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The Communitarian Update
Number 28
June 19, 2000
Debate on the Third Way
A debate on the third way will take place on July 7th at the London School of Economics
in the Peacock Theatre. The debate will be among Anthony Giddens, Amitai Etzioni,
and Wolfgang Streeck. It is the opening session of the Society for the Advancement
of Socio-Economics, founded by Amitai Etzioni.
Baby Consumerism?
"In Quest for Prettiest Baby, Parents Snap Up Pricey Kids' Cosmetics" according
to the Wall Street Journal. The article reports a new trend: parents spending $18
for a bottle of shampoo or $27 for a bottle of French cologne - for children as
young as six-months-old.
Almost Alive?
A study by Professor Sherry Turkle and Jennifer Audley of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology asked children 5 to 10-years-old if they believed their
Furby dolls were alive. Several children replied, "It's not alive in a human or
animal kind of way, but in a Furby kind of way."
Dangerous Drop-Outs
During the teen White House conference it was announced that dropping out of
school correlates with violence more strongly than smoking with lung cancer.
Keeping Porn from Kids
The Center for Community Interest (CCI) has released the latest in its series
of "backgrounders" on legal issues faced by public libraries that seek to use
filtering software to block access to X-rated, but have been cowed by the ACLU
argument that this is unconstitutional. Contact then at www.communityinterest.org.
Teenage Sex
According to Dr. Robert W. Blum of the University of Minnesota 17% of a national
sample of seventh and eighth graders had had intercourse. Other smaller studies
put the percentage even higher.
Television Literacy
Maryland schools have a media literacy program that teaches how to assess what
one sees on TV including during commercials.
Disappearing Independents
With online booksellers like Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble on the rise, nearly half
of the independent booksellers have disappeared since 1994.
Casual Contributions
As they switch to casual dress every day, attorneys at law firms such as Cadwalader,
Wickersham & Taft in New York and Atlanta's Powell Goldstein, Frazer & Murphy are
donating their business suits to groups that provide clothing for the needy.
See no evil?
Workers are seeing - but not necessarily reporting - widespread illegal and unethical
conduct in the workplace, despite many corporate-ethics programs, according to a
survey of more than 2,300 employees by KPMG LLP. More than 75% of those surveyed
said they had observed violations of the law or company standards in the previous
12 months. Many workers indicated a willingness to report misdeeds, but 61% thought
management wouldn't administer impartial discipline.
You are invited!
For the first time since 1991, The Communitarian Platform is being reopened for
endorsement. To read and endorse the platform, go to our web site: http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps.
See our new endorsers!
E-mail from beyond the grave?
A new web site called FinalThoughts.com offers users a place to store e-mail messages
online that will share your final wishes and personal feelings with your loved ones,
after you have passed away.
To hide better
The NYC Surveillance Camera Project, a site started by the New York Civil Liberties
Union, list surveillance cameras in Manhattan. The site lets you browse text lists
organized by neighborhood, or zoom in on a huge map on which individual cameras are
represented by red dots.
Keeping the Family Tree Secret
Banks and credit card companies have used mothers maiden name as a secret password.
Congress has begun looking into preventing genealogy Web sites from listing that
these names, so that criminals cannot look up family trees to access accounts.
The danger may not be as imminent as legislators think. Genealogy.com's CEO Robert
Armstrong says, "Most of the industry is focused on data prior to 1900."
Putnam's Bird?
Robert Putnam, talking about his new book at a Brookings Institution luncheon reported
that he found a very high correlation between showing the finger to other drivers
and--evading taxes. E.J. Dionne Jr., who chaired the lunch, suggested that the rule
be known from now on as Putnam's finger.
Hotel American Style
In Winchester, VA a motel advertizes as "owned by Americans, run by Americans"
Subscribe to the Responsive Community
Visit The Responsive Community on our web: http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/rcq. If you
would like to receive a FREE sample back issue of The Responsive Community for
yourself or your organization, please let us know at comnet@gwu.edu, or call
(800) 245-7460. Same--to subscribe.
Seminar on Communitarian Theory and Policy at LSE
You are invited to nominate participants for an invitation-only seminar on Communitarian
Theory and Policies to be conducted by Amitai Etzioni at the London School of Economics.
These special sessions take place on July 7, preceding the SASE meeting that opens that
evening.
No fees are involved. Please send nominations with their email addresses to Joanna
Cohn at comnet@gwu.edu. Please put the word "seminar" in the subject line. For details,
visit http://www.sase.org/homepage.html.
New Publications
"Law in Civil Society, Good Society, and the Prescriptive State," Chicago Kent
Law Review, Vol. 75, No. 2 by Amitai Etzioni. Argues that to gain a more complete
understanding of the deterioration of civil society and of society's moral fiber,
we had best treat them as distinct notions rather than try to pack both into the
notion of a civil society. Available at http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~comnet/A272.html.
A Sense of Calling: Who Teaches and Why by Steve Farkas, Jean Johnson and Tony Foleno A
Report from Public Agenda. Available at http://www.publicagenda.org/.
"Sexual liberation's last frontier," Society, May/Jun 2000 by Julia A Ericksen. Few scholars
have begun to question the supposed long-term effects of child-adult sexual activity on the
children involved. It is appropriate to undertake such research if only to wrest the terms
of the debate from conservatives who have used pedophilia as a way to silence all attempts
at sexual tolerance.
Creating Learning Communities by A Coalition for Self Learning proposes a new way of
thinking about and conducting education, from kindergarten through university. The book
suggests that social needs, brain research, and new techniques and technologies make the
reinvention of the learning system both necessary and possible.
Performance Management in the 21st Century: Solutions for Business, Education and Family
by Norm Jones, Ed.D. (St. Lucie Press). Focuses on how we have neglected the research
in human development and how this neglect is hurting our major institutions, namely
businesses, schools and families.
A Symposium on Legal and Constitutional Implications of the Calls to Revive Civil Society
has been published in Volume 75 of Chicago-Kent Law Review. The symposium includes articles
by the symposium editors, Linda C. McClain and James E. Fleming, as well as articles by
Amitai Etzioni, Mark Tushnet, Stephen Macedo, Michael W. McConnell, Abner S. Greene, Nancy
L. Rosenblum, Martha Albertson Fineman, and Dorothy E. Roberts. It also includes responses
by Jean Bethke Elshtain, who is Chair of the Council on Civil Society, and William A. Galston,
who is Executive Director of the National Commission on Civic Renewal. Persons who wish to
purchase the symposium can do so by contacting Chicago-Kent Law Review at (312) 906-5190,
565 West Adams Street, Chicago, IL 60661-3691.
The Communitarian Update is compiled by Jennifer Ambrosino. Send RELEVANT news items to
comnet@gwu.edu. Please consider forwarding the Update to others who may be interested.
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