Other Magazines

Poland’s Russia problem

Self-interest on the part of EU nations hurts the Poles.

Economist, Oct. 1 The magazine blasts the Bush administration in the wake of Tom DeLay’s indictment and increasing charges of cronyism: “It is not too late for Mr Bush to deal with these things; but he must do so brutally and quickly.” Another piece examines Poland’s recent elections, in which two center-right parties prevailed. The magazine urges the victorious parties to work together on domestic policy and to figure out how to handle its longtime antagonist, Russia. “A joint approach to Russia was meant to be the centrepiece of the European Union’s (supposedly) common foreign and security policy. Yet, in practice, disunity and self-interest rule,” the article notes. It points out that Germany’s independent decision to work on a gas pipeline with Russia “would allow the Kremlin to turn off the tap to Poland at will, while maintaining full supplies to western Europe.” An article looks at Afghanistan’s burgeoning national cricket team; President Hamad Karzai has “promised each member a Toyota off-road vehicle if they would only beat Pakistan.”—B.B.

New Republic, Oct. 10 A review of Robert Kaplan’s Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground claims that Kaplan doesn’t seem to value civilian control of the military. The piece also frowns upon Kaplan’s belief in imperialism, his “hero worship” of elite American soldiers, his admiration for the Confederate army, and his insistence that before whites arrived, Native Americans had almost no civilization. Rieff continues, “This is breathtaking. Here is a serious writer in 2005 admiring the Indian wars, which in their brutality brought about the end of an entire American civilization.” Another piece derides the anti-war protest in Washington, D.C., last weekend. Calling it “part thirty-fifth college reunion and part flea market for the disaffected,” the article insists that the number of issues being opposed “created the impression of a country so far removed from the war in Iraq that even the antiwar movement can’t be bothered to demonstrate against it.”—B.B.

New York Times Magazine, Oct. 2
The cover story remembers National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr.’s 1965 run for New York mayor. Running on the Conservative Party ticket, Buckley wanted to make a point at the expense of Republican candidate John V. Linsday, a progressive. Buckley appealed to blue-collar white voters and was unafraid to address the smoldering issue of race. “[A]lthough he did not sound like a bigot—and indeed he was not—he seemed to give comfort to those who were,” says the piece. An article examines Hillary Clinton’s apparent turn toward the political center before the 2008 presidential race. Though she is commonly seen as liberal, the piece posits that she has always been moderate, influenced by her childhood in a Republican, Methodist household. Nevertheless, Clinton continues to electrify the right. “It is doubtful that any figure—other than her husband, perhaps—has done more to raise Republican money or boost Rush Limbaugh’s ratings than Hillary Clinton.”—T.B.

New York Review of Books, Oct. 20 In his review of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, John Leonard leafs through the writer’s work and life, highlighting unexpected and seemingly fated turns and patterns in both. Her new book chronicles her husband’s death and her daughter’s illness, and it is as much the story of her retreat into the “vortex” of memory as of those current events. “I can’t think of a book we need more than hers—those of us for whom this life is it, these moments all the more precious because they are numbered,” he writes In a review-essay about the cultural wars over evolution, Richard Lewontin details two threats to the science of evolutionary biology: the religious opposition, and the secular academics who are trying to co-opt Darwin’s theory into “a universal model for an understanding of history and social dynamics.” The latter group, he writes, “makes the investigation of material nature into an intellectual game, disarming us in our struggle to maintain science against mysticism.”—B.W.

Spin, October 2005 Spin dedicates its 20th anniversary issue to interviews with the “20 Greatest Innovators of the Past 20 Years.” Some choice excerpts: Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong’s biggest regret is not calling the band’s breakout album Jesus Christ Supermarket, and Napster creator Shawn Fanning says today’s swapping services don’t possess the “community” vibe Napster did. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone still love pissing people off, still despise Michael Moore, and regard Paris Hilton as “a stupid, spoiled whore.” The founding principle of Public Enemy, according to Chuck D, was “exposing the concept of race for the silly concoction that it was.” D also believes that rappers should act as father figures for kids and criticizes radio DJs for exposing kids to explicit records. For shock-rocker Marilyn Manson, being a rock star means never having to cut your own coke. The Yoko Ono of the grunge set, Courtney Love, may be a feminist, but she concedes that “Gloria Steinem never helped me out; Larry Flint did.”—Z.K.

