Stanford Report, May 17, 2006

In Print and On the Air

JOEL BEININ, professor of Middle Eastern history, recently filed a complaint charging copyright infringement against David Horowitz, editor in chief of the conservative online magazine FrontPage, after he published a pamphlet last year titled Campus Support for Terrorism that featured a photograph of Beinin on the cover. The cover has four photos, including one of Sami al-Arian, a former University of South Florida professor who last month pleaded guilty in Tampa, Fla., to helping the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad. The New York Times reported May 15 that Beinin's complaint also was filed against the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, which Horowitz founded and heads. Beinin said an earlier request faxed to Horowitz to take his likeness off the pamphlet was ignored, leaving him no recourse but legal action. "The title of the booklet clearly means to say that I am a supporter of terrorism and there is absolutely no truth to that," Beinin said. "There is not even a claim of that within the booklet itself." After he learned of the cover, Beinin requested and was granted the rights to his photograph, the Times reported. "I have spoken against terrorism, written against terrorism many times, and I object to the illegal use of my photograph for that reason," he said. Horowitz said he never saw Beinin's fax. A formal answer to Beinin's complaint, filed last week on behalf of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, asserted that revised covers of the pamphlet in subsequent printings would not include the photograph.

Newsweek reported May 14 that boomer parents—Americans born between 1946 and 1964—face the final frontier as they watch their children, who have been a major focus of their lives, become independent adults themselves. "In the old days, parents thought of kids like waffles," said education Professor WILLIAM DAMON, director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence. "The first couple might not turn out just right, but you could always make more. Now many families have only one or two kids to work with, so they focus all their attention and energy on one or two and want them to do well." But hovering parents risk crippling their children's fledgling sense of self-sufficiency. Instead of allowing kids to learn from their mistakes, some parents try to fix problems for them. Damon said children and young adults build up confidence by tackling things that are hard. "When they do succeed, they earn real self-esteem," he said.