The Agony of Deceit:
Ladies' Night at the NBC Olympics

by Katherine Mayberry, Margaret Proctor, and Rosalind Srb

In order to boost the ratings of the 1996 Olympic Games, NBC developed a programming strategy to appeal to women viewers—or so the network executives believed. But the resulting hodgepodge of sentimentality, jingoism, and crass manipulation managed instead to insult the intelligence of everyone.

Cover Story: Religion's Impact on American Politics

Church, State, and the 1996 Election

by Albert J. Menendez

In the forthcoming presidential election, church-state issues play a critical role. A review of the platforms adopted at the Republican and Democratic national conventions reveal striking differences on such issues as abortion, "family values," and taxpayer support of private schools.

The Vatican Connection:
How the Catholic Church Influences the Republican Party

by John M. Swomley

The influence of the Christian Coalition on the Republican Party is well known. But the influence of the Roman Catholic Church is perhaps even more significant and extends back as far as the Reagan administration's secret deals with the Vatican.

The Myth of the Middle Class

by Lynn H. Ehrle

The spate of articles on the continuing decline of America's middle class misses one startling fact: current economic statistics reveal that the middle class has already ceased to exist! Thanks to media myopia, however, the myth of the middle class continues to distort our economic debates.

Brownlash: The New Environmental Anti-Science

by Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich

By a wide margin, American citizens support environmental protection—but that doesn't mean they're going to get it. Adopting a strategy biologists call "aggressive mimicry," anti-environmental groups with their pseudoscientific arguments have made significant inroads into the public debate.

Bashing the Disabled: The Right-Wing Attack on the ADA

by Fred Pelka

The Americans with Disabilities Act was one of the most significant pieces of civil-rights legislation ever to emerge from Congress. But despite its overwhelmingly positive impact, the ADA has now become a useful election-year punching bag.

Ordinary People: Why the Disabled Aren't So Different

by Kathi Wolfe

For those who are disabled, the biggest obstacle to achieving a fulfilling life is society's own ignorant and bigoted attitudes toward them. A review of media representations of the disabled—from Dumb and Dumber to The Hunchback of Notre Dame—shows how pernicious and long-standing these popular attitudes are.

Copyright © 2002, the American Humanist Association