Short Takes: News From All Over: October 21, 2004

Article Tools

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Rhetoric & Reform
By Rep. Peter Hoekstra, National Review
In a perennially, polemically heated post-9/11 world, it's no surprise-and undeniably understandable -- that academics have rebuked government censorship of any kind, and cried out against an increasingly tense environment for international students. Representative Peter Hoekstra (R., Michigan), author of the International Studies in Higher Education Act (authorized under Title VI of the Higher Education Act), begs to differ with the assumption that these student are actually worse off, however. He points out that colleges and universities were awarded over $90 million for international programs in 2004 -- an actual increase since the tragedies on September 11. In fact, unlike his Republican colleagues in the White House, Hoekstra believes support for these programs is essential, since isolationism is bad for national security. The congressman also claims that an advisory panel is necessary in order to see that this congressional largesse is well spent. -- Elizabeth Dwoskin
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/hoekstra200410180850.asp

The Rules of Attraction
By Hilary Frey, The Nation
At first, Hilary Frey of The Nation loved the idea of single hood so much that she resolved to never marry. Over the years, however, she experienced what she describes as an unnamed 'pressure,' to tie the knot; a pressure that, according to a 2003 study from the National Marriage Project (NMP), is now regularly applied to liberal, upwardly mobile single women who are encouraged to believe that if they focus 'too much' on their careers they will miss that golden window of opportunity in which to find good men. As a result, most of the female members of Frey's generation -- which are history's most educated and career-oriented -- are actually 'itching to get hitched.' Can we blame it on popular culture (Friends, The Bachlorette, Sex and the City), with its single characters' obsessive searching for 'the one'? Or is it the fault of the wedding industry? Whatever the cause, statistics also show that the realities of marriage are stranger (and tougher) than fiction, which leads Frey to conclude that the most time-honored institution is actually too risky to support at all. -- Elizabeth Dwoskin
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040705&s=frey

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print