What follows is a miscellany, gathered from a wide variety of newspapers, magazines, and other publications. The excerpts are not organized by category or theme because their very randomness helps to bring out the diversity and complexity of the field. Most of them, however, relate to topics in the pages that follow. It may be preferable to sample this selection rather than read it through, and return to it from time to time as a way of testing the themes and arguments of the book itself.

 

Undoubtedly, many theories will be advanced to account for the events of recent months. Some followers of conservative social philosopher Allan Bloom may blame it on social decay. A few economists may believe it has something to do with the opening of the London commodities market—the Big Bang—making it possible to speculate 24 hours a day. And some scientists may attribute these eerie happenings to leaks in the ozone layer, permitting dangerous rays to enter the atmosphere unfiltered.

The latter theory comes close, but the truth seems to lie beyond—in a previously undiscovered and invisible protective ring around the planet called the Bozone Layer.

When the bozone is frayed, random rays cause disturbances on earth. What's especially alarming is that there is no known way to protect oneself against the deterioration of the bozone. Sunglasses and wide hats, as prescribed by Interior Secretary Donald Hodel have, for example, so far proved ineffective.

Consider: An unusual bozone leakage seems to have occurred over Fort Mill, S.C., where Jim and Tammy Bakker....

—Sidney Blumenthal, "Lost in the Bozone."
Washington Post,
August 21, 1987.

 

By the 1880s opinion leaders, particularly in the North, had changed their tune. No longer should America be different from the world; its mission was to beat it. These advocates of research-oriented scientific medicine won a sympathetic hearing among civic worthies and philanthropists, eager to fund the future.

No ear proved more receptive than that of John D. Rockefeller. Wishing to invest millions to put American medicine on the map, Rockefeller wholeheartedly accepted the view of his advisers, the Flexner brothers, that science held the key....

—Roy Porter, "Making an American Medicine," review of Elizabeth Fee, Disease and Discovery in Times Literary Supplement (London),
August 7, 1987.

 

Sumner B. Irish, retired engineer of Charlottesville, tutors fifth-grade students in arithmetic. He also serves as a volunteer with Meals on Wheels. "I have to admit I don't understand elementary education now," Irish said. "The experiences I had as a youngster in school are so different from what they have now." Growing up in the South Bronx with children who were mostly Jewish immigrant children, were "from families that placed a high value on education."

Irish believes volunteers are essential in the 21st century as the population ages and fewer people will be working to pay taxes to support government services.... "The human service agencies will use volunteers more. It's the only way we will be economically viable."