Other Magazines

Out-Birthing Europe

Economist, Aug. 24 The cover story looks at diverging demographic trends in Europe and America. While Europe’s fertility rate is in freefall, Americans are reproducing at the replacement rate. That means the future holds a cheaper labor force and a more entrepreneurial culture for America and a stodgy gerontocracy for Europe. This year, President Bush decided to withhold extra foreign aid from Egypt as punishment for its imprisonment of a university professor. A piece hopes the decision is a harbinger of new thinking on Middle Eastern aid. An article describes what will surely go down as one of the stupidest advertising blunders ever. The Indian division of Cadbury-Schweppes has incensed Hindus with its candy bar tagline, “I’m good. I’m tempting. I’m too good to share. What am I? Cadbury’s Temptations or Kashmir?”— J.F.

New Republic, Sept. 2 The cover article by George Soros explains why the markets can’t fix themselves. Financial crises in Asia, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil demonstrated the dangers of market fundamentalism in the international arena. Now, at home, Enron and WorldCom have taught us the folly of believing that individuals pursuing their self-interest will always produce the public good, without sensible regulations and principles to keep them in check. The “TRB” column says that the newest anti-war argument—that no one can be pro-war who hasn’t been to war himself—shuts down debate faster than anything Rummy could dream up. The editorial argues that the only real justification for war is that Saddam Hussein is the only world leader to have and to have used weapons of mass destruction. ­—K.T.

New York Times Magazine, Aug. 25 When the author of the cover article was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, a potentially fatal disease that afflicts 7 percent of pregnant women, she and her baby were locked in a race against time: The longer she waited to deliver, the better his chances were, and the worse hers. The sad conclusion—born three months premature, Luke Johnson Smith did not survive—offers no easy answers but some insight into the psychology of loss. An article explains how Canadian Inuit turn a profit in selling their rights to kill walruses to American sports hunters. From this writer’s account, though, it isn’t much of a sport, just “a long boat ride to shoot a very large beanbag chair.” John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted is getting his own afternoon talk show. Walsh’s career as a TV crime-fighter began when his 6-year-old son was abducted and murdered in 1981. Two decades later, is he trapped in his role as a hero-victim?— K.T. Sight & Sound, September 2002
Every 10 years, the British magazine polls directors and critics to determine the 10 best films of all time. This year, the critics picked Citizen Kane first, Vertigo second, and The Rules of the Game third. The directors slotted Kane first, The Godfather and The Godfather Part II second, and 8 1/2 third. The magazine’s Web site allows you to browse each voter’s ballot. Bruce Beresford, who directed Driving Miss Daisy, filed a ballot that included the Apu Trilogy and Black Hawk Down. Roger Corman picked Star Wars. Quentin Tarantino preferred the college flick Dazed and Confused. Skim the results of past polls, which stretch back to 1952. (Read Slate’s take on this list.)—B.C.

Newsweek, Aug. 26
The cover story charges the Northern Alliance with war crimes. Last November, hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners were apparently “packed like cattle” into sealed shipping containers, left to suffocate, and eventually disposed of in a mass grave. There’s no evidence of American involvement, but the piece does raise questions about Pentagon obfuscation on the matter as well as the responses of international agencies to allegations of atrocities. An article reports that Karen Hughes is once again a fixture at Bush’s side. She’s editing speeches, sleeping at the Crawford ranch, and traveling to Washington every other week as Bush’s “big picture” adviser. An article proposes a solution to baseball’s woes: total free agency. Under the current system, only six-year veterans are eligible for free agency. But if younger players could also become free agents, owners would have new options: “Why sign a mediocre reliever for a few million bucks when five other lefty zhlub s are available for a fraction of that?” Average salaries would go down, but players wouldn’t complain about their emancipation.— J.F. Time, Aug. 26 On the eve of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the cover package looks at “how to save the Earth.” At the Rio summit 10 years ago, big, global measures carried the day as the response to environmental ills. In Johannesburg, the program will be both subtler and likely more effective: “treating the patient a bit at a time, until the planet as a whole at last gets well.” A feature recommends “10 technologies for you and the planet.” For the Earth-conscious consumer: hand-powered cell phones, inflatable furniture, a centrifugal force dryer, and an adjustable-flush toilet. A piece questions the fight-to-the-death, business-is-the-enemy tactics of environmentalists. In the 1990s, for example, environmental groups rejected a power-plant emissions trading program as too industry-friendly. But had Greens embraced the market and compromised with the corporations, EPA regulations would be more, not less, stringent today.— J.F. U.S. News & World Report, Aug. 26
The cover package is an amusing look at history’s greatest hoaxes, fakes, and scams, including the secret diary of Hitler published in Newsweek in 1983, the breatharians who claim to live off air and light alone, Argentina’s flirtation with cold fusion, and, of course, crop circles. A piece says conditions in the fast-growing colonias—the Hispanic American shantytowns that have sprung up along the Texas border—are slowly improving. Finally, infrastructure improvements are bringing water, sewage, and paved roads.  … An article says the United States has set its sights on the middle tier of al-Qaida’s leadership. Pentagon officials believe eliminating the half-dozen operational planners just below Osama Bin Laden may be more important than nabbing Bin Laden himself.— J.F.

Weekly Standard, Aug. 26 and Sept. 2 The cover story praises the redesigned SAT. Starting in 2005, the loathsome analogies section will be replaced by more reading comprehension and an essay. That’s good, says the author, because if teachers are going to teach to the test anyway, at least now they’ll be teaching useful skills. An article responds to recent press reports claiming that the Bush administration is uncertain whether Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction or is just “intent” on building them. To believe the latter, says the author, you’d have to be deaf to the evidence. A piece calls for a recount of the much-cited (at least in Europe) tally of Afghan civilian deaths in the American air campaign. The count, which was compiled by a University of New Hampshire professor, is now over 5,000. But the professor consistently uses Al Jazeera and Taliban numbers instead of deferring to more reputable sources.— J.F.

The Nation, Sept. 2 and 9 The cover article warns, “The global freshwater crisis looms as one of the greatest threats ever to the survival of our planet.” The IMF and World Bank have urged the privatization and commodification of water in many Third World countries. The result has been higher prices, huge profits, diminished service, and water cutoffs to those can’t pay. The authors call for an international legal framework to establish water as a public trust. An article slashes a pair of influential neocon military think tanks, the Center for Security Policy and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. The groups don’t just want war with Iraq; they want “total war” with all Arab regimes. Their hawkishness is motivated in part by financial self-interest: Both groups’ advisory boards are chock-full of people who work or have worked for a military contractor.— J.F.