30 Years Ago in Reason

April 1978

From the April 2008 issue

“Persons who rely on the Supreme Court test that something is obscene only if it has no redeeming value are ‘depraved, mentally-deficient, mindwarped queers’ the Utah Supreme Court said in upholding a Salt Lake City obscenity ordinance.”
—Bill Birmingham, “Great Moments in Political Philosophy, No. 7”

“At the depths of the Great Depression, U.S. Geological Survey data proved conclusively that if the United States continued to consume petroleum at even the rather austere 1933 rate, the country would run out of proved reserves in 15 years. In 1944, the United States had only a 14-year supply of proved oil reserves at the 1940–44 rate of use.”
—Alan Reynolds, “Energy Conservation: How Much Is Too Much?”

“Leave television to the unregulated marketplace and what do you get? At least in Italy, sex and nudity. In Church-dominated Italy, there appears to be a huge untapped market for sexy shows.”
—“Laissez-Faire TV”