Articles 2024
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When Movies Become 'Product'
The New York Times, June 14, 1999
LOS ANGELES--Showing the public relations savvy we expect from media moguls, the heads of the Hollywood studios declined to testify last month when the Senate Commerce Committee held hearings on "marketing violence to children." So when television reported the story, viewers saw movie clips of Keanu Reeves facing off against evil, rather than a tape of an anonymous executive squirming in the witness chair. Films remained works of art, protected by the First Amendment, rather than mere corporate products to be regulated at Washington's whim.
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The Big One (review of Francis Fukuyama's The Great Disruption)
Los Angeles Times Book Review, June 13, 1999
Francis Fukuyama likes big subjects and bold claims. In 1989, he burst into public consciousness with his provocatively titled National Interest article, "The End of History," later expanded into a book, The End of History and the Last Man (1992). His thesis: Liberal, democratic capitalism represents the final stage in the Hegelian evolution of governing regimes, and the fall of the Soviet Union settled the debate. When the musical group Jesus Jones hit the pop charts with a 1991 song lauding the post-Cold War joys of "watching the world wake up from history," Fukuyama achieved a cultural penetration few intellectuals--let alone Hegel interpreters--dream of. -
When Doves Cry
Wars without ends.
Reason, June 1999
In Washington, they are calling the fight over Kosovo "Albright's war." The secretary of state's biography, it's said, is the reason NATO has gone to war with Serbia. Madeleine Albright was born in Czechoslovakia, the child of a diplomat stationed in Belgrade before and after World War II; the family twice had to flee the continent, to England to escape the Nazis and to America to escape the communists. Albright calls herself "a product of Central Europe" and says she has seen what happens "when you don't stand up to evil early."
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Rerouting the Pork Barrel
Forbes ASAP, May 30, 1999
Silicon Valley's newly politicized executives stopped playing defense this year and went looking for government subsidies. But if high tech companies get their way in Washington, they may exacerbate the industry's biggest problem -- the lack of talented people to fill technical jobs.
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Sex mandates
Forbes, May 30, 1999
FROM FLORIDA TO ALASKA, state legislatures are debating whether to require private insurers to pay for contraceptives if they also cover other prescription drugs. Maryland enacted the first such mandate last year, and Georgia recently joined it. In all, 31 states will consider "pill bills" this session.
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Raise your hand if you hate traffic
Forbes, May 21, 1999
THE 360.ALPHA SUMMIT was a big, flashy conference featuring the cream of the Austin, Tex. high-tech community—several hundred top executives and venture capitalists. Dedicated to the broad topic of improving Austin for technology business, the January gathering was well financed, well attended, and well intentioned.
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Looks matter
Forbes, May 02, 1999
KINKO'S HAS LAUNCHED a $40 million marketing effort to convince customers that everyday communication requires polished graphics. Its ads depict humorous applications—tell off the boss by leaving him a travel brochure for hell or pop the question with graphs of your increasing love and projected earnings—but the message is serious.
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Source Code
Al Gore says he invented the Internet. What does he mean?
Reason, May 1999
It was a gaffe worthy of Dan Quayle, but with Clinton-style grandiosity. In a March 10 interview with Wolf Blitzer of CNN, Al Gore bragged about his record. "During my service in the United States Congress," he said, "I took the initiative in creating the Internet."
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Power Fantasies
The strange appeal of the Y2K bug.
Reason, April 1999
Wouldn't it be great if civilization as we know it collapsed? A lot of people seem to think so. The Y2K bug has become the latest hope for many people with a grievance against contemporary society--and not just the head-for-the-hills survivalists. The problem is real enough, of course, and computer and embedded-chip users are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to make sure that when the calendar turns to 2000, their machines don't think it's the year 1900 and crash. But in the minds of many, the computer glitch isn't just a technical problem. It's a vehicle for reimagining, and potentially remaking, the world
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The Pleasantville Solution
The war on "sprawl" promises "livability" but delivers repression, intolerance--and more traffic.
Reason, March 1999
If Bill Clinton and Al Gore denounced soccer moms, told us everything was better in the good old days, and demanded that we let their friends redesign our lives to fit their sense of morality, you might think they'd thrown away their political ambitions and joined the religious right. You would, however, be wrong