Among the overworked buzzwords of the past several years have been “civility” and “civil society”. Civility in my context here is taken to mean the highly desirable tone and demeanor with which political discourse and debate are pursued and has even had implications for the newly created virtue of “bipartisanship”. Civil society has been defined […]
Archives for 2001
Teacher Education Reform
William Raspberry asks in an August 2000 editorial why more administrators of mediocre public schools aren’t learning from the practices of models and methodologies in their midst that are proving successful, particularly in very high “at-risk” environments. Good question. I wonder why best practices in reading instruction, in which I have been very active, are […]
Environmental Precaution
President Bush has been unfairly maligned by the media and the Democrats for his “reversals” on carbon dioxide emissions and arsenic in drinking water. But part of his problem is his administration’s failure to confront the agenda of the radical environmental lobby with one voice in a principled way. He should start with the centerpiece […]
China Watch II
In the May 2000 issue, I noted that the Clinton administration had mistakenly pursued permanent most favored nation treatment for China without due regard for human rights abuses or Taiwan security concerns, and I highlighted the blunder of an approach defined by “strategic partnership” in thrall to the allure of the potential of a billion […]
The American Century And What Comes Next
It has often been observed that one cannot understand the modern world without understanding the First World War and all that it dismantled and introduced. Among other things, it ushered in what Walter Lippmann and others dubbed “The American Century”, but tragically, with a lot of help from an intellectual class that failed us miserably, […]
A Culture Or An Idea?
Is America a culture or an idea? This is a question that has occupied many of our leading intellectuals at least since the re-founding of our country beginning in the period immediately preceding the Civil War. We don’t typically think of ourselves as a single people as the Germans or French do (although my friends […]
Religion And The Public Square
In a recent editorial in The Weekly Standard, William Kristol writes that the distinctive legacy likely to be left by George W. Bush will be an end to government hostility to religion and a new era in which pluralism and faith are no longer at odds. This is a striking comment. Certainly no area of […]
Bioethics Revisited
Speaking of Alvin Toffler, a recent op/ed piece by him and his wife, Heidi, reminded me to follow up on my essay of last July, in which I commented that, with the breaking of the genetic code, we are very likely in the midst of a fourth great scientific revolution. Toffler adds to my unease […]
Economic Choices
There is, of course, growing evidence of a difficult period ahead for the U. S. economy, compounding the new administration’s already challenging task of developing a consensus on tax and budget issues. In this environment, it is important to consider the longer-term implications of policy in the light of the new realities of the post-industrial […]
Reflections On Murder At Santana High
In the days following the recent school murders in California, I was struck by how predictable the media have become in reporting these incidents. First, only gun-related violence commands such saturation coverage. The Los Angeles incident several weeks previously in which a teenager deliberately ran down and killed four people in his auto made only […]