Cosmic Capitalist

National Review Online, May 1, 2001

I suppose that we should not be surprised. NASA is, after all, a federal bureaucracy, little more, really than the postal service in a space suit. Nevertheless, the surly and self-important way in which the agency has handled Dennis Tito, Earth's first extra-planetary tourist, would have embarrassed even the IRS. Unless you have been living in Mars (and, perhaps, even then) you will know that Mr. Tito is an American aerospace engineer turned financial tycoon who paid a reported $20 million for a round-rip ticket to the Russian space station, Mir. Sadly, gravity, high-maintenance bills, and aging technology conspired to bring Mir down to Earth before Mr. Tito could get to visit. Undeterred by this setback, the Russians agreed to an alternative. They would fly their paying cosmonaut in a Soyuz to Alpha, the new international space station currently being built one hundred or so miles above our planet.

Mr. Tito's is a wonderful story. It is the tale of a man who works hard all his life, who builds himself the American dream, and then uses the proceeds to take a ride on a rocket ship. It is the stuff of myth, partly Ray Bradbury, partly Horatio Alger. NASA, unfortunately, had borrowed their script from the Grinch. Dennis Tito, the agency explained, would not be welcome on the space station. Oh, they used all the explanations, it could be dangerous, someone might get sued (trial lawyers, these days, get everywhere), the space station was not ready, 'protocols' had to be drafted, and the clincher, Tito was not a 'professional'.

If we wanted a reminder that the old, marvelous improvisational NASA, the NASA of pocket-protected dreamers who sent men into space in tin cans, was dead, this was it.

Fortunately, Russians these days know that a contract is a contract, and they insisted that their American was along for the ride. After a brief strike by the Soyuz cosmonauts and last-minute negotiations that included Mr. Tito's agreement to pay for anything he might break, NASA relented, and the millionaire is now in space.

To cash-strapped Moscow this is good news. The price that their passenger has paid for his ticket will be more than enough to pay for the next Soyuz mission, and there are, the Russians know, quite a few others who will be prepared to follow his example. As one Russian engineer explained to the press, " there are a lot of rich people around. Why shouldn't they go flying, enjoy themselves and help the [space] station at the same time?"

He is quite right, of course, but the real significance of Moscow's orbiting tycoon is much greater than that first $20 million. By selling a ticket to Alpha, the Russians are signaling that business in space is going to be far more than the operation of a few communications satellites. Tito's take-off may be one small step for free enterprise, but, for the rest of us, it could be a giant leap. For, if space really is to be opened up, it is going to take more than governments and their "professionals" to do the job. The real work will be done, as it has always has been at every new frontier, by the usual motley suspects, by capitalists, cranks, charlatans, and crackpots, by dreamers, drones, visionaries, hucksters, showmen, and opportunists and, yes, even by tourists.

The Russians now seem to understand this. Perhaps this was inevitable. After living for more than 70 years in a technocratic bureaucracy that disdained the individual and spent a fortune on science they have a pretty good idea where NASA is going.

Nowhere.

In PC England

National Review Online, April 23, 2001

"We walked into an almighty ambush," sighed a senior Tory aide to the London Daily Telegraph, "it was a stitch-up that came right out of the blue." Well, he was half-right, at least. The latest blow to hit Britain's embattled Conservative opposition was indeed the result of an ambush, but to suggest that it came "out of the blue" shows a disturbing level of naïveté in a party that will likely have to contest a general election within the next few weeks (the current speculation is that the vote will be held on June 7th). The origins of this new crisis lie in a pre-election "compact" signed in March by all Britain's party leaders, including William Hague of the Conservatives. The compact had been drawn up by the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), a publicly funded and, allegedly, non-partisan body that has the task of supervising race relations in Britain. As Mr. Hague would have done well to remember, three out of the CRE's 14 commissioners are members of the Labour Party (one sits on the party's executive committee), and another six have quasi-official jobs that depend on the Labour government's powers of patronage. The CRE's well-paid chairman, a former chief executive of a left-wing London borough, was himself appointed by Labour's interior minister.

The wording of the compact is largely anodyne, and therein lies the trap. The signatories committed themselves (and their parties) to reject "all forms of racial violence, racial harassment and unlawful racial discrimination." Fair enough, you might think, except that these activities are already illegal, and best left to the police to handle. Asking politicians to "reject" such behavior ought, therefore, to be as meaningless as requesting them to disavow murder, theft, and kidnapping. By producing a document that singles out these "racial" offenses, the CRE is implying that there is something, potentially, in the behavior of Britain's mainstream political parties that could give rise to just such criminal conduct. That's a ridiculous contention, yet, by signing the compact, William Hague seemed to agree with its fraudulent premise.

In so doing, he paved the way for his current difficulties. To make the situation worse, Mr. Hague's signature was never, by itself, going to be enough to satisfy a race-relations lobby always ready to tar the Tories as racist. It is no surprise, therefore, except, it would seem, to the Conservative leadership, that the CRE promptly moved the goal posts.

The commission is now calling on all MPs and parliamentary candidates to sign the document. Its website is naming (and, it hopes, shaming) those who refuse. The first names featured on the website were all Conservatives.

Is Mr. Hague now expected to discipline the rebels for refusing to subscribe to a document that is now, apparently, party policy?

It would be an embarrassing predicament at the best of times, and for a party lagging in the polls by twenty points, now is not the best of times. The CRE is claiming that it is only a coincidence that it decided to publicize this list at the same time that the Labour foreign minister came out with a major speech linking the Tory party to racism.

One appalled former commissioner, Raj Chandran, a Conservative, appears to be not so sure. He has now accused the organization of acting as "a political arm of the Labour party." Meanwhile, more Conservatives are saying that they will not add their names to what one MP has called this "loathsome and offensive" compact. Others, however, have been happy to sign.

The result has been a disaster for the Tories as a party, and for Mr. Hague personally. Those who wish to portray the Conservatives as incurably racist will have been given more ammunition. Others will see the spectacle of a divided party, an image that is, traditionally, electoral poison in the UK. William Hague himself cannot win. He either signed a document in which he did not believe, in which case he is unprincipled, or he has signed a document which he cannot persuade his party to support, in which case he is weak. Ominously, perhaps, one of the Conservatives who has said that he will not sign is Michael Portillo, the Tory finance spokesman and a likely challenger for the leadership if the election goes badly.

It would have been far better for the Conservative leader to have rejected the compact in the first place, while, of course, reiterating his condemnation of racist politics. There would, to be sure, have been some controversy, but it would have been a controversy where Mr. Hague could have set the terms of the debate in a way in which he was more likely to prevail.

He could have begun with the wording of the document itself, which did not confine itself to the clear-cut, if implicitly insulting, text mentioned above. Amongst other things, the agreement goes on to call on parties not to publish any materials, which might "reasonably be expected" to lead to racial conflict. Reasonably be expected by whom? As U.S. Attorney-General John Ashcroft has discovered, when it comes to the finding of racist intent, the notion of "reasonable" is a highly elusive concept, and one that is never defined in a manner favorable to those outside the PC establishment.

In dealings with the public, the compact obliges signatories to do nothing that could "stir up" racial hatred. Again, "stir up" in the opinion of whom? Taken to its extreme, that could be analogous to requiring the GOP to do nothing that would "stir up" Al Sharpton.

