Atlantic Monthly, August 2000

The cover story describes and defends the dangerous, polluting, and scary ship-breaking industry of India. On a huge beach in Alang, tens of thousands of Indian men demolish most of the world's obsolete ships and sell the steel for scrap. Greenpeace is on the warpath against ship-breaking because it releases terrible toxins, but ship-breaking at Alang creates a million almost-decent jobs in a poverty-stricken country. The human rights and environmental arguments advanced by Western reformers strike the ship-breakers as the worst kind of economic imperialism. … An article explains why gay men used to love Judy Garland but hate her now. Her contradictory personality made her a surrogate for gays who suffered as outcasts but aspired to emotional stability. Today, assimilating gays view Garland worship as a sign of weakness. … A piece profiles Peter Westbrook, a half black, half Korean former Olympic fencer who runs his own free fencing school in New York City. The Olympic fencing team this year includes three African-Americans, all his students.

New Republic, July 31

The cover story profiles Al Gore's new campaign manager, Chicago machine scion Bill Daley. An early advocate of the Third Way when he moved his family away from bossism in the 1970s, Daley has spent his career behind the scenes, getting others elected and lobbying for NAFTA and normal trade relations with China. The loyalty and small ego that make him an effective fixer have kept him out of the political spotlight. … A piece previews the upcoming political conventions. Bush will let surrogates do the talking to avoid displaying his policy weakness or undermining the general impression that he's a nice guy. Gore will make a spectacle of himself to escape the shadow of the First Family. … A piece claims that the anti-death penalty argument that Europe and Canada don't put criminals to death is flawed. In fact, most Europeans support capital punishment, but their governments are less democratic than the U.S. government and prohibit the practice despite the wishes of citizens.

New York Review of Books, Aug. 10

The cover story questions the rehabilitation of Norman Rockwell. Although there is a place in the canon for commercial art, and Rockwell is not nearly as bad as his ardent critics say, he was technically sloppy and cluttered his paintings with unnecessary details to make them more intelligible to magazine readers. … A piece argues that the pessimists predicting a stock market crash are right. Contrary to received economic wisdom, the market is fundamentally irrational, stock prices do not reflect the real value of a company, and bubbles will burst. Those who say the New Economy makes constant growth possible are even more irrational than traditional stock investors.

Economist, July 22

A piece reports that both China and the West are urging the Chinese to get wired. Chinese Communists think the Internet and cellular phones will prove the supremacy of the state, and Western politicians think they will democratize it. The West is wrong because the Chinese Internet is closely monitored and serves more as a diversion than as a cradle of democracy. … An article argues that Texas is an environmental disaster and that George W. Bush, while not responsible for the problem, has done nothing about it. Texas puts more chemicals in the air than any other state, but Bush, who has said regulation and litigation are not solutions, offers only voluntary clean-up programs that his oil friends have been reluctant to participate in.

New York Times Magazine, July 23

The cover story examines the bad blood between "child-free" adults and families with kids. The childless, annoyed by crying kids and colleagues who leave early to get home to the nanny, organize against child-tax credits, maternity leave, and emergency day care. Best detail: Some child-free adults call kids "anklebiters" and "crib lizards." … An article traces the evolution of former CIA Director James Woolsey from defense establishment stalwart to anti-establishment freedom fighter. Two years ago he represented Iraqi dissidents scheduled for deportation because his clearance was high enough to get access to the classified—and, it turns out, embarrassingly flimsy—evidence against them, but he was stonewalled by the Justice Department. He is now a public critic of the government and spook bureaucracy he used to serve. … A piece profiles Walter Anderson, an eccentric libertarian billionaire who tried and failed to build his own spaceship and who recently leased the Russian space station Mir for $200 million a year. Anderson plans to sell space vacations and produce a TV show modeled on Survivor in which contestants compete to become astronauts.