Notes

I'm pleased to announce the promotion of Marty Zupan to editor-in-chief. My own responsibilities as president of the Reason Foundation have left me less and less time to devote specifically to REASON's editorial side. With Marty's full-time attention, REASON should do an even better job of keeping on top of current issues and emerging developments. One of her first actions as editor-in-chief was to reorganize the editorial department, putting Eric Marti in charge of production as managing editor.

REASON contributors continue their active participation in public-policy debates. David Henderson had an excellent article, "The Myth of MITI," in the August 8 issue of Fortune. Steve Hanke debated Gaylord Nelson, president of the Wilderness Society, on the policies of James Watt on Cable News Network, September 28. Fred Miller had an excellent article on the Third World infant formula controversy in Barron's on September 26, citing James Hickel's December 1981 article from REASON. And John Baden's new think tank, the Political Economy Research Center, received a full-page write-up in Business Week's October 24 issue.

REASON contributor Don Feder, who is also editor of the newsletter On Principle, is now a Boston Herald columnist as well. That brings to three the number of Boston-based columnists with individualist/free-market perspectives, the other two being Warren Brookes (interviewed in REASON in the October issue) and REASON Contributing Editor David Brudnoy.

The Reason Foundation's people are a busy group, traveling and speaking on behalf of liberty in many contexts. In October, I traveled to Connecticut to present a paper on privatization of roads and bridges at the annual meeting of the Eno Foundation for Transportation. It will be published in a forthcoming issue of Eno's Transportation Quarterly. I also gave a talk based on the Reason Foundation's forthcoming book, Defending a Free Society, at the Future of Freedom Conference in Long Beach. Also over the fall, Senior Editor Manny Klausner and I took part in a Los Angeles seminar on monetary reform, organized by Reason Foundation trustee Joe Coberly for the Committee on Monetary Research and Education. Manny also took part in a Denver conference on private education and the law, sponsored by Mountain States Legal Foundation. And he and I have both joined the advisory board of the new National Council for Better Education, a market-oriented group, whose chairman is frequent REASON contributor Sam Blumenfeld.

On the publication front, Senior Editor Tibor Machan and former trustee M. Bruce Johnson have coedited the book Rights and Regulations, just released by the Pacific Institute. Assistant Editor Paul Gordon continues to be featured frequently on the op-ed page of USA Today, most recently (October 25) on education vouchers. My own piece on airline deregulation appeared on that page October 4. And I was pleased to be one of a group of distinguished contributors (including Martin Anderson, Robert Bartley, George Gilder, Arthur Laffer, and Jude Wanniski) to an American Spectator symposium on the subject, "Is Supply-Side Economics Dead?" appearing in the magazine's November issue.

Several more REASON articles have been reprinted, thereby reaching much wider audiences. Patty Newman's hard-hitting "Harvest of Power" (September) was reprinted in the Arizona Republic's Sunday feature section on September 18. The Reading Reform Foundation has become the latest in a long list of educational groups to reprint Sam Blumenfeld's "The Victims of 'Dick and Jane'" (from October 1982). And Locus, the leading science fiction fan magazine, is reprinting Poul Anderson's review of Neil Schulman's book The Rainbow Cadenza from our October issue.

Here's an organization you should know about if you're thinking of teaching your kids at home but fear possible legal hassles. The Home School Legal Defense Association (Box 26280, Fort Worth, TX 76121) offers an insurance-like service for homeschoolers. For an annual $65 membership fee, they say they will provide complete legal representation in the event of threatened or actual legal action. Their brochure includes an endorsement from Dr. Raymond S. Moore, an authority on home schooling whose work was discussed in our April cover story on the subject.