This vague wording, and the opportunity that its subjective criteria give for abuse, should have been denounced at the time for what it was, a crude piece of political theater designed to interfere with the electoral process and, specifically, a partisan attempt to squash debate on what is potentially a very damaging issue for Labour, its failure to handle the issue of bogus asylum seekers into the UK. There were 100,000 applicants for asylum into the UK last year alone of which, many, perhaps the majority, were fraudulent. For various reasons, not the least of which is the need of the Labour party to preserve its appeal to ethnic minority voters, these applications are being dealt with in a lax, slovenly, and disorganized manner, an approach that only guarantees that there will be yet more such bogus "refugees" in future.

Labour has tried to distract attention from the substance of Tory attacks on this shambles, by claiming, in essence, that such criticism is inherently racist. It is a clever, if dishonest, strategy, and it is not difficult to see how the CRE, given a mandate to police election-time propaganda lest it "stir up" racism, could provide useful assistance. It is also a strategy that reveals a profound contempt for the intelligence of the British electorate, a contempt that the CRE appears to share.

For the CRE is effectively arguing that, despite a long tradition of ignoring demagogues, racist or otherwise, Britain's voters need protecting from themselves. Claiming to be shocked--shocked!--by the current uproar, CRE's director of policy and communications has said that all the organization was trying to do was to "broker" an agreement between the parties and to "set a standard for the debate about race and race relations in the election." What he seems to have forgotten is that in a democracy there is no need for an unelected mediator to set the agenda for what may or not be included in the dialogue between politicians and their electorate.

What a shame that Mr. Hague did not choose to point this out back in March.

Lenin’s Last Stand

National Review Online, April 22, 2001

© Andrew Stuttaford

Shrines should be for saints, not killers, but no one seems to have told them that at Gorki Leninskiye. There, twenty miles outside Moscow, a holy place still stands, a tribute to a tyrant, and an insult to his victims. It is paid for by a state unable to cope with the truths of its terrible, barely acknowledged past. Its citizens have a better understanding. They know what is celebrated there and they prefer to avoid it. "Why would you want to go there?" I am asked, "there is nothing to see." "I'm interested in Soviet history." There is a shrug in response, no words, just silence. Navigation is difficult; there are no signs pointing the way, no billboards, no fluttering flags or excited crowds, just country roads, a few disheveled hamlets and the stillness of the Russian plain. Finally, after an hour or so, we drive up to a statue, more than twenty feet tall. Massive, monumental and an eyesore, Lenin still stands, eternal, hectoring, damaged now in one leg, forever gazing out at that radiant future that was never to come, still signaling to visitors that they had arrived in Gorki Leninskiye, the place where the father of the revolution was taken to die.

© Andrew Stuttaford

Before the Bolsheviks, Gorki (the "Leninskiye" came later) had been one of those pleasant country estates that are the backdrop to our sunny image of aristocratic Russia before the Fall: silver birches, a river, a yellow stucco manor house in the neo-classical style. In 1909 the widow of an early financier of the revolutionary cause bought the manor. Ungratefully, the revolutionaries nationalized the place in 1918. Lenin first came to stay that same year, despite, according to his wife, "exquisite embarrassment" over the size of the accommodations.

The Lenins evidently got over this shame and their frequent visits made Gorki a natural choice when the time came to find the Bolshevik leader somewhere to recuperate after a series of strokes. Despite the efforts of a team of foreign doctors (the Great Man eschewed the "usual Soviet bunglers"), recovery proved elusive. Deteriorating rapidly, Lenin spent most of the last 18 months of his life effectively confined to Gorki, and it was here, on January 21, 1924, that the "genius of geniuses" finally succumbed.

Past the statue, we find the road toward our objective. We are alone. There are no tour buses, no wheezing, dirty Ladas or struggling rusty Volgas, no Red Army trucks, no determined pedestrians. It was not always this way.

In the old days, half a million pilgrims would come to pay their respects each year. It was a patriotic excursion, a break from the factory, school, or barracks, a day in the country for all those young pioneers, kindergarten Octobrists, Komsomol kids, Party members, and plain, ordinary working folks.

Now there is just us. As we get closer, the site appears abandoned, the route to its empty parking lot blocked off by a needlessly locked gate, a gate without fences.

To reach the first, and newest, part of the shrine, the Political History Museum, it is necessary to climb up a slight slope. At one time, this must have been a reminder to visitors that to be worthy of their destination they were expected to elevate themselves to some higher level, an impression that the temple-like architecture of the museum was clearly designed to reinforce. It fails. Thrown up, with exquisite timing, in the later Gorbachev era, the building would have embarrassed Albert Speer. It is a gimcrack Parthenon, worthy only of some Neanderthal Olympus. Grass now peeps through the cracks of its empty, stone steps, but an open door signals that the faithful are still welcome.

They are not, however, expected. My wife and I are the only visitors. Sold our tickets by an astonished attendant, we walk up a sweeping staircase past a large statue of a pensive-looking Lenin. Another attendant switches on a wind machine and a red flag begins to flutter behind the marble revolutionary. As we reach the top of the stairs, the machine is turned off. It is a pattern that is repeated in each exhibit room. On our approach, an attendant darts ahead to switch on the lights, and on our departure the room is plunged back into darkness. Lenin used to say that Communism was "Soviet power plus electrification." It is a mark of progress that his successors have to contend with utility bills.

The exhibits themselves are worthy of that most bureaucratic of revolutions, production statistics, in addition to pamphlets, philosophical treatises, and proclamations. There are also some banners and photographs of the Communist leadership looking like Communists should, sullen, discontented, and filled with self-importance. Of the camps, the prisons, the mass graves, the famines, the torture chambers, there is nothing.

It is a disgusting omission, all the more so in an institution that is funded by the Russian state, but it is also typical of a country where there is no shared understanding of Communism's savage history. When the Soviets fell, too many of their myths were allowed to survive. An exhausted people and a compromised governing class had no wish to examine the past, preferring instead to reveal a few glimpses here, an archive or two there. The spirits of the gulag dead were to be appeased by no more than a few half-measures.

So, it should be no surprise that when, in 1994, the decision was taken to empty out Lenin's old Kremlin apartment (it had been a tourist attraction for privileged visitors during the Soviet era), the contents were neither destroyed nor placed in context in some proper place. Instead, they were taken to quiet, damp Gorki Leninskiye and dumped not far from the Political History Museum, in one of the original buildings of the Morozov estate, waiting, perhaps, for better days — out of sight, but not, quite, out of mind.

To reach this building, one must trek through silent woodland with only the crows for company. Unlike in the years of more closely shepherded visits, there are few signs to point the way, but another helpful Lenin (red granite this time and hoisted, appropriately enough, on the shoulders of the proletariat) tells us that we are on the right track. It is not a long walk, fifteen, twenty minutes at the most, and at the end of it we are back in the early Soviet era.

"It was all moved, almost overnight: 40,000 objects put into trucks and not even catalogued," the attendant explains, shocked by the sacrilege. She is a pleasant, educated woman, one of those intellectuals caught on just the wrong side of a changed Russia, with a degree, perhaps, in Marxism-Leninism and, maybe, a doctoral dissertation on some forgotten revolutionary. Too rooted, it seems, in the old order to adapt to or even understand the new one, she prefers to recreate the past, cataloguing, listing, and displaying the relics that she so loves, comfortable in this building that no one comes to visit, a place where it is still January 21, 1924, and where every clock is stopped, literally, at the moment of Lenin's death.

