Reason Magazine - Staff

Surf's Up

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EDT

The FBI Files

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Sat, 01 May 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Channel Change

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Fri, 01 Aug 2003 00:00:00 EDT

We're well acquainted with perennial complaints that children are hooked too tightly to the boob tube. Now an Oakland-based group called Children Now (www.childrennow.org) is arguing that children don't have enough opportunity to watch TV, due to a decline in network children's programming.

According to Children Now, networks have been ratcheting back the hours once devoted to cartoons and programs such as Bill Nye the Science Guy, replacing them with more profitable adult fare. Media mergers will accelerate the decline, the group posits, and things are bound to get worse with the FCC voting to relax its regulations.

As you might have guessed, Children Now's concern is as much media conglomeration as Inspector Gadget. "Our research demonstrates that the FCC is moving far too fast and with far too few facts to make changes that encourage further concentration among media owners," says Patti Miller, director of Children Now's Children & the Media program. "The impact on programming for children and their communities clearly has not been properly evaluated."

But does the decline in kids' shows on network TV have anything to do with media consolidation? The Children Now study showed that the largest decrease in programming for children occurred at stations that are part of duopolies, in which one company owns two stations in the same market. Yet it would seem that cable TV, which has entire channels devoted to children (Nickelodeon, Disney, Cartoon Network), is merely overtaking broadcast stations in that capacity.

The general manager of KTTV in Los Angeles, David Boylan, agrees. "The reduction in children's programming is really a result of competition from cable channels that now specialize in that genre," he told the Times. "It has nothing to do with duopolies."

Children Now did get a strong endorsement from FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps, who told the Times he's "been saying since day one that the FCC must consider the impact of media consolidation on our children." His approval is no small surprise: Copps has frequently spoken of the need for the feds to censor radio, for the children.

The Morning After

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Fri, 01 Aug 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Makers of Plan B, one of the two brands of "morning after" pills -- high-dose birth control pills that are only effective within 72 hours of unprotected sex -- are planning to petition the FDA for over-the-counter status. Such a move would make the drug much more useful: It's most effective within 12 hours of a slip-up, so having to get it directly from a doctor is practically prohibitive.

Already, four states allow doctors to give pharmacists standing prescriptions to dispense the pills. California is one, but a recent Los Angeles Times piece suggests that well-meaning guardians of women's health are out to make buying the drug more burdensome than "over-the-counter" would imply.

One of the benefits of selling pills without a prescription is financial; a woman without insurance wouldn't have to pay for a doctor's visit to protect herself against pregnancy. But California pharmacists have been tacking a $20 to $40 "consulting fee" onto the drug's $25 price for women without prescriptions. They say it's to pay for the 15 to 20 minutes they spend questioning a patient before doling out the drug.

Many pharmacists are also asking women to fill out a one-page questionnaire that asks about sexually transmitted diseases, among other things. It was developed by a group that seeks to make pharmacies more active in promoting community health.

"It was not the intent of the law to make pharmacists into public health officials," Shannon Smith-Crowley, a lobbyist for the California Medical Association, told the Times in May. "What information do they really need to gather?"

At this point, it's unclear whether FDA approval would factor both the pharmacist and the doctor out of the purchase. The agency often adds restrictions to over-the-counter sales.

"We are hoping that it will just be on the shelf, next to the condoms," says a spokeswoman for Women's Capital Corporation, Plan B's distributor. "But it will ultimately depend on decisions made with the FDA during the 10-month application process."

Soundbite

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Fri, 01 Aug 2003 00:00:00 EDT

First-person-shooter video games have taken the rap for every cuckoo violent teenager who makes the news. Now games like Doom are finally getting some good press: They improve visual attention skills by 30 percent or more, according to a study published last June in Nature.

That video games could improve players' lives -- even their intellects -- isn't any surprise to James Paul Gee, author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (Palgrave). Gee, a University of Wisconsin-Madison education professor, first became interested in games when he played Pajama Sam with his 4-year-old son. He found it to be "pretty challenging, even for an adult." Soon Gee was logging eight-hour stints with more advanced games -- and developing the enthusiasm and analysis that make his book such a good read. Assistant Editor Sara Rimensnyder spoke to Gee in June.

Q: What do you mean when you write that video games teach a "new literacy"?

A: Games are very complex worlds, and kids learn to think about their design: How can I learn not only to interact with this world but to customize it to my styles, interests, and goals? It's a form of writing, if you like, using not just words but pictures, video, and complex environments.

Think about a kid playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater. He can easily create his own skateboard park -- it's an engineering problem, and 10-year-olds are doing it. In this domain, as with so much modern technology, people are not just consumers; they're producers. Meanwhile, kids at school don't see themselves as producers; they see themselves as consumers, often reluctantly.

Q: Would kids be better off playing video games than going to school?

A: School is a mixed blessing. It often rewards linear thinking -- getting straight to your goal. These games reward lateral thinking: reconceptualizing your goals from time to time.

Video games are very complicated systems that are designed to get learned very well. Why? Designers go broke if loads of people don't learn how to play them. Unfortunately, schools don't go out of business when kids fail to learn. We need to get schools to teach on a conceptual, deep level. They need to get kids to understand algebra the way they understand a game like Rise of Nations.

Q: How does role playing benefit gamers?

A: It plays with identities in ways that get you to think about the multiple and different identities in your own life. It lets you self-fashion. We're expected in the modern world to take on different identities in different settings. Role playing allows you to ask what kind of person you would be if you had more freedom.

Rave On

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Tue, 01 Jul 2003 00:00:00 EDT

The recent passage of the RAVE act, which allows the government to hold event organizers responsible for customers' drug use, should infuriate even those who'd run screaming from one of these all-night, electronic-music-fueled dance parties.

