A Journal of Ideas and Information, No. 31, Winter 1991 Cleveland State University

Cleveland State University EngagedScholarship@CSU The aG mut Archives Publications Winter 1990 The aG mut: A Journal of Ideas and Information, No. 31, Winter 1991 Cleveland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/gamut_archives Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons, Education Commons, Engineering Commons, and the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons How does access to this work benefit oy u? Let us know! Recommended Citation Cleveland State University, "The aG mut: A Journal of Ideas and Information, No. 31, Winter 1991" (1990). The Gamut Archives. 29. https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/gamut_archives/29 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Publications at EngagedScholarship@CSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Gamut Archives by an authorized administrator of EngagedScholarship@CSU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This digital edition was prepared by MSL Academic Endeavors, the imprint of the Michael Schwartz Library at Cleveland State University. Dear Reader, What better way to spread holiday cheer than to share the gift of good reading? Give THE GAMUT! Three times a year your friends or family can receive THE GAMUT's usual unusual blend of articles, creative writing, and art. We've go t a year of bright, provocative, and absorbing issues planned - ideas and information you'll want to share. Giving THE GAMUT is easy. The first gift (or your renewal) costs $15, a saving of $3 off our cover price. Additional gift subscriptions cost only $7.50 each. Subscribers will receive our holiday gift offer in the mail. Simply fill out the order form, send it to us, and we'll take care of the rest. We'll send a card to the recipient in December to announce your gift. If you'd prefer to order now, give us a call. We'll be glad to charge your order to your MasterCard or Visa. Reach us by telephone, Monday through Friday, at: (216) 687-4679. We also ha ve a gift for you. With your paid subscrip tion order we'll send you a GAMUT 1991 pocket calendar. It's useful, convenient and our way of saying "thanks" for widen ing THE GAMUT's circulation. Deadline for this offer is December 31, so order promptly ... don't miss out l Happy holidays to you! L 9-4~~ THE GAMUT -- - - - Number 31 Winter 1991 Louis T. Milic 2 Editorial The Constitution and the Court Lee W. Gibbs 4 The Historicity of the Holocaust and the Historical Jesus The relation of fact to belief, in two contrasting cases Jern) Crowe 19 The Liberty Lobby Rise of the lunatic far right Richard Bauman 22 The Automobile-Mother of Weird Inventions Outrageous ideas-which occasionally work! Melvin Drimmer 27 Joe Clark's Challenge to American Education The bullhorn-and-baseball-bat approach to improving our schools Robert H. MacNaughton 30 The Well-Ordered Inner City School A critical view of Joe Clark Richard C. Stephens 34 Has the Time Come to Legalize Drugs? Our best way out of the current crisis is repeal of the modern version of Prohibition 46 "Surprises from the Other" Photographs by Janet Century Joseph Ferrandino 52 A Good Left Hand Learning to box and to listen Jan P. Muczyk 61 Poland Revisited An emigrant returns on the eve of Solidarity's triumph Jon Kohl 75 Raise the Bismarck? The brief career of the world's greatest battleship Poetry David Citino 78 The Carp of the World Janet McCann 80 Teeth Mother The Question 81 Alcatraz David Starkey 82 Milo Awakes from a Dream of Flying 83 Milo Examines the Nature of Color 84 Milo Watches Cable TV with the Ghost of Marianne Moore Irving Weiss Anne D. Weiss 85 A Dictionary of Childhood A collection of eighteenth-century views James Borchert 92 Review Cleveland: A Concise History, 1796-1990 95 Letters Editor: Louis T. Milic Co-Editor: Leonard M. Trawick Editorial Managing Ed.: Susan Grimm Dumbrys Circulation Mgr.: James Guilford Consulting Ed.: Stuart A. Kollar Designer: Amy T. Jenkins The Constitution Intern: Elise Bonza Portrait and the Court Photographer: Herbert J. Ascherman Whenever a vacancy occurs on the Supreme Advisory Board: John A. Flower Court and the President nominates a re David Budin placement, or an issue surfaces which is Joella Burgoon believed to lie within the jurisdiction of this Robert Cheshier court (like abortion), then the word con William Gunlocke stitution and its derivative unconstitutional David Guralnik appear regularly in the press. Constitution is a Ronald Haybron word of many uses, originating with the Robert Jackson notion of making something (like a house). Mari!yn Mason But the chief legal meaning is either a set of Victoria Neufeldt laws, precedents, customs for governing a Reuben Silver country (like England) or a written document Katherine Torgerson with the same purpose (as in the United