And what a treasure trove there is to see, souvenirs of the public man (complete with wall maps of the young Soviet Republic, the telephones, the long meeting table) and the private. We see Lenin's furniture, his bed (and, in a separate room, that of his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, dull, shrill, and neglected, a Rodham avant la lettre). Wait, there's more. Lenin's desk! Lenin's piano! Krupskaya's briefcase! A monkey bust from Armand Hammer! There is not much on the walls: a family photograph here, a pin-up of Marx there, but little else. We are led down corridors deep into the labyrinth of Leninist myth, into the realm of an ascetic philosopher-king. "He could read six hundred pages a day!" There are books everywhere, turgid treatises in plain brown covers, with broken spines, underscored, and filled with scrawled commentary, the giveaway spoor of somebody who had spent too much time in libraries.

The kitchen and dining room feature utilitarian furniture, mismatched cutlery, and a few old pots and pans. The message is clear, and false; we are told that the plain-living Lenin shared the tough times endured by the starving Russia of the early 1920s. That the always well-fed Soviet leader saw famine as just another political weapon ("Desperate hunger will give us a mood among the broad peasant masses that will guarantee us [their] sympathy … or at least their neutrality") goes unmentioned. There is no place here for the real man, the cynical murderer and didactic thief who destroyed a civilization.

No, the Lenin that haunts these strange, transplanted rooms is the Lenin of our guide's Soviet childhood; it is the Lenin of legend, the hero of the Finland Station, the austere visionary. And this, sadly, may be the Lenin of Russia's immediate future. Rather than reckoning with the past, Vladimir Putin is trying conceal it under the façade of a unifying national narrative, a narrative that will include, he says, "the best" from the Soviet years, a narrative that may well devote more time to the 40,000 objects in Lenin's apartment than the more than 20 million killed in Lenin's dystopia.

In the end, President Putin will probably be unsuccessful. The ghosts of the past will not be so easily exorcized. In the meantime, the shrine at Gorki Leninskiye will endure, dishonest and misleading, funded by the state but abandoned by its worshipers; in its own way, a fitting memorial to a god that failed.

Doctor’s Orders

National Review Online, April 15, 2001

If you thought that the million moms were bad, just wait until you hear from the six hundred thousand docs. Next time you go for a check-up, you just might. Doctors Against Handgun Injury (a new coalition of organizations representing two-thirds of this country's physicians) is suggesting that "health professionals and health systems should ask [patients] about gun ownership when taking a medical history or engaging in preventive counseling." By itself, intrusive questioning is not enough, of course. The interrogation has to be followed by a lecture. "Patients should be provided with information about the risks of having a gun in the home, as well as methods to reduce the risk, should the ignorant peasants continue to choose to keep them." OK, so I added in the "ignorant peasants," but, have no doubt, a snooty assumption of technocratic superiority is indeed what underpins this latest anti-gun initiative. To the folks at DAHI, the rate of gun-related injury is an epidemiological issue, and like any other infectious disease, it is best to leave its control to the medical profession. It is a ludicrous argument, but to the people making it, it comes with one great advantage: Skill with the scalpel or the stethoscope is magically transformed into the right to act as an arbiter in a far wider field than the ER or the hospital ward. Those who are not as qualified are expected to watch in awe as these lab-coated loudmouths issue their self-important prescription for "public safety," a series of policy initiatives that have little or nothing to do with the practice of medicine.

With the exception of the proposed weapons counseling, DAHI's prescription itself is fairly standard gun-control boilerplate, the usual thin end of the anti-Second Amendment wedge. DAHI's agenda includes an extension of the Brady background checks, restrictions on the number of guns that can be bought within a given period, and, of course, that stalker-friendly favorite, the imposition of an interval "between the time an individual purchases a weapon and the time s/he takes possession of it."

As ideas they are nonsense, of course, but what makes these suggested "interventions" (as they are pretentiously labeled) particularly offensive is the way that they are an abuse of the aura and the authority of the physician. By pretending that these measures are a "healthcare" issue, DAHI is attempting to push through a partisan program without the bother of going through the normal political debate. Such debate may be messy, but it is essential part of democracy. These lordly doctors, seem to above such petty considerations.

Perhaps even worse, they also appear to consider themselves to be above the standards of accuracy and objectivity that we are traditionally entitled to expect from our physicians. To take a couple of examples, visitors to DAHI's website will, amid talk of "carnage," grudgingly be told that there has been a fall in gun-related deaths since 1993. It is explained, however, that this fall is at least "partly" attributable to the Brady Law. The fact that the decline began a year or two before the law came into force is not referred to, nor is there any analysis of how many lives might be saved by the defensive use of guns. Similarly, there is plenty of focus on accidental death from firearms, but no mention of the fact that, between 1980 and the late 1990s this total fell by nearly a half, despite rapidly rising levels of gun ownership. Tragic though it is, the death toll from firearms accidents is smaller than that from drowning, burning, or even simply falling over. It is not much larger than the number who come to their end while engaged in recreational boating, and it is less than one-thirtieth of the total killed in motor vehicle accidents.

DAHI's selective use of statistical data might be acceptable in the normal course of political polemic, but coming from people who are portraying themselves as participants in this debate on the basis of their "expertise and experience as physicians," it is a disgrace. DAHI tell us that "presenting basic facts and helping patients make informed decisions" is part of the doctor's job. If their website is any indicator as to how they judge the "basic facts," these physicians have a very strange way of going about their work.

After seeing what he had to say to the press, I would not even accept an aspirin from one of DAHI's leaders, Dr. Jeremiah Barondess, without a second opinion. In an interview with the New York Observer, Dr. Barondess, president of the important-sounding New York Academy of Medicine, felt able to claim that the pressure group was "neutral politically, academically and intellectually," an assertion that reveals the contempt he must feel for the reasoning powers of that newspaper's readers.

The extent of DAHI's "intellectual neutrality" can be seen from its approach to the "basic facts" discussed above. Quite what is meant by "academically neutral" is unclear, but it seems to include the publication of a key position paper that manages to cite such sources as the New Republic, the ABA's Coordinating Committee on Gun Violence, Congressman Patrick Kennedy, Senator Robert Torricelli, the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, the American Prospect (twice), the Handgun Epidemic Lowering Plan, and the Cincinnati Post. The work of prominent gun-control skeptics such as Yale's John Lott Jr. does not, however, even merit a mention. Professor Lott is not alone. There's no room for the work of obscure gun-control skeptics, either. What of DAHI's supposed political neutrality? Of all the politicians who have looked into the issue of gun control, the organization only chooses to quote two liberal Democrats.

Dr. Barondess prefers, of course, to avoid such matters, preferring to repeat DAHI's dishonest dogma, "handgun injury…is like a disease…and we're going to introduce mandatory immunizations for this disease." It is difficult to decide which is the more repellent, the fraudulent assertion of "neutrality" or the creepily totalitarian claim that "we" are going to introduce these "mandatory" immunizations.

It can be no surprise, therefore, that in their legislative crusade, DAHI's physicians reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of the doctor/patient relationship. As private individuals they are free to campaign for any legislation that they choose, but when they do so in their capacity as doctors, they should take care. Laws are coercive. The physician who uses his professional qualification to press for DAHI-style legislation is, essentially, arguing that he has the right to tell his patients what to do. This is not what doctors are for. The role of a physician is to listen, to diagnose, and to give advice. A course of treatment is a suggestion, not an order. It must, in the end, be left to the patient, however misguided, to decide what to do.

