Snails and Puppy Dog Tales
Snails and Puppy Dog Tales When one reviews children's literature from another era, one probably shouldn't get sidetracked by the pretensions of late 20th-century liberalism. Unfortunately, David...
...This is a battle we intend to win...
...I do think very well of the Massey-Denton book, which only confirms the overwhelming visual evidence, available to anyone, of the distinctive and unique degree to which blacks are residential-ly concentrated...
...Ironically, the various campaign-finance "reform" schemes being proposed by Democrats would increase the power of those special interests...
...In 1970, boomers made up 40 percent of the population...
...Jim Nicholson Chairman Republican National Committee Washington, DC All Is Vanity Terry Teachout's article on the death of the common culture ("The Common Culture, R.I.P," Oct...
...I too am somewhat mystified by a world in which no one under 30 remembers Ed Sullivan or gives two hoots about the Beatles...
...Notwithstanding the weak scientific data for sweeping collections of job-killing regulations, the upcoming treaty is far from global in its reach...
...After all, G.A...
...Watership Down, by Richard Adams...
...13) nibbles at the edges of a topic rarely discussed...
...I'm inclined toward this explanation: These men said they were gathering to humble themselves before God and take responsibility for their failures...
...And I have expressed skepticism, once in the Wall Street Journal, once in the New Republic, about the desirability of fully eliminating affirmative action for African Americans...
...What was Eastland watching...
...From here on out, it will be all downhill for the boomers...
...Their overwhelming cultural influence will disappear soon enough...
...David Taylor Easton, MD Isincerely hope that Eastland's impression of the media's coverage of the Promise Keepers rally is accurate overall, because it certainly doesn't coincide with what I saw...
...and where I have discussed Massey-Denton (in We Are All Multiculturalists Now), I was not writing about affirmative action...
...Unfortunately, David Frum's otherwise insightful piece on 19th-century youth literature ("When Boys Were Boys," Oct...
...Throughout the day on Saturday, you would have thought that Patricia Ireland was a spokesman for Promise Keepers, so often was she consulted and interviewed about them...
...Let me also make note of a type of fiction that has yet to be overrun by the feminist movement: science fiction...
...On affirmative action, I think there is a good argument for voluntary preferences for blacks, which is what we now see in most selective colleges, universities, and professional schools...
...20) loses much luster due to his condescension toward 19th-century writers...
...The National Association of Manufacturers represents more than 14,000 manufacturers of all sizes...
...Bruce Millard Jersey City, NJ Promise Keepers Coverage Terry Eastland's "Promise Keepers and the Press" (Oct...
...We are part of an unusual coalition of small- business and agriculture groups and labor unions that is committed to stopping the treaty...
...22) reported that a poll conducted by the Republican National Committee found that campaign- finance reform had moved "from 2 or 3 percent in previous polls to double digits as the number-one issue of concern...
...Yet our generation has been the most over-flattered and over-indulged in human history...
...But they are not what Theodore Roosevelt rightly called the "manly virtues...
...20) provides a glimmer of sanity in the midst of a troubling debate...
...The criticism I saw in the mainstream media was so petty that it was entertaining rather than annoying...
...As Carlson observes, the treaty excludes 134 of 166 nations...
...His books were rooted in surprisingly sound, unre-vised history of the old school, and they provided fine lessons in justice, friendship, good and evil, courage, young manhood, duty, loyalty, even young Victorian romance...
...Ironically, it is American women who are suffering the most because of it...
...No RNC poll has come up with anything like that finding...
...Their numbers now are smaller...
...As one born in 1952, I can fully identify with Teachout's angst at seeing the demographic tides wash his cultural landmarks out to sea...
...Ed Bender Reading, PA...
...Teachout appears to be one of those fellows who grew up believing that baby boomers were predestined to be the cultural inheritors of the earth, and who has begun to see the early signs of power slipping from his grasp...
...Come to think of it, if anyone could be charged with "snobbery," it might be the person who feels it's necessary to write condescendingly about children's literature that dates from the days when boys were boys and girls were girls...
...Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and a host of developing countries are omitted from the treaty's mandates...
...W. Edward Chynoweth Sanger, CA While I tend to agree with David Frum's assessment that modern fiction is dominated by female characters presented as heroines, I feel I must point out a few discrepancies...
...It may be interesting to note, however, that 11 percent of respondents did express concern about "the power of special interests in Washington...
...It seems to me that there is a simpler and much less sinister explanation for the huge increase in female main characters today, one that has little to do with young boys' attitudes...
