New York Review of Books, Nov. 30

A review examines the childlessness trend. Birthrates have plummeted since the 1960s as women have gained access to abortion and contraception. Many mothers decide to stay in the workplace and therefore tend to have fewer children. More adults remain unmarried and childless, largely because gays and lesbians who used to marry and raise families can now live openly as homosexuals. … A review blasts Arthur Herman's new Joe McCarthy biography, which attempts to rehabilitate the demagogue. Like McCarthy himself, Herman substitutes baseless attacks on his enemies (liberal historians) for well-considered argument. … An article advocates maintaining the strictest ethical standards in medical research abroad. A growing number of scientists want to loosen guidelines that require treating research subjects with the highest standards of care, even if those standards are unavailable in the country where the patient lives. Such guidelines reduce the effectiveness of studies and slow the development of treatments and vaccines, but others worry about the moral consequences of having two standards, one for Americans and one for, say, Ugandans.

New Republic, Nov. 20

TNR is left speechless: a giant question mark on the cover. A piece wonders why Al Gore is such a bad campaigner. An earnest man, he cannot pretend to be normal under extremely abnormal circumstances. He especially hates the amateur psychoanalysis the press performs on his relationship with his father. … A piece describes how Democrats turned out the black vote in New Jersey. Black turnout has exploded in the 1990s and been decisive in many races. A small group of black political operatives has combined scientific targeting of low-turnout black Democratic voters with old-fashioned "knock and drag" tactics to draw blacks to the polls. … An article explains the symbolic significance of sovereignty over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. As Israelis and Palestinians move toward reconciliation on most of the practical issues that separate them, each side clings to the Temple Mount as the symbol of its historic right to Jerusalem. As the peace process moved forward generally, the sides moved further apart on this last-ditch sovereignty issue.

Economist, Nov. 11

An editorial calls for the preservation of the Electoral College system because "there is no such thing as a perfect electoral system" and the college "has mostly stood the test of time rather well." It also suggests that the upshot of the electoral uncertainty could be a "flowering of bipartisanship," as whoever is president seeks to bolster his legitimacy. … A piece reports that President Vladimir Putin has succeeded in repressing autonomous regional authority in Russia. He has appointed seven federal district envoys to seize power from the 100-odd local governors, and he has ended the automatic right of governors to sit in Russia's upper house of parliament.

New York Times Magazine, Nov. 12

A special issue of behind-the-scenes Hollywood photographs. The highlights: Fifteen old casting-call Polaroids of future stars such as Ben Stiller, Jason Priestley, and a particularly unnerving Billy Bob Thornton; a series of snapshots of Kate Hudson getting gussied up for the New York premiere of Almost Famous; and a picture of a porno movie shoot.

Time and Newsweek, Nov. 13

Variations on a theme. Time fronts the foster care crisis; Newsweek goes with the prison crisis. In the last five years, says Time, the number of kids in foster care has doubled to 550,000. Every year, about 7,500 are tortured by their foster parents. The bureaucracy is too small to run the necessary checks on foster parents, and the annual turnover of social workers tops 70 percent in some states. …Newsweek's counterintuitive conclusion: So many Americans are imprisoned that communities are actually less safe. When the imprisonment rate in a community tips past 1 percent, crime rates increase because family and social structure break down. Many young men view prison as a normal part of their lives, and some even enjoy it because it gets them back in touch with old friends.