That would be true, even if the advice were good. In this case it could be lethal. The proposed legislative changes will make it harder for law-abiding people to exercise their Second Amendment rights, something which flies in the face of evidence that such a development may in fact cost lives, evidence that Dr. Barondess and his friends are either too arrogant to consider or too disingenuous to discuss.

Worst of all, even if DAHI is unsuccessful in promoting its legislative agenda, the organization's supposedly objective "counseling" will, in the meantime, be likely to discourage people from keeping the means of self defense that they already have. As is noted on the DAHI website, "there is precedent for the view that [the counseling] would be helpful…in the context of removing guns from the home." That is probably right. To the people in their care, doctors can be very persuasive, especially when the "basic facts" are presented in such a one-sided way. And when patients are misled on the advantages and disadvantages of gun ownership, truth may not be the only casualty.

Bullying someone into giving up an effective means of self-defense may prove, quite literally, fatal. For the patient, that is. The consequences for the doctor will be rather less severe. In an unlikely, but deserved, worst case, he may risk a malpractice lawsuit, a threat to livelihood rather than life. Presumably it is in response to this somewhat remote danger that DAHI's cyber-offering includes the disclaimer that, "nothing in this web site is intended to be construed or to serve as a standard of medical care." Like all the best disclaimers, it contradicts everything that has gone before.

But it's a start.

Big-Screen Smoke Screen

National Review Online, April 8, 2001

Medical science used to be about test tubes, dissection, and ugly moments in the mortuary. Not any more, it seems. At New Hampshire's Dartmouth Medical College, researchers had a very different project. They sat through 178 movies, and it wasn't fun. For, doubtless to their disgust, these selfless men and women of science were forced to witness something that they would probably prefer never to be shown on the silver screen. It was a spectacle more repulsive than Hannibal Lecter's skillet, a freak show more sinister than Freddy Krueger's grin. Yes, they had to watch cigarette smokers at play. Lots of them. Worse still, many of these puffing perverts seemed to be enjoying their nasty vice. This would be bad behavior at the best of times, but coming from movie stars, the consequences could be devastating. Cinema's sinning celebrities, worried the Dartmouth team, could lead "The Children" astray.

So they interviewed "The Children," 632 in total, all based in schools within two hours drive of Lebanon, New Hampshire. What the Lebanese had to say was shocking. A disturbing number of their favorite film actors scored far too many points on the Dartmouth survey's roll of dishonor, "the star tobacco use index," a system devised by the researchers for recording how often a particular individual can be seen smoking on-screen.

Now, as surveys go, an interrogation of a handful of New Hampshire high-school students is not the most comprehensive, but an analysis of the youngsters' replies led the research team to a horrifying conclusion. Students whose favorite actors came near the top of the index (in other words, the stars who were most often shown smoking) were, allegedly, more likely to smoke themselves. There "was a clear relation between on-screen tobacco use by movie stars and higher levels of smoking uptake in the adolescents who admire them." We can assume that these findings are meant to have implications beyond the Granite-State Bek'aa. Across the nation, mesmerized schoolchildren are, it is suggested, being lured by images of smokin' Brad Pitt into a short, stupid life of wheezing, nicotine-driven hell.

Of course, it is possible to argue with the methodology, the conclusions, and the researchers' choice of professional priorities, but I would not recommend trying this with Jennifer J. Tickle, the lady in charge of the study. Ms. Tickle, a Ph.D. candidate with a double major in psychology and, impressively, interdisciplinary women's studies, sounds like a stern sort. In a recent interview with the New York Post she warned that, "Movie stars should seriously think whether smoking is central to the character they are portraying." And they should also behave themselves off the set. Maybe they could "try not to be seen so much in public with a cigarette in their hand."

Leonardo DiCaprio, that means you.

Ms. Tickle, however, faces an uphill struggle. "The movie industry knows there is a relationship between teen smoking and what they put on the screen, but they seem to turn a blind eye to it," she scolds. She should not be surprised. Showbiz is filled with self-centered individuals, incapable of doing anything for the public good. Who among us, after all, can forget the Petaluma petition? This was drafted in 1997 by the scholars of Casa Grande (a Californian high school that clearly attracts students of a more refined type than the Skoal-chewing, chain-smoking, movie-crazed barbarians of Lebanon, N.H.). The petitioners called on local girl Winona Ryder to renounce smoking on the silver screen. Callously, she chose to ignore them.

But Ms. Tickle, it is you who should ignore Winona. For every Winona you wean off the weed there will be another Christian, Keanu, or Drew who lights up. In our straitlaced times tobacco use has become a symbol of rebellion, an easy symbol of cool for any new actor trying to win an audience. So, rather than trying to retrain these hopeless stars, find a role model of your own, an individual who smokes and yet who is so repellent, so horrible, and so utterly lacking in any good qualities, that no one will want to have a bad habit in common with him. Ms. Tickle, I know just the man.

Adolf Hitler, smoker.

There is, of course, one teeny problem with this idea. Hitler did not, in reality, smoke. Although the future Fuhrer was disciplined for smoking as a child, by the time the little tyke had his Reich, he had turned against cigarettes. On at least one occasion, he claimed that had it not been for the decision to give up smoking in his youth, Germany would not have been lucky enough to have him as savior. Well, thanks for that, anti-smokers.

In Adolf's view, tobacco was "one of man's most dangerous poisons." Even poor Eva Braun, the future Mrs. Hitler, was not allowed to smoke in the presence of her husband-to-be. Other acolytes had to wrestle with a similar prohibition. In a precursor of current rows over portrayals of FDR, Hermann Goering came under the Fuhrer's fire for permitting the erection of a statue that showed the Luftwaffe boss with a cigar in his mouth. But it was not all doom and gloom in the Chancellery. Hitler believed in the carrot as well as the stick. Friends who quit were rewarded with a gold watch.

This anti-smoking fervor was not just confined to the party's inner circle. Hitler's government imposed wide-ranging restrictions on smoking in the workplace and on public transport. It was made difficult for women to buy cigarettes, and SS officers in uniform were forbidden to smoke in public, as were youngsters under the age of 18. Tobacco advertisements were subject to the sort of strict control of which the FDA can only dream. There would have been no room for Josef Kamel in the clean-living Third Reich. Certain media, such as billboards, were often off-limits for the tobacco companies, and (take note, Ms. Tickle!) cigarettes could not be advertised in films.

This historical truth is, of course, a problem for those who would promote the idea of a nicotine Nazi, but it is not insurmountable. Anti-tobacco activists, who gave us the junk science of "passive smoking" (itself a term, "Passivrauchen," first coined in Hitler's Germany) will have no ethical qualms about reinventing the Fuhrer as a smoker. As a reverse role model he would last a thousand years. The National Socialist leader would be a perfect spokesman for the evils of the coffin nail. A Marlboro cowboy in reverse, Swastika Man was an unwholesome, unhealthy, mass-murdering, war-losing hysteric. No one sane would want to emulate him in any way.