Why? The RAVE Act, now officially known as the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act, passed both the House and Senate in April without ever having gone through committee and without floor debate. Sen. Joseph R. Biden (D-Del.) tacked his legislation onto the Amber Alert bill, a measure intended to help capture kidnappers, for no reason except political expediency. He had learned from his experience last session, when vocal, organized opposition from groups like the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) stopped the bill in its tracks.

"One senator's pet issue made a mockery of the Democratic [sic] process -- becoming law without any public hearing or opportunity for input whatsoever," DPA Executive Director Ethan Nadelmann wrote in an e-mail after the act had passed. "We will be working with the legislators who opposed this provision -- such as Senators Durbin, Kennedy and Leahy and Representatives Conyers and Scott -- for its repeal."

On the bright side, lines from the original bill suggesting that prosecutors should use the sale of glowsticks, massage oil, and water as evidence of drug use were stricken from the version that passed. So was use of the word rave. Though the DPA celebrated the removal of "such blatant discrimination," the move also could stoke concerns that the measure could be used to target an ever-widening assortment of events.

The impact of the new law will largely depend on how John Ashcroft's Justice Department decides to enforce it. If the department's aggressive assault on medical marijuana in California is any indication, the next few years could be a dangerous time to be in the business of helping people dance the night away.

Data: The Spoils of War

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Tue, 01 Jul 2003 00:00:00 EDT

In April, President George W. Bush signed off on nearly $80 billion in emergency spending to pay for the war on Iraq. With that much money in play, the White House and Congress couldn't help but throw in a few extra goodies that had nothing to do with Iraq. Take, for example, the $93 million marked under three separate expenditures for counter-narcotics initiatives led by the Defense and State Departments.

According to David Williams, vice president of policy at Citizens Against Government Waste, there was only one copy of the conference report -- the final compromise between the House and Senate versions of a bill -- available to Congress prior to the vote. "We're concerned that there wasn't enough scrutiny of the report before it was voted on," he says.

Sample Expenses in the Emergency Wartime Supplemental Appropriations Act

$2.9 billion to bail out failing airlines

$110 million for the National Animal Disease Center in Ames, Iowa

$65 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for geostationary and polar orbiting systems

$16 million to study severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS

$15 million for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

$4.8 million for the General Accounting Office

$3.3 million for "payment to the European Communities" with regard to the "music licensing dispute"

$2 million for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service's State and Tribal Wildlife Grants

$1 million for Training and Employment Services at the Department of Labor

$231,000 for abstinence education and related services for a Lutheran ministry in Allentown, Pennsylvania

Sources: Emergency Wartime Supplemental Appropriations Act (H.R. 1559) and Citizens Against Government Waste (www.cagw.org)

Soundbite

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Tue, 01 Jul 2003 00:00:00 EDT

The cruel system of Soviet work camps known as the gulag terrorized some 18 million prisoners -- and yet its history has been relatively overlooked in the catalog of 20th-century horrors. That's why Washington Post editorialist Anne Applebaum devoted the last six years to writing the fascinating, horrifying Gulag: A History (Doubleday).

Applebaum spent much of the late 1980s and early '90s in Eastern Europe, covering the region for The Economist and other publications. "I met lots of [gulag] survivors," she says. "Coming back to theWest, I realized nobody here knew anything about it." After failing to find someone who would write a history, she decided to do it herself, making broad use of extensive archives released by Moscow after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Assistant Editor Sara Rimensnyder spoke to Applebaum by phone in May.

Q: What was the most horrifying aspect of the gulag?

A: Everybody will have some anecdote or incident that resonates with them; it's very personal. In my case, since I wrote the book at the same time that I had two children, the stories of children born in the camp or taken away from their parents were the worst.

Q: What was the most unexpected thing you discovered?

A: The degree to which it was perfectly well known at the highest echelons of the Soviet bureaucracy how horrible conditions were, in great detail. And yet nothing was done.

Q: What is the most important lesson to be learned from a study of the gulag?

A: When people write books about terrible tragedies of the past, they often say they're doing it so it will never happen again. While reading the history of the gulag and the way the Soviets spread it to other countries, I thought, "I'm not writing this so it won't happen again; I'm writing because it will." The alacrity with which other countries took up the idea is remarkable.

The lesson is that this kind of system has been built many times and will be built many more times. I am the last person who would claim the gulag was unique. The mistreatment of other human beings, and especially one's enemies, goes on and will continue to go on. We need to try much harder to understand what it is that persuades people to do it.

Q: Is bureaucracy to blame?

A: It's not just bureaucracy; it's ideology. A lot of people believed in what they were doing. They believed these were enemies of the people and could be treated like building materials, like units of labor. And could be worked to death if necessary.

Rent-a-Country

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Sun, 01 Jun 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Care to be king for a day? Rent Liechtenstein.

Actually, Liechtenstein doesn't have a king; it has a prince. But for $375 to $500 a head, with a minimum of 450 heads, corporations can now rent the entire 160-square-kilometer country, with full access to one of the royal castles.

"The basic idea is that an entire, small country plays host to a conference with all the various possibilities at its disposal," Roland Buechel, director of the state tourism agency, told the London Times. When a company signs up, the mayor of Liechtenstein's capital, Vaduz, hands over the keys to the principality and flies the company's flag. The tourism agency plans to offer "corporate team-building activities" such as tobogganing, museum visits, and wine tasting in the royal cellars.

Meanwhile, the country's real royalty, 56-year-old Prince Hans-Adam II, has business plans of his own for the kingdom: He recently threatened to sell Liechtenstein to Bill Gates and rename it Microsoft if he wasn't granted more political power. Though he later said he was joking, his threats to move to Austria, taking his considerable riches with him, might have been more serious.

