Joe Camel today, the Pillsbury Doughboy tomorrow. Who didn’t know that they wouldn’t stop with tobacco? And who didn’t know that Yale would be in the vanguard of the next wave of shaking-down politically incorrect companies with deep pockets? Researchers at Yale are now advocating that junk foods be slapped with a “fat tax.” Our...
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January 1, 1998April 21, 2022Vital Signs
The Whiskey Boys and Their Fight
My grandfather spent most of his days underground, as a cutter in his cousin’s coal mine in Imperial, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh. At night, he would arrive home looking like he had been through an explosion. Outside the kitchen door, my grandmother kept a large metal tub full of water to soak the coal dust off...
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April 1, 1997April 21, 2022Vital Signs
The Renaissance Weekend
“He was just kidding,” our waitress said about her coworker, the sometimes banquet waiter Marcus Burrizon, age 21, who was just hauled away in shackles and leg irons by Secret Service agents. It was “Renaissance Weekend” in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and President Clinton and about 1,600 top achievers were getting together for beach fun-runs...
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March 1, 1997April 21, 2022Vital Signs
Trickle-Down Ethics
“It’s everywhere,” says Mike, a young cop in Pittsburgh’s Zone Four, an urban area that runs from Brookline to Broadhead Manor, referring to the widespread use of illegal drugs, especially among kids. “My girlfriend even uses it. Almost every kid I stop, when I check their cigarettes, there’s marijuana in the pack,” he explains. “We...
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June 1, 1994April 21, 2022Correspondence
The War on Medicine City
The bad news for Pennsylvania’s economy is that the Clinton health care plan takes direct aim at the state’s two biggest employers—the health care sector and the restaurant industry. Pittsburgh’s single largest private employer is the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, a world leader in cancer research and transplant surgery with a staff of 12,000....
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March 1, 1994April 21, 2022Cultural Revolutions
The Kennedy-Schumer Bin
The Kennedy-Schumer bin was a victory for “law and order,” proclaimed Senator Edward Kennedy after the Senate vote to crack down on protesters at abortion clinics. The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Bill authorizes lengthy jail time and fines for entirely nonviolent conduct that “intentionally and physically obstructs the ingress or egress of another...
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October 1, 1993April 21, 2022Vital Signs
The Trickle-Free Economics of Robert Reich
Robert Reich explains in “Clintonomics 101” in the view Republic that “every factor of production other than people and infrastructure is moving with ever greater ease across national boundaries.” True, our airports and sewers don’t usually pick up and leave the country, and not many Americans are heading for Ethiopia or Chile to strike it...