The creation of a smoking Hitler would be easy. The technology that today is used by the Postal Service to remove cigarettes from the images of icons such as Thornton Wilder, James Dean, Humphrey Bogart, and blues man Robert Johnson could, at last, be put more to more constructive use. Let us take the cigarettes out of the mouths of American heroes and jam them between the teeth of German villains. The sight of a frenzied Fuhrer furiously chewing on a stogie as he rants and raves at a hate-filled Nuremberg mob would horrify all but the most recalcitrant teen. Images of defeat would underline the message that smoking is for losers. We could enjoy newsreel of a pallid chain-smoking Hitler contemplating the annihilation of the Sixth Army at Stalingrad, or maybe gloat over those few last photographs of a disheveled dictator grubbing around for butts on the squalid bunker floor. Add in a Soviet-autopsy report doctored to reveal that the dead man showed signs of emphysema as well as a bullet, and the off-putting picture would be complete.

Mention of an autopsy is, however, a reminder that Adolf Hitler is, like so many other smokers, no longer with us. While he will be the best long-term reverse role model, it would be better if his efforts could be supplemented by those of a contemporary villain. Saddam Hussein (a Virginia Slims man, I like to think) is one candidate, but it might be better to have a home-grown bogeyman this time round. Mercifully, there are no American Fuhrers, (outside Idaho, anyway) but there is one domestic political figure who, with a little work and a lot of cigarettes, might manage to achieve both the unpopularity and the association with Big Tobacco that is essential if this country's youth is to be scared away from Marlboro Country.

This prim, grim, grating grandee is a ruthless political operator who has forced a way to the top over the broken careers of friend and foe. We are talking about someone who is no respecter of laws or borders, someone whose latest triumph was to take power in another state far from home, someone who it is easy to dislike. Currently, this person does not smoke, but if it was in the interests of "The Children," she might be persuaded to take it up.

Sen. Clinton, may I offer you a light?

Pretty Useless

National Review Online, March 25, 2001

Julia Roberts wants you to know that, so far as she is concerned, George W. Bush is not the President of the United States. Prematurely showing the modesty and grasp of reality that we have come to expect from an Oscar winner, she has, according to the Drudge Report, been telling friends that George W. Bush is "not my president. He will never be my president." In her view, apparently, he is "embarrassing." Well, as the star of Mary Reilly, Hook, and Dying Young, Julia Roberts probably knows a thing or two about embarrassment, and it is clear that she wants to give the rest of us the benefit of her expertise. Julia Roberts, you see, is a celebrity, one of this country's new nobility, an individual who rose to prominence on the back of long legs, wide eyes, and a way with other people's words. She is the Heartland's darling, and now, it seems, she wants to be its philosopher too. And why not? Whether it is Rosie O'Donnell on guns, Alicia Silverstone on animals, or Susan Sarandon on everything, the actress-activist has become a Hollywood cliché, and like most Hollywood clichés, it's an idea that sells well. Not only that, in the absence of any real talent, a spot of activism — left-wing, of course — is a lovely way to build up the sort of "serious" reputation that is essential for an actress if her career is to endure beyond the miniskirt years. There can be no doubt that Julia Roberts feels she's up to the challenge. As the actress once explained, she is "tall and really very smart." She has "lots of ideas" and, most generously, is "willing to share them" with us peasants.

But where do these "ideas" of hers come from? Not from college — she never went. In a recent biography she is quoted as having explained that higher education was not for her. "I couldn't see bolting out of bed at 8 a.m. to be ten minutes late for some f***ing class with some f***ing guy who's just gonna stick it to me again."

Nor, disappointingly, is her old friend Susan Sarandon to blame. "I can be inspired by what [Sarandon] does and I can believe in what she does, and I can support what she does, [but] that's not going to make me do or not do something."

Oh, whatever, Julia, whatever.

No, it appears that her ideas come from reference books. And we are not talking Cliff Notes. When she turns to the tomes, Julia Roberts chooses the chunkiest. She's a dictionary diva, a Webster's woman, a Britannica babe. Speaking at a Gore/Lieberman fundraiser last September the glossy autodidact revealed, "Republican comes in the dictionary just after reptile and just above repugnant." Strictly speaking, that is not true (they are about as close to "Republican" as the words "demobilize" and "démodé" are to "Democrat"), but we get the point. The Pretty Woman's next discovery in the much-thumbed wordbook occurred, allegedly, when she looked up "Democrat." Apparently, the definition is "of the people, by the people, for the people."

After comments like that, our heroine was clearly going to find it difficult to accept that Gore ("Dung, feces, dirt of any kind, slime, mucus, blood in the thickened state that follows effusion" — O.E.D.) had lost the election. Nevertheless the reason that she gave for rejecting Bush was interesting. Remember that she was, she said, "embarrassed." But, when it comes to White House politics, by what exactly? As a supporter of the last administration we can only assume that she is not embarrassed by semen-spotted dresses, crack pipes on Christmas trees, the Rodham family, accusations of rape, dodgy commodities deals, perjury, Janet Reno, fundraising monks, fraudulent claims to inventing the Internet, pardoned billionaires, bombed-out aspirin factories, and expositions on the meaning of the word "is." Besides, George W. has not had the time to get himself into that sort of trouble even if he wanted to.

No, to be embarrassed so early on in the Bush administration must imply embarrassment not so much with what W. has done, but with what he is. It is the sneer of the snob, shuddering at the thought of that cowboy-booted boob who is now claiming to run her country, her domain. It is also, of course, a good career move, a carefully timed nod to Oscar's electorate, a reminder that she is one of them — socially, culturally, and politically. For years Hollywood has been a town where the conventional pieties are liberal. It does no harm for Julia Roberts to pay her respects to them, especially when they could be seen as adding supposedly intellectual heft to what is already a carefully crafted, oh-so-serious, humanitarian image.

It's an image that has needed some work over the years. Perhaps this was inevitable. There has always been a contradiction at the core of the very notion of "Julia Roberts," the ingénue who became America's sweetheart by playing a prostitute, and it is a contradiction that carries over into real life. She is this country's impossibly idealized girl next door — yet we revel in her own "embarrassing" romantic history. On the screen, meanwhile, she woos her audience with softness, vulnerability, and a great goofy laugh. On the set, however, she can be difficult, temperamental, and a nightmare for her crew.

Fortunately, Julia Roberts's charitable causes have presented her fans with a sunnier picture. There has been the help for worthwhile medical causes. More than that, she has been a campaigner for deserving unfortunates across the globe, missions that have, strangely, proved most effective when the objects of her attention were of a different species. Orangutans in Asia went over well, as did the wild horses of Mongolia. Even the endangered redwoods of California seemed grateful in a stolid sort of way.

Humans have proved trickier. A 1995 expedition to see slum children in Haiti ended in some rancor. There were suggestions that the trip was more about the star than the starving. A more recent crusade, in support of asylum for a Ms. Adelaide Abankwah, has also backfired. Supposedly the "queen mother" of a village in Ghana, Ms. Abankwah claimed that she faced the prospect of genital mutilation if she were returned home. With the help of Ms. Roberts and others, Adelaide was granted refuge in the U.S. Social-Register types will be dismayed, however, to hear that the INS now says that Ms. Abankwah is not of royal blood. In fact she is not of Abankwah blood either. She is, apparently, a Ghanaian hotel worker named Regina Norman Danson, whose only connection with Adelaide Abankwah is a stolen passport. She had never been in any danger of any genital mutilation.

Oh well.