Either or both bluffs seem to have paid off: In March a referendum granting the prince extensive new powers passed easily, with voter turnout upward of 80 percent. According to The New York Times, the resulting constitutional amendments will allow Hans-Adam to dissolve Parliament; influence the appointment of judges; be removed from the jurisdiction of the country's constitutional court; and veto legislation passed by Parliament. But the amendment also gives citizens the right to vote the prince out, though various males in his extended family would ultimately decide whether to replace him.

Data: Not Keeping the Faith

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Sun, 01 Jun 2003 00:00:00 EDT

As Osama bin Laden could tell you, religious extremism -- especially Islamic fundamentalism -- is a major force shaping world events today. But is Christian fundamentalism in America on the rise? A Gallup poll analyzed in the March Scientific American by Rodger Doyle suggests a trend toward moderation among evangelical Christians.

From the late 1970s to 2000, the share of surveyed Americans who said they took the Bible literally declined by about 10 percentage points. Similar trends hold for support of Bible prayer in school and proselytizing. Meanwhile, the share of Americans describing themselves as "born again" or "evangelical" has bounced between 40 percent and 50 percent. Concludes Doyle, "The decline in the number of those believing in the inerrancy of the Bible and those supporting prayer in schools suggests that evangelicals are becoming more like other Americans in that they are more accepting of gender and racial equality and are moderating extreme antiabortion attitudes, according to other research."

GRAPH NOT PICTURED: Indicators of Evangelicalism in the U.S. (percent of adults)

From Blogger to Byline

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Fri, 30 May 2003 00:00:00 EDT

A collective "I told you so" has raced through the never-contented community of bloggers with the Guardian's announcement that Iraqi blogger Salam Pax is a real person (and no Ba'ath loyalist, he insists; expect Salam's enemies—the bitterest of whom always seem to be former fans—to turn about and try to reveal that the Guardian itself is run by the Ba'ath nomenklatura).

Salam Pax is now going from being an anonymous blogger to being a bi-weekly anonymous contributor to the British newspaper. In his own words (carefully excised when the Guardian, ever fearful of letting its true patron become known, reprinted the passage), "I sold my soul to the devil."

It's all very exciting. I look forward to Salam's work for the "devil" and will be the first to buy the book and movie that I hope will be forthcoming. For Salam's biggest fans, I doubt overexposure is at issue. But his sarcastic self-eulogy—and even more so, the embarrassing Guardian edit—are a reminder that what made his blog, Dear Raed, so completely compelling was necessarily ephemeral.

Salam was a mysterious poet from a mysterious place, living under a dictatorship, awaiting the destruction of the society he lived in—and somehow able to communicate that experience to a global audience, drawing on raw detail, wit, and the wealth of conflicting emotions that define human experience. For a brief moment, the idea of "authenticity" seemed to have rescued itself from thumb-sucking self-parody. He wrote so real, in fact, that people spent hours, even days, trying to figure out whether he was a fake. (They still do.)

The months of Dear Raed were a reminder, on a grand, mainstream scale, of the power of an individual voice, one amplified by technology and the sheer audacity of its author. Now, with a formal byline and the attention of the world upon Salam—and the merciful end of the war—the blog's dramatic spontaneity will likely be dulled. And though Dear Raed was a phenomenon worth celebrating, it's also worth celebrating its end. Now Salam now has the same privilege as the rest of us: to be just another journo.

Kids Today

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Wed, 21 May 2003 00:00:00 EDT

The never-ending campaign to Save Our Children continues. Today's news brings two warning cries, one familiar, the other a bit more surprising.

First, there's a titillating new study out about the sexual habits of kids aged 14 and younger. Apparently, one in five teens under the age of 15 has not only has sex, but gets busy without a parent present. Along with that comes the salacious news that "sexually experienced teens were more likely than virgins to engage in other risky behaviors, such as smoking, illegal drugs, and drinking once a week or more." In other words, kids who have sex really do have more fun.

I'm not a parent and I admit that becoming one might make me less flippant about the mating habits of the training-bra set. And I personally don't think sex at 14 is a good idea, whether or not it results in pregnancy or ends with a post-coital toke. But how helpful are these incendiary studies? This one suggests that teens are particularly randy in the unsupervised after school hours, when parents think they're working algebra problems. It says to parents: "You may think you know her, but that daughter of yours is up to no good." Will creating legions of newly paranoid and distrustful parents curb teen sex—or just promote more Villi Fualaau-style adventurism? Inducing paranoia does produce results in one area: Creating larger budgets for sex education. But it's unclear whether those have any effect on behavior either.

Moving on, another study released today inadvertently suggests a possible answer to the question of why so many young teens are getting it on: They're not watching enough TV! Now here's a new one. We're well acquainted with (and perhaps even moved by) perennial complaints that children are too hooked to the boob tube. But now an Oakland-based group called Children Now is arguing that there's not enough broadcast children's programming. Because juvenile entertainment is not as profitable as adult fare, networks have been ratcheting back the hours once devoted to cartoons and programs such as Bill Nye the Science Guy. Media mergers, Children Now submits, will accelerate the decline, and things are bound to get worse if the FCC votes June 2 to relax some regulations. (For an excellent treatment of that subject, read Jesse Walker's blog post.)

Of all the objections raised with regard to media consolidation, this one seems blatantly disingenuous, a naked attempt to sway a big-league debate with a plea for the Children.

Kids today have it made! My mother really did tell me that when she was growing up, she had to walk four miles a day to school in snow. When I have kids, my sob story is going to be that we didn't have Cable television or a set larger than 17 inches. I had no Nickelodeon, no Cartoon Network, and no MTV. Life was really rough when I was sick; pretty much everything I knew about sexuality at age 8 came from watching Hot Lips Hoolihan and Frank Burns make out on M*A*S*H. Now there's a way to deter a young girl from sex.

