Notes

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This issue should be in your hands shortly before the holidays. In case you haven't yet had the opportunity to take advantage of REASON's special holiday gift subscription rates, we'd like to direct you to the ad on the inside back cover of the issue. Last-minute holiday shopping can be hectic enough, and there are probably special people on your gift list who would enjoy REASON—a gift that keeps on coming all year long.

We've made it easy by providing a toll-free number just for holiday gift ordering: 800/341-1522. The number will be good through January, so if the holidays have rushed by and there are people you forgot, you can still give REASON.

Spotlight columnist Patrick Cox does double duty this month with the cover story on space entrepreneurs and the way NASA stands in their way. It's been a few years since we've covered private space developments in a feature article ("The Second Space Race," Nov. 1981). With the launch last summer of a privately developed rocket off the coast of California, it seemed like a good time to do an overview of exciting new moves by space entrepreneurs. But nosing around by our investigative reporter and REASON's own research revealed that things are not as rosy as we thought. The details begin on page 23.

The 1984 Mencken Awards, given out each year by the Free Press Association, were announced October 19 in Long Beach, California. And a REASON article was among the finalists. Michael McMenamin and William Gorenc's "Subverting the First Amendment" (Jan. 1983), about the attempts of the Securities and Exchange Commission to license and regulate financial newsletters, came close to winning the award for Best News Story or Investigative Report. The winner in this category was in fact a frequent REASON contributor, David Henderson. His award-winning article: "The Myth of MITI," published in Fortune.

We're still seeking leads on where to live. That is, if you care about personal freedom, where are the better and worse places in the country to live? We're thinking that this would make an interesting REASON investigation, but we need lots of data from out there around the country. If you know of instances in which your state or locality makes it particularly difficult—or easy—to do what you want to do (set up a business, operate a private school, work out of your home, incorporate, provide a service such as gardening or child care…), you could let us know with a newspaper clipping on the subject area, a short note, or whatever might give us clues about such laws or policies. Send the info to: WHERE TO LIVE, Reason, Box 40105, Santa Barbara, CA 93140-0105.
—M.Z.

People calling in to REASON's offices will likely as not be talking first to Sandi MacDonald, who joined us recently as the new administrative assistant at the Reason Foundation. Sandi first started doing office work as a high-school co-op student and worked most recently as an administrative assistant at Oldsmobile in Lansing, Michigan. At REASON, she will be holding the offices together by handling all secretarial and inventory-control functions, bookkeeping, and supervising clerical staff.

Sandi takes over the reins from longtime employee Cathy Chmel, the super-organized, high-efficiency front-desk person who has provided a welcome thread of continuity as the Reason Foundation has grown from 4 to 13 employees. Cathy has long wanted to live in the San Francisco area and finally decided to pull up stakes and move on. We'll miss her, but we wish her well.


How much of your estate will the government get? Death and taxes go together far more than they need to. You can reduce your family's exposure to estate taxes by leaving a portion to a nonprofit, tax-exempt educational organization. One such organization is the Reason Foundation, publisher of this magazine. By making a bequest to the Foundation in your will, you can have the satisfaction of knowing that some of what you have earned during your life will go on working in support of the ideas and values that matter to you, by making possible the efforts of the Reason Foundation to advance individual liberty. It's a very simple matter to have your attorney draft a codicil to your will, making a specific gift to the Reason Foundation. Your attorney can also suggest other forms of charitable giving, some of which offer present tax benefits.
—R.W.P.