With this track record, it is clear that Julia Roberts and Erin Brockovich were made for each other. The story may, as Michael Fumento has shown, be a pack of Abankwahs, but in Hollywood, the home of Oliver Stone, no one will worry too much about that. To film folk, Erin Brockovich was a profitable venture with just the sort of PC message that America wants to hear. Corporations are bad, trial lawyers are good. So, who cares about the truth? Besides, this was a movie that had another agenda far more important than mere accuracy. It was going to be the latest stage in the transformation of Julia Roberts into the sort of serious actress that she would so like to be. In a way it succeeds. For once, Ms. Roberts was given the opportunity to play a character that was rather more of a stretch than her usual role (which is, in essence, to play herself). As an added bonus, it was a role that somehow managed to bring yet more luster to the humanitarian image of Julia Roberts, star, stateswoman, and generally serious individual. It may only have been a paid performance, but in an age when our notions of reality are blurred, it did the trick. The actress emerged from Erin Brockovich $20 million richer and a few steps closer to sainthood.

And for that, at least, she really does deserve an Oscar.

Grating Kate

National Review Online, March 11, 2001

"Daddy, we saw a naked lady!" That was the first significant on-screen dialog ever spoken by the actress Mary Stuart Masterson (as little Kim Eberhardt in The Stepford Wives). Don't expect any such excitement from Ms. Masterson's new TV show, Kate Brasher (Saturdays, CBS). Billed as an "inspirational family drama," Kate Brasher does everything it can to deliver on the grim threat implicit in those three sinister words. Kate, we are told, is a "loving, hardworking mom who will do anything to give her kids every advantage." This, presumably, is why she decided to name her second son, Elvis. When we first meet her, she is a feisty waitress in a LA diner, making jokes about the eatery's pizza and tipping food into the lap of a lecherous customer. And this is not Ms. Brasher's only job. After hours, she works as a cleaner at a bowling alley. With her two boys, Daniel and the unfortunate Elvis, to support, Kate seems to exist in near Joad-like poverty (a sub-plot in the first episode revolves around Daniel secretly buying Elvis a pair of socks), although she does manage to decorate her apartment with a certain austere Pottery Barn chic and drive a vintage Volvo.

Failure on this scale takes some explaining in the prosperous America of the last ten years. This show does not try. To start with, it is simply mis-cast. To play a convincing hardscrabble mom, you have to have a convincing hardscrabble face. Rosie O'Donnell or Roseanne Barr come to mind. Played by the attractive Ms. Masterson, an actress with the refined looks of the fourth generation Wellesley alumna that she is, it is simply not credible that this bright, articulate woman is unable to have gotten herself a better job. Maybe Kate's ex-husband, Al, is to blame. He is long gone, of course, and so is any realistic hope of child support. In a brief phone call during the first episode, Al reveals himself as the formulaic male of contemporary drama, shifty, evasive, and exploitative.

Oh yes, this is going to be a family show all right, but one where there is no room for dad. And that little omission should, also, give Touched By An Angel fans and other traditionalists a clue as to the "inspirational" nature of the show. While it is true that Kate does turn to random sentences of the Bible for fortune cookie-style advice, she ultimately finds her salvation in the here and now. She becomes a social worker with a local community center, the nauseatingly named Brothers Keepers. It is a career move that should tell everyone everything they need to know about the series' ideological leanings.

This job change is triggered by dark dealings at the bowling alley. The boss, a man, turns out to be shifty, evasive, and exploitative, and he tries to cheat his all-female workforce out of their hard-earned wages. Kate turns to Brothers Keepers for help. When she shows up at the community center for the first time, its premises are bustling in that purposeful, important way that Hollywood uses to show organizations of which it approves. The staff are harried and under pressure as they nobly attempt to repair the shattered lives of their clients. Joe Almeida (Hector Elizondo), director of the center, does, however find time to shout at a couple of property developers, who are portrayed in the way that Hollywood uses to show people of which it disapproves (WASPy, smartly dressed). He also participates in a sting operation against another shifty, evasive, and exploitative male, on this occasion, yes, you guessed it, a deadbeat dad.

Eventually, Kate manages to attract the attention of Abbie Schaeffer, one of the center's in-house lawyers. In a move that could have saved this miserably uplifting show Abbie is played by Rhea Perlman, Carla from Cheers. At last, a heart of stone. But it is not to be. Despite a few flashes of the old venom, Abbie is no Carla. What's more, she manages to help the women of the bowling alley prevail over their evil employer. In the meantime, Kate solves the mystery of a deranged old lady, who (wisely, given the quality of the scriptwriters) has been hanging around the center refusing to speak to anyone. This success convinces Joe to offer our heroine a job at $500 per week as a trainee social worker. This is, apparently, a pay cut for the struggling waitress, but even though she needs every last dollar for her children, she decides to accept. Well, what else can we expect from a woman who, according to the promotional literature for the series, "remains steadfast in her belief that, no matter what, the universe will provide"?

With Kate installed as a social worker, the program can follow a comfortably predictable path. Brasher home life will be heart-warming, but ostentatiously impoverished (Week 2's crisis involved the affordability of dessert topping). Beyond Kate's immediate family, men will continue to be shifty, evasive, and exploitative. Just so that viewers did not forget the crimes of this ghastly gender, the second episode featured a divorcing husband attempting to swindle his soon to be ex-wife. She, of course, was about to be made homeless, while he was attempting to hide $95,000 in salary. The main exceptions to this rule of male nastiness are likely to be either men like Joe Almeida, who are left-wing and at least vaguely "ethnic" or, as an alternative, those guys fortunate enough to have some redeeming disability. We were allowed, after a while, to come to like the tetchy dad of hyperactive Simon, but only after we discovered that the lucky fellow was blind.

Hyperactive Simon? Oh, he was an artistically gifted ten-year-old, who ran around the center at great speed and painted murals. Simon was also the subject of a sub-plot about Ritalin-doping by our schools system. To be fair, that was a refreshing subject for this show to take on, but its impact was somewhat diluted by the humiliation of Elvis. Elvis is a smart kid, and finds his English teacher hopelessly inadequate. We are told that he should not complain. In a way that bears some resemblance to the treatment of Simon, Elvis is coerced into shutting up. He comes to accept that the teacher has more important work to do than worry about the needs of her more clever pupils. An embarrassing public apology ensues, and the show has reinforced its anti-elitist credentials.

Hyperactive Simon was more fortunate. Gloria, the rich lady performing community service at Brothers Keepers, was able to pull strings with the lieutenant governor and get him placed in a school for the gifted. However, this is not a show that likes the wealthy. Gloria is a caricature plutocrat straight out of the pages of Trotsky, a domineering, insensitive woman with no practical skills. Her one good deed is quickly canceled out by her sneering refusal to have anything to do with the center once her sentence has concluded. As she leaves, an angry Joe Almeida is quoting Malcolm X.

Well, we should not be surprised. Ms. Masterson is one of these actresses who like to see themselves as "activists." She has been quoted as saying that there is a political agenda to the series.

Indeed there is, but does it have to be quite so dull?

The Earth Is Round!

National Review Online, March 1, 2001

He was a liberal hero once, a brilliant policy wonk at the pinnacle of government. He was their martyr too, a victim of a vast right-wing conspiracy, the target of a vicious congressional witch hunt. In the end, he had to admit to perjury, but that was a petty matter, a trumped-up technicality designed only to save a vindictive prosecutor's face. Now, at long last, liberal opinion is changing. There is new evidence that their hero was flawed after all, that he may indeed have been the crook that the Right always said he was. One by one, former defenders are beginning to change sides and admit the truth: Alger Hiss was guilty. Yes, Alger Hiss. Did you think that I meant anyone else?