Don't Mess With the Best

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Thu, 08 May 2003 00:00:00 EDT

High school ultra-overachievers have always alarmed me. The high school years bring so many new experiences worth savoring—though I'll demur in listing them—that an all-consuming focus on perfect grades, college, and the future seems to be missing the point. So it's with some trepidation that I take the side of a New Jersey überachiever who's suing her school because she didn't want to have to share the title of valedictorian with other classmates.

Here's the story, which was reported in today's Los Angeles Times. Blair L. Hornstine, 18, is a student at Moorestown High School in New Jersey. Because she was diagnosed with a chronic-fatigue syndrome-like illness, she spends half the day doing conference courses at home. This has helped her to score the highest grade point average (GPA) in school, because she's able to take (and excel at) more advanced-placement (AP) level courses than would normally be available. Naturally, the other overachievers, who dutifully spend eight hours daily suffering at their desks in whatever classes the school offers, complained, and administrators decided to split up the valedictorian honor. Fair enough.

But the story could also be read as a droll commentary on the state of public education. First, it's none too reassuring that Moorestown High School's best student is the one who stays home half of every day—even if you take into account that "best" here means best GPA, which isn't necessarily the only indicator of aptitude. Hornstine isn't just a grade grubber, however; she also co-founded a program that raised $30,000 in food for the needy and found a way to raise funds to pay for 10 harelip operations for Chinese kids. (Yes, this girl definitely scares me. I can only hope she'll find a place for me in her entourage when she has achieved world domination—assuming she doesn't keel over from exhaustion first.)

Then there's the fact that the school, because of Hornstine's exhaustion, tried to convince her to drop all of her Advanced Placement courses. I sympathize with the point of view that teens shouldn't be killing themselves to get into Harvard (and Princeton and Stanford, in Hornstine's case). Nevertheless, I certainly wouldn't counsel them not to overachieve if that's what they want to do. We need those fanatics to pick up every one else's slack, for the greater good of humanity.

The school painted Hornstine's father as the villain. According to the Times article, "They say that the student's father, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Louis Hornstine, told [Superintendent Paul J.] Kadri during a meeting that he would 'use any advantage of the laws and regulations' to give his daughter 'the best opportunity to be valedictorian.'"

That kind of obsession with the vaunted valedictorian title seems absurd, especially when it comes from the father, not the student herself. But I wonder if the school might be just as confounded if Daddy had said he'd look for loopholes that would allow his daughter to receive the very best education possible. To me, that's being a smart parent. If your tax dollars are paying for a massively bureaucratic, one-size-fits-all public school, you may as well make the best of it.

Hornstine is asking for $2.7 million for her injuries, enough to keep her in the Ivy League through her 40s, if she pleases. Claiming that kind of damage almost invalidates her position—"hear this little violin playing, Blair, just for you?"—but I'm almost with her on principle.

Cosmetic Surgery

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Thu, 01 May 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Public dissatisfaction with the war on drugs is mounting, putting federal warriors under increasing pressure to cut an enforcement and treatment budget that has ballooned from $65 million in 1969 to $19.2 billion in 2003. But rather than actually spend less, the administration hopes to rely on some Enron-style creative bookkeeping.

According to a new report from Common Sense for Drug Policy, planned revisions in the way the feds calculate the budget would make it appear that the administration has cut drug war spending to $11.4 billion. At the same time, the reporting changes will create the illusion that roughly equal amounts are being spent on enforcement and treatment, rather than the traditional 70-30 split.

For example, drug czar John Walters would like to exclude the $3 billion per year spent housing federal drug prisoners from the budget, claiming that it's not a primary cost of federal drug control policy. Changes in budgeting methodology also would allow the Defense Department to reduce its reported drug expenditures. That would be an impressive feat: According to the RAND Corporation, the department already omits the cost of personnel when figuring its drug control budget.

At the same time, the new reporting plan would inflate the amount of funding for treatment, giving the impression of a kinder, gentler drug control policy. For the first time, the Office of National Drug Control Policy will include money spent treating alcoholics, thus instantly upping the treatment tally by $500 million.

We Want Your House

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Thu, 01 May 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Today, a beautiful home sits at 604 Calvert Street in Muncie, Indiana. Sometime soon, if an eminent domain case brought by Ball State University is successful, it will be replaced by a parking lot.

Until October 2002, 604 Calvert was the home of Jacquolyne Werner, who had lived there for decades with her husband, David (who died in 2000), raised a family there, and been actively involved in the campus community. She died the same day she found out that the university, which had been offering to buy her home for a couple of years, planned to take it via eminent domain.

Now her children are resisting Ball State administrators who want the property to build a parking lot. It's an especially unfortunate confrontation because it might have been avoided. Months before his mother's death, Michael Werner had asked for a little patience from Ball State; he was trying to convince his mother to move with him to Florida, after which they would have been open to selling the house.

But now he's fighting the university on principle. "My mother devoted her life to that university," he explains. "And still, they wouldn't quit pestering her. She was an old woman, and she felt like they were trying to take away her home. Which they were!"

Werner sounds cautiously optimistic about the family's chances in court. But to his knowledge, Ball State has won every eminent domain case it has pursued in the neighborhood. Political science professor John Rouse notes that "the university is the only 'industry' left in Muncie. It's the new gorilla in town. This animal gets to sit anywhere it wants."

Double Murder

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Mon, 21 Apr 2003 00:00:00 EDT

"I'd like to see them string [Scott Peterson] up," Morris County, New Jersey, NOW President Mavra Stark told her county's local paper, "any way they can."

