A World Without “F’s”
School’s out. What did your children learn this year? Across the country, one poisonous lesson was pumped into the systems of self-esteem-inflated students: There is no such thing as failure. Christine Pelton, a now-famous former biology teacher at Piper High...Israel Needs a Border, not a Fence
IN ITS MOST RECENT IMPOTENT attempt to put an end to the suicidal butchery arriving from the Palestinian territories, the Israeli government has proposed a fence that would run from the Salem checkpoint in the north to Kafr Qasem in the south, while another stretch of...The Forest Service Smokescreen
Terry Barton, a U.S. Forest Service worker, was charged this week with intentionally setting the largest wildfire in Colorado history. It is a black mark on the beleaguered federal agency. But it’s not the blackest mark. Last summer, four young firefighters died...Do We Want Democracy?
What’s so good about democracy — generally understood as having trust in the general will of a democratic people, as expressed by a vote of the majority, to make all important decisions? If a majority of our 535 congressmen votes for one measure or...Accountable, Yet Not Accountable: A “Retarded” Supreme Court Decision
Yesterday the Supreme court released its decision in Atkins v. Virginia, regarding the propriety of executing the mentally retarded. The court reversed the death sentence of a retarded murderer, arguing that his diminished mental precluded him from acting with the...An Old “New Vision” for “Affordable Housing”
Despite the fanfare of a televised speech at the National Press Club in Washington, a very old and hackneyed set of proposals was unveiled as a “new vision” for the creation of “affordable housing.” The speech was by Richard Ravitch,...After Enron: The Cure is Worse The the Disease
After any breakdown of a public institution, politicians feel the urge to “fix” things so it doesn’t happen again. Often, however, the cure is worse than the disease. That’s the case with the proposed remedies following the collapse of Enron....Venezuela: A New Junket for Jimmy Carter
Former President Carter, who often found good things to say about some of the world’s worst dictators, may not be the best person to sniff out the truth. His own willingness to excuse leftist governments that try to guarantee citizens economic privileges in place of political rights may also blind him to the wreckage that populism has left in this oil-rich but poverty-stricken nation.