The latest condemnation of the treacherous Mr. Hiss came, rather surprisingly, in the usually predictably liberal TV show, The West Wing. Last night's episode featured a sub-plot in which Donna, one of West Wing's more irritating staffers (we have been waiting for her to start an affair with her boss, the sanctimonious Josh Lyman, for far too long) is approached by an old friend, Stephanie. Stephanie wants a presidential pardon for her grandfather. Her grandfather, a billionaire commodities trader, has been on the run from justice for the best part of two decades, and is accused of having traded with enemies of the United States. Actually, I made that up, no one would ever believe that that sort of person would ever be eligible for a pardon.

No, Stephanie's grandfather, Daniel, was something else. He had been a high government official in the 1940s accused of spying for the Soviets. The espionage was never proven, but Daniel Galt was convicted of perjury. He served six months, and died some years later, still proclaiming his innocence. He is, of course, the show's proxy for Alger Hiss. The reason that Stephanie wants the pardon is that her father (Daniel Galt's son) is now near his deathbed. A pardon would be a farewell gift to the dying man.

Donna puts Stephanie in touch with Sam Seaborn (played by Rob Lowe), the White House's deputy communications director, an always entertaining figure who is part George Stephanopoulos, part Melrose Place. Sam is having an emotional crisis, but agrees to help. Some work he had done while at Princeton supported the case for Galt's innocence.

To move the pardon forward, Sam calls the First Lady's brothers, followed by the president's half-brother and a number of Democratic fundraisers. No, I made that up too. This West Wing has some sense of propriety. Sam goes through more normal channels. He shows up at the FBI to give them a heads up about a possible pardon. The meeting goes badly, the FBI man is not enthusiastic, and it concludes with a rant from Sam making the case for Galt. Anyone who has followed the Alger Hiss saga in the pages of the New York Times will be familiar with the arguments (never proven, unreliable witnesses, post-Soviet exoneration, anti-Communist hysteria, madman prosecutor and so on).

So far, so predictable, but then there is a surprise. Sam is summoned in by the national-security adviser. She hands him what is, in effect, the fictional equivalent of the Venona intercepts. As everyone should know, (but too many still do not) these intercepted (and now declassified) Soviet signals prove conclusively that Hiss was, indeed, in Stalin's pay. Their fictional equivalents do the same for Daniel Galt. The liberal martyr, Sam discovers, was guilty after all. Galt was a Communist spy. Sam decides to proceed no further with the pardon. Unfortunately, after a tense discussion with Donna, it is decided not to explain the truth to the traitor's dying son. They blame the lack of a pardon on bureaucratic delays. Daniel Galt will be allowed to get away with one last deception.

But this is to quibble. In showbiz terms, the unmasking of the treacherous Galt/Hiss was real progress. A prime-time liberal TV show was essentially admitting that Whittaker Chambers was right. Hiss was a spy, a liar, and a friend of the Gulag. This guest of honor at so many liberal soirees was revealed as nothing more than an accomplice of mass murder, a glorified Jeffrey Dahmer with a tweed jacket, clean hands, and a dirty ideology. Of course, this truth was obvious years ago, but even if the moment was long overdue, it was good to hear it in a ratings-topping Hollywood show.

And this trend is set to continue. Next week, apparently, Sam Seaborn will discover that the Earth is not flat.

Covered Girls

National Review Online, February 26 2001

Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue is a ritual of the American mid-winter, more predictable than Punxsutawney Phil, more tacky than the Grammys. It is a sell-out on the newsstands, it is an MTV special, it is a swaggering, high-fiving conversation round the office water cooler. The whole spectacle is also a national embarrassment, a shaming carnival that degrades its participants and humiliates the rest of their gender. I refer, of course, to men. Guys, can we all calm down? The swimsuit issue is terminally tame, grotesquely genteel, incorrigibly coy. Amy, Heidi, Molly, and the rest of them are just Gibson Girls with fewer clothes, wholesomely sexy, obscenely unobtainable. Noting the proliferation of far more overtly sexual imagery all over today's America, NRO's Dave Shiflett commented that the publication of the swimsuit issue should generate about as much excitement "as the arrival of a can of Miller Lite at the Jack Daniels Distillery."

It is a logical conclusion, and yet it is not the case. Miller time, it seems, is still a big deal. The swimsuit issue sells 4.5 million copies. This makes it the largest-selling edition of any magazine in the country.

So is this, as it seems, yet another example of the transformation of the American man into the sort of feeble creature traditionally seen when Alan Alda is on television? Has the old wolf been house-trained, changed into a lapdog able only to respond to the call of the mild? Perhaps. The fact that this year's issue features an ad warning that "one in five victims of osteoporosis is male" is not encouraging. Say what you want, but that is an old-lady disease, at least until the time that I am in a plaster cast.

Fortunately, there is another explanation for the success of the swimsuit issue, one that may allow the male sex to salvage at least some self-respect. Could it be that in the Flynt era the peekaboo unavailability of the SI model carries its own, genuine, erotic punch? If you live in the distillery, maybe Miller Lite is an exciting and refreshing sensation after all.

Certainly it seems that SI's publishers understand this. Yes, it is true that of the roughly 75 swimsuit photographs, about a fifth are topless (it was a tough job researching this article), but the nation's nipple mavens will be disappointed. Decency is defended by a series of strategically placed arms, couches, towels, beads, seaweed, and NFL players. Clinging wet shirts prove a little less effective despite a number of brave attempts.

On the whole, however, what SI is marketing, and, clearly, very successfully, is an image of "don't touch" perfection, something that would be damaged by the removal of that last, tantalizing scrap of gauze. These are not the girls next door of the centerfold mags. Even the photo locations are far away, Tunisia, Italy, Macedonia, Siegfried and Roy's house. For anyone who actually reads it, the text of the magazine reinforces this message of distance between the model and the, er, watcher.

In one article, "The Babe Goddesses," the writer compares these women to the deities of antiquity (there is a vaguely Mediterranean theme throughout the issue). He is no Homer, but the warning is clear, "Every red-blooded Greek and Roman stud...knew that goddesses, however desirable, were off-limits."

So we are left with two interpretations. The men of America either no longer know what good pornography is, or they have rediscovered the appeal of elusiveness. Either way, the women of America should be thrilled. They are not.

Reacting to the swimsuit issue with their customary good humor, feminists call each year for boycotts and protests. When it comes to ocean-shore beauty, they are on a mission — to bring an end to it. To the folks at Americans for Fair Sports Journalism "the message of the swimsuit issue is that no matter what women may accomplish in their lives, they ultimately exist to sexually entertain men." Ah yes, that message. To Laurel Davis, authoress of The Swimsuit Issue and Sport; Hegemonic Masculinity in Sports Illustrated, the magazine is able to attract buyers "by creating a climate of hegemonic masculinity." This is not, we are led to believe, a good thing.

Mind you, Ms. Davis, an associate professor at Springfield College, Massachusetts, who cites her professional interests as "sports, media, race, gender, class, and sexual orientation," understands that blanket condemnation is not always the correct response. There was, for example, the Tyra Banks crisis. Ms. Banks, who is African-American, graced the cover of the issue a few years back. Was this a good thing or bad? Should SI be an equal-opportunity exploiter? Speaking to the Boston Globe at the time, the associate professor seemed to sit on the fence, "It was both somewhat positive and somewhat critiquable."