A lot of people are feeling that kind of anger following the sad and macabre news that the bodies of Laci Peterson and her infant son (apparently unborn until after her death) had washed up miles from where her husband Scott had taken a fishing trip on the day she "disappeared." That Peterson was 30 miles from the Mexican border with $10,000, bleached hair, and a new goatee when police arrested him Friday hasn't helped people look beyond the mounting circumstantial evidence. He has been charged with a double homicide murder, and the district attorney is expected to seek the death penalty.

But the NOW chapter president also voiced another, less-discussed sentiment. "There's something about this that bothers me a little bit," Stark said. "Was it born, or was it unborn? If it was unborn, then I can't see charging (Peterson) with a double-murder." She's concerned that calling the death of an unborn child a murder could assist those who seek to establish the personhood and rights of a fetus not just at eight months but much younger.

My guess is that this issue is somewhere on the minds of many abortion rights activists, whether or not they're completely sure of their position. Spreading the semantics of "partial birth abortion" has been one of abortion foes' few political/P.R. victories in recent years, leading some to worry about a slow encroachment on reproductive rights. Other abortion rights defenders, even ardent ones, get squeamish when asked to defend third-trimester abortions or even to tease out the thorny questions of personhood at eight months in the womb.

But I'd also guess that Stark's comment will be the last we'll hear on the issue from her or from any NOW representative. It doesn't take a gifted P.R. flack to see that using the Peterson case to make even a slippery slope argument about fetus rights would be politically tantamount to taking a long walk off a short pier (into a fast-moving river in Alaska). There's already a despised villain in this story, and it's not someone who's preoccupied with the sanctity of life.

Emergency Audit

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Thu, 17 Apr 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Americans, still trembling and dizzy from Tax Day, yesterday learned that President Bush had signed off on nearly $80 billion in emergency spending to pay for the war on Iraq. Well, mostly to pay for the war on Iraq. With that much money in flux, Congress couldn't help but throw in a few extra goodies.

In looking over the public print of the bill, my favorite bonus expenditure is the $93 million marked under three separate expenditures for counter-narcotics initiatives led by the Defense and State Departments. Of that, $34 million is appropriated specifically for the "Andean Counterdrug Initiative," but remarks made by U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) during floor debate March 27 suggested that the majority is in fact destined for Colombia.

"What is Colombia doing in a supplemental for the war in Iraq?," McGovern asked members of the House while arguing to have Colombian funding decreased by $61 million. They answered him by voting down his amendment, 209-216.

Other non-Iraq related expenses in the Emergency Wartime Supplemental Appropriations Act include (but aren't limited to):

*$2.9 billion to bail out failing airlines (just in time)

*$117 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to build a National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System. (Strangely, the appropriation provides for $2,460,000 to be peeled off for the International Fisheries Commissions for such projects as sea lamprey control in Lake Champlain.)

*$2 million to increase funding for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service's State and Tribal Wildlife Grants

*$1 million for Training and Employment Services at the Department of Labor

*$23.3 million for commission, salaries, and expenses for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

*$9 billion in loan guarantees to Israel

*$23.6 million in Operating Expenses of the United States Agency for International Development

*$300 million in grants, $2 billion in loan guarantees for economic support to Egypt

*$1 billion in grants, $8.5 billion in loan guarantees for economic support to Turkey

*$700 million-plus for assistance for Jordan

*$50 million to the Philippines to " further prospects for peace in Mindanao"

*$16 million to study severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS

And that's just what made it into the act, which was held up in debate for days due to last minute add-ons by the Senate. For example, $98 million earmarked for agriculture research labs in Ames, Iowa, was inserted by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), but stripped from the final version of the bill.

Sure, the extra-Iraq spending is just a fraction of the $80 billion. But if congressional members are willing to be so cavalier about the funding that's transparent (well, roughly so: try reading through the entire act), how careful can we expect appropriators to be further down the line, when no one's looking?

Puppet Show

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Mon, 07 Apr 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Iraqi opposition figure Ahmed Chalabi arrived in Southern Iraq today, airlifted there by U.S. military forces, according to the Los Angeles Times. The move raised speculation that the Pentagon hopes to bolster his chances of governing a post-war Iraq.

The speculation is nothing new, of course. Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress resistance group and a Shi'a Muslim, has long been a highly controversial favorite of administration officials such as Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and former Pentagon Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle. And though his relations with the CIA have soured completely since he led a failed 1996 uprising, he was once supported by at least $97 million in agency and congressional funds—money which detractors have accused Chalabi of mismanaging.

Chalabi has faced criticism on a number of other fronts. Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, special envoy for the Middle East, has dismissed the Iraqi National Congress as "silk-suited, Rolex-wearing guys in London." Chalabi is a wanted criminal in Jordan, where he was sentenced in absentia to 22 years of hard labor for embezzling $70 million from his family's Petra Bank. (He says he was set up by competitors and by Saddam Hussein.) Of late, both the CIA and the State Department have accused him of giving bad intelligence that suggested war in Iraq would be a cakewalk. (On 60 Minutes last night, Chalabi defended himself by saying that war in Iraq so far has been a cakewalk.).

Last November, The American Prospect published a damning piece on Chalabi and his U.S. backers, calling Chalabi the "front man for the latest incarnation of a long-time neoconservative strategy to redraw the map of the oil-rich Middle East, put American troops—and American oil companies—in full control of the Persian Gulf's reserves and use the Gulf as a fulcrum for enhancing America's global strategic hegemony."

