- course. "If you couldn't say
it in less than 10 seconds," former gover- nor Michael Dukakis declared after the 1988 presidential campaign, "it wasn't heard because it wasn't aired." Somewhat chastened, the nation's television networks now are suggesting that they will be more generous in covering the 1992 campaign, and some candidates have already be...
An autumn episode of America's most consis- tently intelligent and fiercely realistic prime- time television series opened with Homer Simpson watching the news. "And, to con- clude this Halloween newscast on a sca-a- ry note," said the anchorman, "remember, the presidential primaries are only a few months away. Heh-heh-heh."
There is no escaping now. Since mid- January, the Washington Post and New York Times have allocated at least one full inside page to the 1992 campaign...
THE MEDIA MAKE THE CAMPAIGN
Milton Berle once said that criticizing tele- vision was like describing an auto acci- dent to the victims. With all due respect to Berle, one might argue that the journalistic and scholarly media analysis spawned by the vast expansion of TV coverage of politics since 1960 is more like preventive medicine.
The news media have been objects of al- most constant controversy since the late 1960s, when they were accused of turning the Ameri- can public against the Vietnam W...
Two years ago, the young son of a British friend of mine asked a question that aston- ished and delighted his mid- die-aged father. "Daddy," the boy inquired, "can a man ever become prime minister in this coun- try?" From the boy's standpoint, it was a perfectly valid inquiry. A child of the 1980s, born after Margaret Thatcher's first elec- tion in 1979, entering nursery school around the time of her second electoral tri- umph in 1983, and old enough to scan the newspapers...
misunderstanding. Many supposed "breakthroughs" are only beginnings, and some have Iikle -more substance than cold fusion. Our authors explore the science behind the head- lines, assessing the specter of eugenics and pondering the impact of genetic research on our understanding of human nature itself.
WQ SPRING 1992
Joel L. Swerdlow
0ver the centuries, medi- cal progress has eased human suffering and prolonged human lives without asking much in return. Vaccinations, antibiotics, and o...
0ver the centuries, medi- cal progress has eased human suffering and prolonged human lives without asking much in return. Vaccinations, antibiotics, and open-heart surgery, to name a few advances, have not generally posed significant moral problems. Today, however, the dawn of an era of gene-based medicine holds out tantalizing promises that carry with them a growing list of new and often disturbing choices for individ- uals, for physicians and researchers, and for society at large.
Some dilemmas...
In April 199 1, an exposition opened
in the hall atop Paris's great arch of La Defense under the title, La Vie En Kit (Life in a Test Tube)- ~thi~ue
et Biologic. Along with the
displays about molecular genetics and human genome research were a cata- logue and placard by psychoanalyst Monette Vaquin. The latter captured many of the anxieties aroused by this subject:
Today, astounding paradox, the generation following Nazism is giving the world the tools of eugenics beyond the wildest Hit...
Howard L. Kaye
Applause and a collective sigh of relief greeted the announcement in 1990 that a portion of the U.S. Human Genome Project's budget would be set aside each year for studies of the social and ethi- cal implications of genetic research. Mind- ful of past experience with the atom and other revolutionary research put to uses that were not fully anticipated, scientists and administrators now seemed prepared to grapple with the possible uses and abuses of their work while it was underway.
Yet...
The remarkable advances in genetics during the last 50 years have prompted an out- pouring of books and articles about the sci- ence. Along with journalists, many of the more prominent researchers have weighed in with books for the general reader. This has proved to be a mixed blessing. While throwing consider- able light on a complicated science, the array of books can be bewildering. While a number of these may seem to be about genetics-in- eluding Francois Jacob's The Logic of Life (Pantheon,...
It has become a tiresome subject, and I feel more than a little perverse
bringing it up. Still, there is more to
be said-much more-so let me be-
gin. American fiction, the genre, is
in a muddle. I specify "genre" be- cause the problem does not have to do so much with the individual works, which are various and often excellent, but with the form itself. And to contain the generalizing impulse, if only slightly, I will specify still further: It is the American novel that is in a...
w e who have lived through the recent fanfare surround-ing the bicenten- nial of America's Bill of Rights may
find it odd that the centennial of 1891 passed with virtually no ceremony and little, if any, recognition. Newspapers and periodicals, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, made no mention of the anniversary.
RIGHTS AND COURTS
Even the Congressional Record failed to ob- serve the date. Perhaps this lack of atten- tion by 19th-century Americans under- scores the greater...
Reviews of new research at public agencies and private institutions
"The Rural Underclass: Examination of Multiple-Problem Populations in Urban and Rural Settings."
Population Reference Bureau, 1875 Conn. Ave. N.W., Ste. 520, Washington, D.C. 20009. 25 pp. $5.
Authors: William t? O'Hare and Brenda Curry-White
The so-called underclass is usually assumed to be a strictly urban phenomenon: a poor, mostly black population living in impoverished inner cities and also displaying assorted...