States). Editorial This simple document, containing some Consultants: Gary Engle 6000 words, that can be read in less than half John Gerlach an hour (including amendments), is the fun Bruce Beatie damentallaw of this country, a concept that Peggy Broder signifies that no law that conflicts with any of James Borchert its provisions or even any of its ideas is valid Staff (or constitutional). Of course a document Photographer: Louis T. Millc written 203 years ago is bound to be slightly out of phase with modern activities and con The Gamut: a JOll.mai of Ideas alld {"formation is ditions. For instance, does freedom of the published three times each year by Cleveland State Univer press cover radio and television, unknown to Sity, Cleveland, Ohio. Subscription rate: one year (three is the Framers (as the signers of the Constitu sues), $15.00; two years, $25.00; three years, $30.00; tion are called)? The interpreters of the Con lifetime, $100.00. Library rate, $18.00 per year. Foreign sub stitution, the justices of the Supreme Court scriptions $3.00 per year additional. Single copies, includ have now agreed that all media are included, ing back issues, $6.00; sample copy (our choice) $3.00. Claims for missing issues honored within six months of although film was once specifically excluded. publication. That is one kind of interpretive task. The Gamut invites commentaries for its "Back Matter" Another comes about when two provisions, section. Those interested in submitting articles and crea especially rights of the individual and rights tive works are encouraged to write for guidelines. Ad of society, conflict (for instance, an indi dress all correspondence to: The Gamut, Room 1218 Fenn Tower, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH 44115. vidual's right to a fair trial, or due process, and the press's right to publish the news of Copyright © 1990 by Cleveland State University. All the trial, when the former usually prevails). rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. ISSN 0275-0589. These conflicts are inevitable because the Constitution tries to protect two warring en tities: the individual, who desires freedom, THE COVER: and society, which must try to limit it, in the From its beginnings, the automobile has interest of the social contract that defines civi inspired inventors to create weird-and lized society. sometimes useful-devices. Article, p. 22. Because the Constitution is more often cited than read, many false beliefs about it can be found among the citizenry. It is fondly enough to realize that times change and that believed that taxation without representation only the broadest language would allow the is unconstitutional. But in fact that phrase is necessary flexibility for taking account of no more than a slogan used by the colonists this. Conservatives abhor judicial activism, protesting against the mother country. It their name for what the Framers might be appears nowhere in the Constitution and thinking if they were alive today. The con cannot be derived from any of its provisions. trast between strict construction and judicial Similarly, the right to privacy is not a con activism misrepresents the situation. The job stitutional right, though it may derive from of the justices is really quite other, the result other unmentioned (or "unenumerated") of the necessity they are under to deal with rights, as provided for in the ninth an unyielding ancient text. amendment. As a result, the justices are both literary Moreover, the Constitution was written critics, interpreting an abstruse text, and high in the language of the eighteenth century, priests determining the meaning of a scrip whose diction has shifted somewhat over the ture that has no precise relevance to some years. The disagreement over the second modern situations. As Judge Souter, the amendment, with its reference to "a well newest justice, noted in his nomination hear regulated militia" and "the right of the people ings, the Supreme Court must combine a to keep and bear arms," has created intense respect for precedent, tradition, and a seek perplexity among those who wonder ing of underlying principle with practical whether the Framers would have con good sense in reaching its decisions. He did templated the right of everyone to own a not say, but it is clear that he understands, machine-gun, as some enthusiasts claim. that the Supreme Court does not merely in Another semantic difficulty arises with terpret-it makes law every time it reaches a the word misdemeanor, which today refers to decision, thus usurping to some extent the a crime of a certain category, less grievous legislative function. But this it cannot help than a felony. But the Constitution in the sec and no amount of conservative bravado can tion on impeachment (Article II, Section 4) mask this fact.

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