There's one thing most everybody seems to agree about: Chalabi has little to no support within Iraq. The Los Angeles Times, 60 Minutes and other news outlets have reported that to officials at both the CIA and the State Department, this alone should remove him from consideration as post-war Iraq's new leader, since he would be perceived as a U.S. puppet. Several members of Congress have aired similar concerns.

Given his history with the White House, could he be perceived any other way? The public perception that America is installing a puppet is of more than passing interest when you're trying to hold up Iraq as a model of democracy. What better way to convince skeptical neighbors, prospective terrorists and just about anybody else that our attack on Iraq is just the latest advance of Western imperialism and oil greed?

On the bright side, a post-war Iraq briefing scheduled for today was postponed, suggesting that the issue is still under hot debate among the administration, the CIA, and the State Department.

High-Tech Bicycling

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Tue, 01 Apr 2003 00:00:00 EST

Can the Internet improve the lives of rural villagers in Laos, where most still don't have access to telephone lines or electricity?

The San Francisco-based Jhai Foundation, dedicated to improving the social and economic lives of Lao through a variety of programs, believes it can. So do the villagers, who told the foundation they needed timely, accurate information about pricing in the market town of Phon Hong and the capital, Vientiane, in order to sell their surplus crops. Weavers also needed communication tools to coordinate, via voice and e-mail, with expatriate Lao to develop markets for their textiles and crafts. Finally, explains the Web site, villagers needed computers to perform simple business functions, such as spreadsheets and word processing.

Working with the foundation, design engineer Lee Felsenstein devised an ingenious system that uses wireless networking, low-wattage computers, and bicycle-crank generators to get locals in six villages online, despite the monsoon rains, high temperatures, and dusty air that make standard technologies untenable.

Although the Jhai Project's technical genius has attracted the most attention, another aspect of the foundation's work is worth noting. Co-founder Lee Thorn, who is now in Laos finalizing the first stage of the wireless system, operates on the principle that the locals themselves best know what tools they need to improve their lives. "We start with relationships," he explains at www.jhai.org. "We then develop projects based on cooperative visions. This logic of development is new."

It's also successful. Five years of technical and financial assistance, and a cumulative investment of $400,000, have produced results that the foundation values at $2 million in 13 different villages.

Revolutionary Arts

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Tue, 01 Apr 2003 00:00:00 EST

Tijuana, the Mexican border town south of San Diego, isn't exactly known as an incubator for culture, other than the kind of culture gringos explore after downing mucho tequila. Yet in the last year Tijuana has made headlines in U.S. papers not as a place to get drunk cheap and buy (and use) Viagra but as the home of a fledgling underground opera scene.

Organized opera in Tijuana began literally underground, in the basement of enthusiast Enrique Fuentes' Internet café, Café de la Opera. It has grown into La Opera de Tijuana, a company formed by café regulars Jose Medina and Maria Teresa Rique. Under Medina's artistic direction, the company will this year stage 10 chamber performances and its third full-length production, I Pagliacci, this August, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Such a high-culture watermark was once limited to Mexico City, where residents are extremely proud of their government-funded cultural institutions and have long considered Tijuana a vulgar backwater. But change has come gradually to the border town, in part thanks to an industrial boom and an influx of wealthy newcomers after the 1985 earthquakes in the capital.

But Tijuana opera remains different from that of Mexico City. For one thing, its underground origins have taken the traditional art out of its elite context and introduced it to less wealthy Mexicans. As significant, it has shunned government funding. So far the only public assistance the Tijuana Opera has accepted is free use of the city's performing arts center.

Such independence is almost revolutionary for Mexico, where artistic exploits, even rock bands, are routinely government- funded. Many involved in the Tijuana opera scene have attributed its dynamic growth to its independence.

Manuel Laborin, the city's first opera radio DJ, is one of those people.

"It's like a child. If you give him everything, you turn him into a bum," Laborin told the Los Angeles Times. "If you give him the basics, he learns to do it for himself. That's what happened to us. The people of Tijuana, more than anyone else, have created this." Many credit Laborin's radio show, which first aired in 1993, with developing the multi-class audiences that today mean packed houses for Opera de Tijuana productions.

Internet-opera café owner Fuentes echoes Laborin's sensibility. "Often, people depend on government institutions," he told reporter Sam Quinones. "I didn't want any of that. That's why I began in a small room in my house and said, 'Let's see where this goes.'"

Data

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Tue, 01 Apr 2003 00:00:00 EST

Public financing for presidential elections is nearing collapse, reported USA Today in a breathless late-January cover story. Just 11 percent of taxpayers in 2000 -- compared to 27.5 percent when the system was established in 1976 -- checked the box on their returns that siphons $3 of their tax money into a federal election kitty. The take in 2000 totaled $210 million.

USA Today's experts portray the decline in participation as a major civic Code Red, since it suggests "eroding public awareness and support" for the presidential campaign financing system. "It would be a disaster for the country to lose the system," Fred Wertheimer of the reform group Democracy 21 told the paper. "It would put the presidency right back on the auction block."

But maybe taxpayers merely have noticed the obvious: The public financing system never took the presidency off the block. It does add coin to the till of established, major-party candidates -- if they want it. President Bush didn't accept public funds for his 2000 presidential primary, preferring to sidestep the $40.5 million spending limit participation would have required.

Meanwhile, the Federal Election Commission doles out general presidential election funds only to parties that received at least 5 percent of the vote in the previous election. So, far from leveling the playing field, the system socks the smallest parties with an added financial disadvantage.

