Editor's Notes
– JOURNALISM FUND. The Reason Foundation's Investigative Journalism Fund is at it again. The latest project to receive the support of the Fund is this month's cover story on FDA suppression of life-saving cyanoacrylate tissue adhesives. Meantime, a $2,500 grant was received in February to continue the Fund's work, adding to a number of individual contributions from Foundation members during the winter months. Three other Journalism Fund projects are currently under way.
– REASON IMPROVEMENTS. This issue marks some steps in our ongoing program of improvements to the magazine: Color covers and an increase in type size in feature articles from 9 to 10 points for easier readability. We have also switched printers (as of the March issue) so as to obtain a better quality of paper, better inking, and crisper photograph reproduction. We're proud of REASON's progress and hope you like the changes.
– FOUNDATION ACTIVITIES. The Reason Foundation's conference on Government Regulation, Economic Liberty, and Justice, held in Santa Barbara last fall, was a "smashing success," according to codirector Tibor Machan. The proceedings of the conference will be published by the University of Illinois Press, with the book due out next year. A second conference, Virtue and Liberty, will take place April 25-27, also in Santa Barbara. Like the first, it is a Liberty Fund program carried out by the Reason Foundation. Participants will include philosophers Paul Kurtz, Shirley Robin Letwin, George Mavrodes, and David Norton, and the conference will be chaired by Foundation trustee Manuel S. Klausner.
– DIESEL SOLUTION? Consumer affairs writer Peter Weaver made an interesting observation in his Los Angeles Times column recently. Reminding readers that number 2 heating oil and number 2 diesel fuel are one and the same, he pointed out that many people are now installing home heating oil tanks even though they don't have oil furnaces. But they do have diesel cars. Besides the convenience and security of tanking up the car at home from an assured supply, they can avoid paying the "pesky road tax" on diesel fuel by purchasing it as heating oil. In a few states the tax authorities are trying to nip this black market in the bud'"Maryland authorities are going so far as to collect the names and addresses of every new diesel-car purchaser for computer matching with heating oil tank purchasers. Shades of 1984!
– ATTENTION TEACHERS. A junior college teacher from Florida just wrote in to tell us of his success in persuading the school's librarian to order REASON for the library. He suggests that those of you who are teachers do likewise. A teacher's request carries a lot more weight than one from a student. Can you imagine the impact if REASON were carried in every high school and college library in the country?
– OPPOSING BUREAUCRACY. From the Southern Libertarian Messenger comes the story of farmers attempting to save their land from condemnation that would make way for a federal dam project. Their idea: to divide a one-acre plot into 4,840 separate one-square-yard parcels and sell them to that many buyers. Now the feds are faced with tracking down all 4,840 owners to condemn their land. This idea would seem to have applicability to all sorts of land confiscation situations.
– INFLUENCE. Robert Poole's editorial from the August 1979 issue, "Insuring Aviation Safety," has been included in the official records of the House of Representatives' DC-10 crash investigation. It appears on pp. 554-55 of "Aviation Safety: DC-10 Crash of May 25, 1979," the joint hearings before the subcommittees on aviation and on oversight and review, of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee.
– MORE REPRINTS. The Social Issues Resources Series, which produces resource materials for use in schools and libraries, is once again reprinting material from REASON. Its forthcoming Crime reader will include Robert Ringer's "Victims of Benevolent Aggression" from our September 1979 issue. Its Communications reader will include "Information Liberation" by Michael E. Anzis from our August 1979 issue. And its School volume will include Theresa Hale deSoubiese's "Surviving the Blackboard Jungle" from our May 1979 issue. Also, the Environment Times, published by the National Association of Geology Teachers, is reprinting James R. Dunn's "Back to the Land: Environmental Suicide," from our March 1978 issue.