World of Opinion
On new guidelines for videotaping children: Most parents will agree that a video-recording of their children’s performance in the school Nativity play is a lovely thing to possess. … But this is a pleasure that Edinburgh City Council is seeking to deny to the parents of children at the 156 schools under its control. Headteachers have been advised that they must obtain written permission from the parents of every child performing in a Nativity play before any photographs or videos may be taken. In many cases, these new guidelines will have the effect of an outright ban.
One has to rub one’s eyes to believe the council’s explanation of this extraordinary policy. It has been introduced because photographs and videos of school plays are said to have been found in the possession of pedophiles. Any sensible person would surely ask: “Even if that is true, so what?”
It is not as if these Nativity plays are performed in the nude. If a pedophile is likely to derive sexual pleasure from the sight of a child playing a shepherd or one of the Three Kings, then he is equally likely to be excited by the Harry Potter films or by Blue Peter on the television. Are these to be banned in Edinburgh, too? …
All this would be funny if it were not so sad. Parents in the Scottish capital are being deprived of something to treasure because of an outbreak of insanity at the City Hall. The councilors of Edinburgh should seek psychiatric help.
On the threat of war with Iraq:
In the world as President Bush sees it, there are many reasons to go to war. There’s retaliatory war, the sort waged in response to affront. There’s the war of self-defense, the kind mounted against an oncoming attack. There’s the war of just intervention, the brand intended to restore the rights of a wronged people. Then there’s the new war against terrorism, a tricky quest to hunt down an elusive gang of murderers skulking in the world’s dark corners.
And last week the White House articulated yet another kind of attack: the “preventive war,” meant to disarm a potential foe before the first gun is pointed, let alone fired. At first hearing, this “doctrine of pre-emption” sounds sensible enough. Why should rogue states be allowed to gather up vast piles of arms? Why, especially, should they be allowed to play about with nukes, germs and other weapons of mass destruction (“WMDs” in wonk parlance)? Surely even the suspicion that such iniquity may be underway is reason to launch a strike against an unfriendly state. After all, the fate of the entire planet could be at stake. …
There’s no question that much must be done to rid the world of its arsenals, the very existence of which turn farmers into gangsters and politicians into sophists. But threatening to use nuclear weapons to advance the ends of nonproliferation is outrageous and hypocritical. It won’t work. …
On the Sept. 11 commission’s rocky start:
The Sept. 11 commission, established by Congress to investigate the attack on America, got off to an unexpectedly rocky start. In naming Thomas H. Kean to head the commission, President Bush tries to put that all behind him. Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is a better choice than Henry Kissinger, who resigned last week. Kean lacks the business and foreign ties that made Kissinger a questionable leader.
Kean, a Republican in Democratic New Jersey, was a successful two-term governor because he knew how to remove partisanship from the job, a task crucial for the Sept. 11 inquiry. The commission’s purpose is singular: to conduct the most thorough possible investigation into the worst attack on America since Pearl Harbor.
The commission must be free to follow leads wherever they go, which means being as free as possible from conflicts of interest. …
Neither Kissinger nor (former Sen. George) Mitchell was right for the job, and they deserve praise for recognizing it. Kissinger ran into conflict-of-interest problems for refusing to disclose his financial ties to clients and nations that the commission might be investigating. …
The commission will be as important for the nation as were the Pearl Harbor and Kennedy assassination commissions. Along with Dec. 7 and Nov. 22, Sept. 11 is a date no American can ever forget. We must know all there is to know about it.
On cheating and children:
If children are the reflection of the adults around them, it would seem that grown-ups are greatly in need of some ethical grooming, if not a full-body morality makeover.
High-school students are cheating, stealing and lying more than ever. And it’s not a phase, but a trend that’s been rising for a decade.
According to a recent survey of 12,000 students by the Joseph Institute of Ethics, students who cheated on an exam at least once in the past year jumped from 61 percent in 1992 to 74 percent in 2002.
And that’s not all. Those stealing from a store went from 31 percent to 38 percent; and lying to parents – from 83 percent to a startling 93 percent. Just since 2000, teenage cheating rose from 71 percent to 74 percent, while those who would lie to land a good job spurted from 28 percent to 39 percent.
We need only to look at this year’s headlines to see why the trend to cheat and steal is increasing.
The news of Enron and other huge American corporations that bilked their investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars was on kids radar screens if only for the amount of newspaper and television coverage it received. …
Popular film star Winona Ryder, no stranger to young theatergoers, was punished in a court of law for trying to rip off an exclusive clothing store by attempting to walk out with more than $5,000 in merchandise. She initially claimed a movie director had ordered her to do it in preparation for a role. …
So, besieged by corporate corruption, energy scandals, consumer fraud and celebrity behavior, we need not wonder what’s the matter with kids today. Whatever it is, they’re coming by it very naturally.
On Al Gore’s decision:
Who will be the candidate to oppose the popular President (George Bush) on the Democratic side in the next election nobody knows, of course. But what many think they know is that the Democrats, after (former U.S. Vice President Al) Gore’s decision not to run, will have a much easier ride.
Now there is no longer the risk that the election campaign will focus on history, on old mistakes and old fights, on vote counting in Florida and even on Bill Clinton.
Now, that way, the party can solely look forward.