CHART (not available online): Taxpayer Participation in the Presidential Election Campaign Fund (as a percentage of all returns filed)

Soundbite

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Tue, 01 Apr 2003 00:00:00 EST

Joe Bob Briggs, a.k.a. John Bloom, is the nation's premier reviewer of B movies and exploitation cinema -- the blood-soaked, sex-laden fare that turns off genteel critics while arousing moralizing politicians. His new book, Profoundly Disturbing: The Shocking Movies That Changed History (Universe) takes a long, lingering look at "bad" flicks such as Shaft, Deep Throat, and The Wild Bunch. Full of lively film lore, Briggs shows how such movies have actually thrived on disapproval and heavily influenced mainstream cinema.

Briggs, who is best known for having created the cable TV shows Joe Bob's Drive-In Theater and Monstervision, is now a United Press International columnist and the proprietor of www.joebobbriggs.com. Assistant Editor Sara Rimensnyder spoke to him by phone in February.

Q: What's so disturbing to people about exploitation films?

A: These movies are revolutionary, to many people in a bad way. They upset the prevailing taste arbiters by pushing the two great frontiers, sex and violence. Often these movies offer a new visual way of going deeper into some aspect of sex or violence. Of course, you call it sex and violence if you hate it. If you like it, you call it romance and adventure.

Q: How have they influenced mainstream movies?

A: These low-budget genres get copied dozens of times, and eventually get cleaned up in big-budget versions that are more mainstream. Movies that win Academy Awards are the ones you can take your mother to. So Texas Chainsaw Massacre became Silence of the Lambs. The Great Texas Dynamite Chase became Thelma and Louise. I Spit on Your Grave became The Accused.

Q: Ever had the urge to whip out your chainsaw after watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre?

A: The claim that movies about sex and violence cause aberrant behavior [got a new boost] in the early 1980s when several organizations supposedly did scientific studies proving it. I've been on panels with these guys, and I've said look, If there's any truth at all to what you're saying, you should hook me up to the equipment because I've watched more of these movies than maybe anyone in the world. If there's a direct connection, I should be in San Quentin.

Q: If you could show the moral nags one movie, what would it be?

A: Actually, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which 30 years after its release is still always used as an example of cultural decay and the depravity of mass entertainment. I'd have them tell me what about it revolts them so much. It's a comedy!

Q: What is the most obscene movie ever made?

A: A Chorus Line. Best horror film of 1985.

Pax Man Fever

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Tue, 25 Mar 2003 00:00:00 EST

The world is catching on to Salam Pax. He hasn't yet posted today, which means I and countless others will be compulsively checking his site (also mirrored at dearraed.blogspot.com) every few hours until he does. If he does. As a blogger clacking out posts from Baghdad as the bombs fall around him, he could lose Web access (or worse) at any time.

Lately talk has turned to the question of whether Salam is who he says he is. It's not the first time; Salam got very defensive about the suggestion last fall. But though it may be irritating to pour your heart out and then have people call you a CIA plant, skepticism is not unfair from 50 meters up. Let's look at his basic profile: The man writing under the pseudonym Salam Pax is a 28-year-old, cosmopolitan, queer architect/techie whose lover has disappeared, apparently imprisoned by the government. He does 3-D modeling. He listens to cool music. He's funny, he's charming, and he's well-versed in blog culture. Who better to convince the online world that the Iraqi regime is brutally repressive, ruining the lives of people we'd like to have over for dinner? It certainly sounds like the work of a brilliant propaganda man—if there is such a thing.

But at the same time, while Salam states clearly and often that Saddam is a cruel despot and his government tyrannical, he's also had an arguably ambiguous, mostly negative take on the U.S. invasion. His criticism has gone beyond fearing the physical dangers of war, to wondering to what extent Iraq can be a free and sovereign nation under U.S. occupation. In October, for example, he wrote, "don't expect me to buy little American flags to welcome the new Colonists. This is really just a bad remake of an even worse movie. and how does it differ from Iraq and Britain circa 1920. the civilized world comes to give us, the barbaric nomadic arabs, a lesson in better living and rid us of all evil (better still get rid of us arabs since we are evil)."

Salam's veracity has been addressed by many bloggers; most helpful have been those with technical know-how or extensive e-mail contact with Salam. They all agree that he's most probably who he says he is. After reading his blog over the months, I get the feeling he's legit. Unless the author is a world-class novelist (which makes it unlikely that he's a spook), it's hard to imagine he could pull off such a glorious feat of fiction. The poignant details of his life have not only proven factually correct, they're also emotionally convincing. They pass through the bullshit detector without a beep.

Take an August post about his missing loved one:

It hit me like a six-wheeler at full speed, I was sitting in the car listening to stupid radio when I decided to listen to annie lennox instead. big mistake my Precious Little Angel is gone now for 3 weeks to the day. gone is the wrong word, taken is more like it. I have no idea where H. is he disappeard 3 weeks ago. No one knows where he is, he was supposed to take an exam at french cultural center but he never got there. he was TAKEN. first you feel worried and confused and scared. asked everywhere and everyone. he is not dead. not hurt and isn't in any hospital. then for 2 weeks there is this numbness. I feel NOTHING. I see our mutual friends. I see his brother. I feel nothing. now I feel this unbearable sense of loss. all the doors he has opend for me look un-welcoming and dangerous because he is not standing there ushring me in. I am back to my cynical self. I crave the confidence he gave me. this is too painful.

I admit I get almost angry and certainly frustrated when confronted with the idea that Salam Pax could be part of some disinformation campaign. Besides the fact that the best we can do—rational inquiry—suggests he's for real, there's also the simple fact that it's infuriating to be lied to or manipulated.

But I suspect that my need to believe in Salam Pax goes beyond that. It's connected to a larger anxiety about war, or indeed about foreign affairs in general: If our bullshit detectors can't help us judge the truth of one voice, how can we hope to get an accurate reading about the state of an entire nation, or indeed a region, forecasted twenty years into the future? How can we have any confidence in our position, be it pro- or anti-war, when we're learning about our targets through a kaleidescope—or at best, through the wrong end of a telescope?

