Fuss
and Feathers
"The
indication is that we will see a return of the 1918 flu virus
that is the most virulent form of flu," warns America's top health official. "In 1918, half a million people died. The
projections are that this virus will kill one million Americans..."
A
quotation ripped from today's papers about an impending "bird
flu" pandemic? No, the year was 1976 and the prediction
of a deadly "swine flu" overshot the mark by 999,999
deaths (although dozens did die from the vaccine campaign).
That's something to remember amid the current alarms. Another
is that we've been here before with the identical virus over
which the feathers are now flying, avian influenza type H5N1,
which first hit poultry flocks in 1997. "Race to Prevent
World Epidemic of Lethal 'Bird Flu,'" and "Hong
Kong 'Bird Flu' Could be the Next Big Outbreak," blared the headlines
then. The world death toll from that "wave"?
Six. And let's not forget the outbreak
of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) two years ago,
which led to 750 stories in the New York Times and
Washington Post — one per death worldwide, as it turned
out. The 71 U.S. cases of SARS, which resulted in zero deaths, did not "Overwhelm
U.S. Health System," as CNN had predicted.
None
of which is to say there won't be another flu pandemic. There
were three in the last century, after all. But that gives
us absolutely no idea when the next will come, nor whether
it will be any relative of H5N1, nor what its impact will
be. Two of those 20th-century pandemics weren't particularly
severe, while the other was catastrophic. (Pandemic, by the
way, does not mean "deadly epidemic" — it means
"worldwide epidemic.")
What
we can say with confidence is that there is never such a thing
as helpful hysteria. And the line between informing the public
and starting a panic is being crossed every day now by politicians,
public health officials, and journalists.
Michael Fumento
Weekly Standard
http://www.weeklystandard.com/
Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/349zwhbe.asp
—
Left,
Right, Wrong
Do
you believe something can be wrong and constitutional at the
same time? Or do you think that something can be right and
unconstitutional?
This is the fundamental question separating the 'left' and
'right' on judges ... Conservatives, God love 'em, think the
Constitution means something, which is a nice way of saying
it doesn't mean everything. ...
But the proponents of a living constitution don't want to
get bogged down arguing about the meaning of the Constitution;
they want to argue about right and wrong. ... This is why
liberal justices are now fishing for precedents in foreign
countries, because they can't find what they need in actual
precedent or text.
These justices are lawyering themselves right out of a job.
Because if the Supreme Court is there to decide what's right
and wrong, rather than what's constitutional or unconstitutional,
then we don't need lawyers on the bench at all.
Jonah
Goldberg
National Review
http://www.washtimes.com/culture/20051109-115327-4066r.htm
—
The
Waning Movement
The
perpetually petulant Maureen Dowd is in a funk about the waning
influence of the feminist movement. In a recent, lengthy New
York Times Magazine article,
she imagines a bleak future for young women — in particular
those who opt to be wives and mothers: “With no power or money
or independence, they'll be mere domestic robots, lasering
their legs and waxing their floors — or vice versa — and desperately
seeking a new Betty Friedan.”
Yet
Dowd ignores the key difference that separates today’s young
women from earlier generations. Choice. It’s distressing to be forced to play a role you don’t
want, but freely choosing that same role is not a cause for
lamentation.
Betty
Friedan’s Feminine Mystique resonated with many women
in 1963 because they felt as though others defined them. There
were few socially acceptable options for women other than
homemaking or a career in female-friendly fields, such as
teaching or nursing. Many women were unhappy with these restrictions
and welcomed societal changes that made it easier for them
to pursue alternatives.
Today,
however, women have nearly limitless options and opportunities.
They regularly enter and excel in fields that only a few decades
ago were dominated by men. And more changes are coming. Young
women outnumber men at colleges
and universities, and earn more than half of bachelors
and master’s degrees, as well as a growing portion of degrees
in medicine, business, and law.
With
all the choice that education affords, what are women electing
to do? While many fan out into all areas of the economy, many
still prefer to stay home and raise a family.
This
preference periodically is covered as big news. This fall,
the New York Times reported a survey of Yale students
that found that most women expected to scale back careers,
either by working part time or not at all, once children enter
the picture. The lives the respondents expected tracked with
the choices of their predecessors, now in their 30s and 40s.
Surveys of Yale and Harvard Business School alumni reveal
that many high-performing women stop or cut back on working
during prime child-rearing
years.
Carrie Lukas
National Review Online
http://www.nationalreview.com/
comment/lukas200511110820.asp
—
Judge
Alito and the First Amendment
What
would Samuel Alito's confirmation
mean for First Amendment law? It's impossible to be sure,
but his appeals court opinions give us some clues. A Justice
Alito would likely take a pretty
broad view of free speech protections; support religious exemptions
from some generally applicable laws; uphold evenhanded benefit
programs that include both religious and secular institutions;
and uphold the use of religious symbolism by the government.
Church-state
relations. Unlike free speech and free exercise, Supreme Court decisions involving
the establishment clause have recently split more predictably
down conservative-liberal lines. Chief Justice Rehnquist and
Justices Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas
have reasoned that government funding of programs may evenhandedly
include religious institutions alongside secular institutions,
and that the government's own speech may include religious
symbolism, at least when it's generically monotheistic rather
than specifically Christian.
Justices
Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg have
taken the opposite views. Justices Breyer
and, especially, O'Connor have been swing votes, leaving the
law not fully settled. Last year's Ten Commandments cases,
which upheld one display and struck down another, are the
result.
It
seems likely that a Justice Alito would give the conservatives a majority on issues involving
funding and display. His lower court opinions fairly apply
the rather vague Supreme Court precedents, reaching results
that the court's conservatives would have reached, but that
swing-voter Justice O'Connor would also likely have come to
— for instance upholding a holiday display that included both
religious and secular symbols.
He
also seems to conclude that equal treatment of religious institutions
is not establishment, for instance holding that religious
groups may have the same access as secular groups to public
school bulletin boards. And he seems to lean toward viewing
religious speech by the government — part of a longstanding
American tradition — as constitutionally permissible, too.
Eugene Volokh
Opinion Journal
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007545
