I am grateful to the conference organizers for suggesting the word "glimpse" in the title of this talk, because I have to admit at the outset that I do not have a vision of a fully formed new feminism rising like Botticelli’s Venus in all her glory from the sea. But that word "glimpse" got me thinking about the story of Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy. Moses, as you know, never did enter the promised land. After 40 years of wandering in the desert, however, he "glimpsed it from afar." And that glimpse was so satisfying that he died happy.

When high priests of America’s political right and left as articulate as William F. Buckley Jr., founding editor of National Review, and Anthony Lewis, a columnist for The New York Times Op-Ed page, peddle the same drug legalization line, it’s time to shout caveat emptor--let the buyer beware. For the boomlet to legalize drugs like heroin, cocaine and marijuana that they--and magazines like National Review and New York--are trying to seed among the right and left ends of the political spectrum, is founded in fiction, not fact. And it’s our children who could suffer long-lasting, permanent damage.