Flimsy Shields

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Wed, 19 Mar 2003 00:00:00 EST

No doubt there were human shields in Iraq over the past few months who were completely sane. No doubt by now, they've all gone home. Meanwhile, new recruits are still arriving: Today 30-odd South African activists were trying to get into Iraq via Jordan. With war anticipated at any hour, these guys are just in time.

Otherwise put, they're tragically late: They won't have the several weeks of interaction with the Iraqi government that drove dozens of activists back home. In the words of one former naïf, speaking to The Christian Science Monitor, "A lot of shields were thinking it was black and white, and that we were on the side of good like Che Guevara. But it's not black and white at all."

One could argue that the media haven't given human shields a fair shake, homing in on the fruitcakes and reveling in quotes like this one from an Iraqi Foreign Ministry official: "We have a bad impression of the human shields. Some of them are crazy."

But doesn't there seem to be something objectively insane about volunteering to be a human shield, at least at this late date, however sure you are of the unjustness of invading Iraq? Aren't there a million and one far better ways to devote your life to peace and human well being than to throw yourself into a missile shower? As blogger and Reason Contributing Editor Charles Oliver has pointed out, to the extent that the U.S. military cares, places like orphanages already have human shields, otherwise known as orphans.

I scoured the news, wanting to understand the psychology that advances such a futile course of action. I was heartened to learn that many shields left the country when they realized (rather belatedly) that their presence wouldn't prevent war.

Among the diehards still sticking around, I expected to read about loners, who had little to lose by traveling to Iraq. But that's not what I found; plenty were leaving behind jobs and families.

Take this woman, part of the South African crew: "Do you think I am not shit-scared of this? I am leaving my son whom I love dearly and would do everything to protect. My insurance policy won't pay out for a death that is war related and if the insured have put themselves at risk. I have a lot to lose by leaving." I wonder if someday, in the event of her death, her son might ask himself why his mother was so quick to sacrifice the personal for the political.

But perhaps the most cynical dismissal of human shields has come from within Iraq. In a post titled "Human Shields Bashing #124," Iraqi blogger "Salam Pax" reacts to news that shields have left hotels to assume their posts as civilian protectors, "No no, just stay in your hotels, buy souvenirs and make fun of the backward ways of these Iraqis, hope you sent all your friends postcards telling them about the pita and tahini you have been eating while strolling around Baghdad, you tourists. Did you take enough pictures of children begging in the streets to show your friends back home how much you care about the plight of the poor in the third world. Bet they were all shaking hands and promising to see each other at the next 'worthy cause' party."

Such a caustic reading can be tempting, but when you're confronted with the fact that human shields actually do put their lives on the line, it's hard to feel anything other than despair.

Vexing Voting

sarar@reason.com (Sara Rimensnyder) — Mon, 10 Mar 2003 00:00:00 EST

Will the United States get the nine votes needed to authorize a March 17 deadline for Iraq to comply with UN demands to disarm, a resolution that would effectively clear the way for the U.S. to go to war?

The administration's weekend revelations about a prohibited Iraqi drone aircraft and some kind of jerry-built biological agent-spewing missile add weight to the assertion that Iraq's UN-monitored disarmament is a sham. The news gives Security Council fence sitters such as Mexico and Pakistan an excuse to mosey officially into the U.S. camp.

But in fact, it seems likely that the U.S. will ultimately get those nine votes regardless. It's this simple: most Security Council members aren't voting on the issue of war. Primarily, they're voting on whether to be in the good stead of the U.S. or in the good stead of E.U. heavyweights, of which at least France appears prepared to exercise its veto. That's because the Bush administration has made it abundantly clear that the U.S. will wage war whether the U.N. approves or not. So why not vote pragmatically?

The fact that Bulgaria, which is hoping to join the E.U., has already cast its lot with the U.S. suggests that France and Germany are woefully lacking in clout. The U.S., meanwhile, appears to be the master of making offers that can't be refused.

So far, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Bulgaria have explicitly endorsed the March 17 deadline; weekend press reports indicated Pakistan and Mexico were already leaning in our direction, even without the news of more verboten goods in the Iraqi arsenal; both countries have clear and specific interests in the U.S. government owing them a favor (or, in Pakistan's case, yet another favor). That means we need three more votes, which would have to come from among Guinea, Angola, Cameroon, and Chile. (Germany and China seem likely to abstain, and Syria's position was obvious from the get-go.)

Even though a veto from France or Russia would technically scuttle the resolution--which, ironically, might only advance the attack date--getting those nine votes would still be a diplomatic victory, if a meager one. It would suggest the U.S. has international support for war, protecting it from claims that it is a unilaterally-acting hyperpuissance.

On the domestic front, the passage of the resolution is apt to lead to more bizarro reversals in contemporary debates about foreign policy. Before intervening in Iraq came to the fore, Democrats predictably favored using the United Nations as an authoritative body and Republicans regularly denounced it as useless and an affront to U.S. sovereignty. Similarly, Democrats were more likely than Republicans to say that multilateralism was better than unilateralism, and that humanitarian concerns were a legitimate rationale for intervention, even as Republicans pooh-poohed such namby-pamby ideas as Jimmy Carter-era castoffs.

If the March 17 resolution passes--or at least garners a strong majority from the UN security council--those positions may be temporarily reversed. Republicans will look to the UN vote as legitimating action and as a marker of mutlilateral support. Democrats who don't support the war will be left to complain that multilateralism is not what it's cracked up to be. And most Americans, along with most other people on the planet, will be left wondering whether these reversals of longstanding partisan differences are being made for principled reasons or out of political expediency.