REASON'S ALTERED RATIONALE

Which monthly magazine editor argues that the spread of pornography is a
victory for free expression?

And that drugs from marijuana to heroin should not only be legalized, but
using them occasionally is just fine?

And is also quite comfortable with gay marriage?

The answer is Nick Gillespie, libertarian and doctor of literature, who
took over Reason magazine last year and is injecting it with a pop-culture
sensibility.

"I'm sure I'll get a few cancellations and some letters saying, 'What kind
of idiot are you?' " he says of the porn piece.

The libertarian-minded Reason, often filled with high-minded public policy
debates, garners far less media attention than such magazines as the New
Republic and National Review. But its 60,000 circulation -- a 60 percent
rise over the last decade -- puts it in the Weekly Standard's ballpark. And
its Web site is drawing 250,000 visitors a month.

"We have a longtime niche readership of people who are interested in
liberty and free-market ideas," says Publisher Mike Alissi. Now he's
targeting more liberal readers "who may be under the misimpression it's a
right-wing magazine."

Reason has done a spate of cultural covers, among them "Still Fab: Why We
Keep Listening to the Beatles"; "Dr. Strangelunch: Why We Should Learn to
Stop Worrying and Love Genetically Modified Food"; and "In Praise of
Consumerism: What's So Bad About Shopping Anyway?".

Gillespie recalls a friend who liked the Fab Four piece saying that he'd
"always read Reason kind of dutifully, like church scriptures."

"Let's face it, the Beatles are much more important to people's lives than
any politician," Gillespie says.

Part of the newly redesigned December issue is devoted to the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks, including a piece chiding antiwar demonstrators for not
offering an alternative and a warning from Gillespie that individual
freedom could become a casualty of the war on terrorism.

"We will have an even larger focus on how the government is going to use
the events of 9-11, and the fear and anxiety surrounding them, to curtail
people from living their lives," he says. When he looks at pre-September
covers now, "they might as well be from 500 years ago."

Gillespie, 38, a veteran of new-wave music magazines, joined Reason in 1993
after earning his PhD at the State University of New York at Buffalo. "I
was not interested in writing for the excruciatingly small audience that
academics interact with," he says, adding that he was "not a conservative
in any way, shape or form, or a hard-core PC leftist."

Gillespie discovered his libertarian leanings as a New Jersey newspaper
reporter watching zoning officials harass a homeowner who had dared to
build a fence, "which made my blood boil."

Now he makes other people's blood boil. The Wall Street Journal's
OpinionJournal.com accused Gillespie of "running pieces that actually
celebrate drug use." He's also been assailed as an "apologist for
stupefaction." Gillespie shrugs off the criticism.

"He's sort of a cool character, not real flamboyant," says former editor
Virginia Postrel, who hired Gillespie. "He has a dry sense of humor."

Reason is something of a virtual magazine. While nominally based in Los
Angeles, Gillespie edits it from Oxford, Ohio; Alissi lives in Connecticut;
and editor-at-large Postrel lives in Dallas.

Like most such magazines, Reason loses money and is subsidized by the
nonprofit Reason Foundation. Perhaps drawn by its anti-regulatory stance,
donors include 95 corporations and industry groups (Microsoft, ExxonMobil,
General Motors, Dow Chemical, Philip Morris, American Petroleum Institute),
along with individuals and such conservative organizations as the Scaife
Family Foundation.

With that kind of backing, why hasn't Reason made more of a splash?

"We're not based in Washington or New York," Postrel says. "We're not
predictably partisan." She says she was rarely booked for television
because "I didn't fit in anyone's neat box."

"One reason we don't get more attention from the political class or
cultural-tastemaker class," says Gillespie, "is that we're anti-elitist. We
don't think you need gatekeepers to tell you how to live your life. Most of
the mainstream media is in the business of passing judgment."

He hopes to boost the magazine's Washington profile by staging "dialogues
- -- or multilogues -- in a D.C. setting."

Multilogues?

"As an academic you feel free to make up all kinds of fake words,"
Gillespie says.

No Fans of Rudy

Rudy Giuliani may be getting great press at home but not in the Arab world.
After the New York mayor rejected a $10 million donation from a Saudi
prince who urged greater U.S. support for the Palestinians, a columnist for
the Saudi paper Al-Riyadh said it was "because the governor of the Big
Apple is a Jew." The columnist also quoted "the homosexual governor" as
saying what America "must do is kill 6,000 innocent people."

Another columnist (translations provided by the Middle East Media and
Research Institute) for the Palestinian paper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida said
Giuliani is "obsessed by his hatred of Arabs. . . . He hides his first
name, chosen for him by his Italian father, so as not to remind the Jewish
voters of the infamous Rudolph Hitler. This is why he prefers to shorten it
to Rudy."

Says Giuliani spokeswoman Sunny Mindel, "It would be funny if it wasn't so
frightening, the level of disinformation that's out there."

Oliver's Army

Who cares about past wars during an all-consuming fight against terrorism?

Lots of people, it turns out.

Oliver North, who jumped to Fox after MSNBC canceled his show "Equal Time,"
launched a new Sunday night program shortly after Sept. 11. "War Stories"
mixes newsreel footage and interviews with veterans to examine battles of
World War II, Korea, Vietnam and other conflicts.

Despite zero publicity, nearly 1 million homes are tuning in to programs
such as the recent look at survivors of the frozen Chosin battlefield in Korea.

"People are saying, 'Look, we've been through tough times before, and here
are people who brought us through those tough times,' " the retired colonel
says. "This is what I did for 22 years -- I hung around with heroes. . . .
These are not the people who showed up on my TV show to brag about how
great they were. These are soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who, when
their country called them, turned up."