...Within 20 years, the developing countries are projected to pollute more than the developed nations...
...The Dark Is Rising, by Susan Cooper...
...Note, for example, that even the Promise Keepers felt compelled to present themselves in feminist terms: They were "compassionate," "nurturing," "sensitive," and "weepy-eyed" servants of the women they loved...
...The simple fact is that more women than men read fiction...
...Paul R. Huard Washington, DC Credit Where None's Due In his review of Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom's America in Black and White ("Cockeyed Optimists," Oct...
...Energy-intensive American industries, forced to move abroad in the wake of excessive emissions restrictions, would open shop in developing nations, thereby further concentrating the pollution that self-described environmentalists wish to reduce...
...Michael p. Page Yorktown Heights, NY David Frum has written a hell of a manly and courageous piece about literature for young boys...
...In my comments on affirmative action, I did not refer to the Massey-Denton findings...
...6), Dinesh D'Souza writes incorrectly that I "credit" Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton's book American Apartheid with my "newfound support for racial preferences for blacks...
...Apparently they did that, and while God is opposed to the proud, He gives grace to the humble...
...In this dysfunctional day of androgynous boys and girls, one might expect Frum to praise Henty, Cooper, Stratemeyer, and others, not to bury them...
...To be sure, these feminine virtues are fine ones indeed...
...Henty was writing adventure books for young boys, not Nobel Prize-quality literature, and, despite the marked simplicity characteristic of children's books, his vast production was exceptional—and quite undeserving of highbrow, politically correct judgments...
...And writers write what sells...
...The science of "global warming" is, as Carlson notes, tenuous at best...
...The double irony, of course, is that American industry has made great strides in reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other chemicals, and is producing energy-efficient technologies that will further reduce such emissions...
...Half-hearted adult posturing about them seems hypocritical...
...It was enough to make any man—or boy—want to throw his beer bottle— or his Coke can—through the television set...
...They are now 29 percent and falling...
...Though it is unlikely that the Kyoto treaty will pass the Senate, should it do so it would likely increase pollution...
...Anyone in our day who indicts Henty as "appallingly racist," or his characters as "comical"— even as a dutiful act of neoconservative homage to liberalism—has little grasp of Henty's breadth and understanding...
...The following books might satisfy a few yearnings: Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card...
...John R Guardiano Arlington, VA Gore's stale Science Tucker Carlson's article on the global-climate issue ("Al Gore's Glob-aloney," Oct...
...In fact, our most recent poll did not even ask about campaign-finance reform...
...The Adventures of the Stainless Steel Rat, by Harry Harrison...
...Not one—not one—of the 1,000 likely voters surveyed answered campaign finance reform...
...He is absolutely right: The feminization of America has made it increasingly difficult not only for boys to be boys, but also for men to be men...
...It is, however, indicative of the feminist conquest of American culture that even the Promise Keepers felt compelled to model themselves after the likes of Alan Alda...
...The stakes are very high—hundreds of thousands of lost jobs, up to a 50 cents-a-gallon energy tax, substantially lower productivity, and a severe reduction of our gross national product...
...Is there not some sort of justice in seeing those who thought they would rule the world forever come face to face with the knowledge that they too shall pass...
...Is not some sort of comeuppance long overdue...
...Yet these nations will be the bulk polluters of the next century...
...Over the next 50 years, developing nations are expected to contribute an estimated 76 percent of total greenhouse emissions, and up to 85 percent of the projected worldwide increases in carbon-dioxide emissions...
...We did, however, ask respondents to identify the most important problem facing the United States today...
...But the connection between the two positions is in D'Souza's mind, not in anything I have written...
...One either endorses such fine books for boys or one doesn't...
...The unstated theme of Teachout's article is the author's obvious anxiety about what might be called the coming decline and fall of boomer supremacy in America...
...The News-Hour with Jim Lehrer had a Promise Keepers representative sitting next to two others who used all of their time to criticize the movement...
...The initial figures from the 1990 census indicated that there were a little over 80 million baby boomers left in America...
...Nathan Glazer Cambridge, MA No to the Parasite Class Your Scrapbook item "Republicans Get Some Very Bad News" (Sept...
...Since most of the press is hardly sympathetic to the concerns of men like the Promise Keepers, how do you account for the cease-fire...
...20) confirmed the feeling I had after the rally: The Promise Keepers did indeed hit a home run...
Vol. 3 • November 1997 • No. 8
