30 Years Ago in Reason

* "New York's religion is Government, Social Necessity, Public Good, and attendant lesser sacraments. It has taken the faith very seriously, because it convinced itself early on that social awareness is very noble and very necessary -- in sum, very humanitarian."

* "Subways in New York are suffocatingly hot, dirty, and crowded. And now-shades of Soviet Union or Communist China"it's illegal to take pictures of them."

-- Mark Frazier, "New York -- Death of a City"

* "Freedom, to be meaningful, must find direct expression in practice as well as in principle. Articulations of principles of liberty may provide the understanding, but these must be practiced to give freedom objective existence."

-- Ralph Nader, "You Can Fight City Hall"

* "2,345 [West German] women have, up to now, accused themselves of having committed abortion. Emotionally sympathetic but biologically puzzling is the fact that 973 men did the same."

-- Guy de Maetelaere, "Foreign Correspondent"