The New Yorker, Oct. 3 David Remnick examines how the poor and the powerful responded to the flooding of New Orleans in 1927, 1965, and 2005. “New Orleans is never abandoned easily,” he writes, but many of New Orleans’ poorest residents say they will not return. As in the aftermath of the devastating Hurricane Betsy in 1965, rumors have spread that the levees were blown up by the rich to preserve their property at the expense of the poor. “They want a bigger tourist attraction, and we black folks ain’t no tourist attraction,” says an evacuee staying in Houston who has given up on New Orleans.  Another article previews Doctor Atomic, an opera about the Manhattan Project and J. Robert Oppenheimer, which premieres Oct. 1 in San Francisco before heading to New York and elsewhere. “The libretto is an ingenious collage, stitching together of declassified documents, transcripts of meetings, interviews with participants, and standard histories.”—T.B.  

Weekly Standard, Oct. 3 Two years and $34 million after the fact, Paul Volker’s inquiry into the scandal-ridden Iraq oil-for-food program results in an 847-page impotent flop, says an article. Nearly a month after the revelations—that Saddam benefited from the program to the tune of $12 billion—U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his top aides remain in power; only bit players have been fired for their indiscretions. Volker’s misstep, according to the article, was acting less like a prosecutor than a bean-counter.  An article chronicles the rise and potential fall of the “left” university. The waning authority of 1960s radical thought has fostered the growth of programs and centers devoted to the study of political liberty and Western civilization, encouraging trustees to strive for intellectual diversity and call for more rigorous curriculum standards indicating a probable return to universities “dedicated to liberal education and higher learning,” not political agendas.— Z.K.

Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report, Oct. 3 Hurricane politics: Time claims that skeptics of man-made global warming are increasingly few and far between. It suggests an indirect link between climate change and more intense hurricanes and cites meteorologist Greg Holland, whose research indicates that the number of Category 4 and 5 storms per year has almost doubled since 1990.  In an investigation into White House cronyism, Time asks, “How many more Mike Browns are there?” The piece singles out incompetents who’ve been appointed by Bush to the FDA, Homeland Security Department, and the Office of Management and Budget.  Another piece suggests that al-Qaida is closely observing the U.S. response to Katrina and Rita. It quotes a former CIA agent who believes that the group may attack Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities to disrupt the U.S. economy. U.S. News presents the gravest outlook on Rita’s impact on oil prices and notes that price increases on natural gas may be worse, since stockpiles can’t easily be supplemented by imports.

Rebuilding New Orleans: Newsweek points to the turmoil over whether to rebuild New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward—a poverty-ridden area sitting well below sea level. The area’s primarily African-American residents have been dismayed to find that, “In most restoration plans, the Lower Ninth would be yielded back to the swamp.” The article suggests that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, a middle-class African-American with many white supporters, is caught in between. U.S. News notes that many black community leaders “felt shut out” when they weren’t invited to a meeting that Nagin had with local businesses. The piece continues, “When the mayor said he planned to appoint a rebuilding commission that would be half black and half white,” some critics unhappily pointed out that the city is 70 percent black.

Odds and ends: U.S. News has an Afghanistan progress report. Kabul is seeing a building boom, and its first disco opened recently. On the other hand, a mere 6 percent of the country’s residents have electricity, and people feel “a new disenchantment” because they think that there’s massive lack of coordination between countries and agencies that are trying to rebuild the country. Moreover, most feel that the aid money coming into the country is being poorly spent. Newsweek’s cover indicates that “stress, anxiety, hostility and depression,” along with “adverse childhood experiences, such as physical, sexual or emotional abuse, domestic violence or having family members who abused drugs or alcohol,” significantly increases chances of a heart attack. On Friday, Time reported on West Point grad Capt. Ian Fishback of the 82nd Airborne. Fishback’s allegations of prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan form the basis of a Human Rights Watch report. Since Fishback’s allegations were published, he claims that the Army put intense pressure on him to identify two anonymous soldiers who back up his account in the report.—B.B.