The problem with this sort of talk, however, is that is not confined to academia. The idiocy of ivory-tower feminism has long since escaped into the suburbs, where its poisonous sense of entitlement, sexual paranoia, and deep, deep puritanism has found a natural, and receptive, audience. The viewers of TV's Lifetime now believe that they know that "objectification" is another male crime to be condemned alongside the rapes, infidelity, murders, and child abuse that are the staple of their channel's entertainment.

In such an environment, it can be no surprise that the soccer matriarchy now takes a very dim view of the SI girls. To see this, you only had to look at the disgusted expression on the face of a very different goddess, Katie Couric, during a recent edition of NBC's Today Show. What was wrong? Had someone lit a cigarette? Was Bob Dole in the room? No, it was something even worse. Prim Katie was having to introduce a segment on the swimsuit issue. A cringing Matt Lauer looked apologetic: he felt the Couric pain. So who was left to defend the spot, and, with a benign chuckle, hint that, why yes, he was looking forward to seeing the models? Step forward Al Roker, weatherman and sage, a suitably safe figure to handle this toxic topic.

What a sad state of affairs. Checking out a pretty girl, across a room, or on a page, is one of the oldest, and more harmless, of masculine pleasures. Let's face it, men do have an interest in the visual (although the idea that women do not is, I suspect, a myth passed around to reassure the beer belly and Rogaine set). The usual argument that such an interest is evidence of emotional retardation or a desire to turn women into objects is, to borrow the language of the sociology faculty, nothing more than an intolerant assault on the nature of male sexuality. The attack on SI's lissome lovelies is part of this process. It is yet another reminder that live and let live is not an acceptable option to the feminist militants who are setting far too much of this country's agenda.

And that looks a lot like hegemony to me.

Scientology Chic

National Review Online, February 24, 2001

So, was the kooky cult to blame? We will likely never know what went wrong between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, but a recent article in the New York Post suggests that Tom Cruise's Scientology was a big part of the problem. Apparently, Ms. Kidman is disenchanted with the controversial religion, and does not want her children to be reared in it. All this has subsequently been denied, but if it is true, who would blame her? Even if one ignores the number of fairly sinister stories told about Scientology, some of its precepts reflect the sort of ideas that put it squarely in the lunatic fringe. Founded half a century ago by pulp writer L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology's roots lie in a mixture of junkyard sci-fi and bargain-basement psychoanalysis. Not too bargain basement, mind you. Unlike most faiths, Scientology charges admission. To progress ever closer to enlightenment, devotees pay to go through a series of sessions that are part confessional, part therapy. These encounters are designed to reveal (and remove) past traumas called "engrams" (don't ask) and are helped along by the use of an electro-psychometer ("E-Meter" to the cognoscenti), a specially designed instrument which can supposedly locate areas of spiritual distress or travail. This is part of a process known as "auditing," the real reason, perhaps, that the IRS chose in 1993 to recognize Scientology as a religion.

It is difficult not to laugh. Scientology, after all, is an easy target — with its oddball technology, goofy jargon, and, reportedly, a secret creation myth that revolves around the activities of the wicked intergalactic ruler, Xenu. Now, many religions include a bizarre legend or two, and we probably should not worry too much about the Xenu saga. After all, it has, apparently, been 75 million years since the old boy was last seen, and he does not seem to figure prominently in the lives of most Scientologists. Nevertheless, if there really is such a tale, it is yet another reminder that the intellectual origins of this creed appear to be, well, a little flaky.

Scientologists, of course, should be free to believe whatever they want, but it does not say a lot for the state of this nation's critical faculties that their philosophy has won as much acceptance as it has. Given some of Hubbard's teachings, you would expect his followers to be a little embarrassed, a little low key, content, perhaps, to twiddle their E-meters in some tumble-down Appalachian shack.

But the reverse is true. Scientology is rich, increasingly prominent, and unashamedly proselytizing. Check out its websites and you will see all the good things that Scientologyclaims it can do both for society, and for you. It is a message of enlightened self-interest, typical of our age, and it uses the jazzy marketing techniques of the PowerPoint era, statistics, graphs, and charts. Scientologists, they reveal, are prone to marriage, but not to auto accidents. Half do not drink, more than two-thirds read more than five books a year, and 39 percent work out every day. Scientology can even boast celebrity support. Travolta! Cruise! Kirstie Alley! The voice of Bart Simpson!

In part, this success reflects the group's indubitable organizational skills, and its willingness to defend itself through aggressive litigation. It is also the case, however, that the growth of Scientology, and many other such philosophies, is an almost inevitable byproduct of a society that, over the years, has lost the art of religious argument, reasoning, and debate — and the ability or the inclination to resist the blandishments of our zanier sects.

Ask most Americans, and they will tell you about their respect for the spiritual, but it is a sloppy and uninformed devotion, a pastiche piety with no intellectual force behind it, more Hallmark than holy, the perfect background for a new cult recruit. Ironically, Nicole Kidman herself provided an example of this mindset in a 1998 interview with Newsweek. Asked about her religious beliefs, the actress replied, "there is a little Buddhism, a little Scientology. I was raised Catholic, and a big part of me is still a Catholic girl."

Hand in hand with such an attitude is an unwillingness to debate the religious beliefs of others. Such debate is now believed to be insensitive at best, bigoted and hateful at worst. These days everyone is meant to be a little bit Buddhist, Catholic, Scientologist, whatever. A sappy ecumenicism is now America's civic religion, and it appears to include just about everyone (other, interestingly, than atheists and agnostics). We are taught that such supposedly inclusive tolerance is the hallmark of a tolerant society, when, in fact, it is precisely the opposite. True religious tolerance is the acceptance of the right of others to follow a different creed. In our ersatz, contemporary version, however, it is denied that there are any different creeds. Instead, we are encouraged to think that all religions are basically the same, just different routes to the same transcendental Truth.

In the name of "diversity," we try to erase difference. When it comes to religious belief, this is a country chary of controversy and anxious about argument. In the interest of fraudulent civility and soi-disant "respect" we have removed the right of the religious to disagree with each other. On the face of it, traditional religious distinctions remain, but all too often they have been trivialized and shrunk down to the superficial, reduced to a matter of folklore or ethnic heritage, nothing more consequential, say, than a choice of headgear: Yarmulke, or turban?

This is a mistake. Old-style rigorous religious debate was bruising, tough, and frequently impolite, but it served a function. Homo Sapiens is a credulous creature, ready to believe just about anything, but, fortunately, he has an innate love of argument. Controversy sharpened our great faiths and pushed them, however painfully, towards some form of intellectual coherence. More than that, it acted as a filter for the worst of the nonsense that people would otherwise be tempted to accept. Now that filter has disappeared. The more established religions are gutted, sunk into PC blandness, or, ironically, introspective fundamentalism. In their intellectual retreat they have left behind a spiritual landscape in which anything goes.

The Scientologists are not the only ones to have seized this opportunity. We are becoming a nation of nitwit necromancers, idiot Astrologers, and suburban shamans. Others prefer to fool around with crystals, commune with UFOs, or worship the Earth.

And that is their right, but we should not be afraid to say that it is also their mistake. Somehow I suspect that, these days, Nicole Kidman might just agree.