New Republic, March 20 and 27 Could sci-fi wunderkind Michael Crichton, the author of Jurassic Park and creator of ER, have the answers to our most puzzling environmental conundrums? asks the cover story. Crichton shares with President Bush a disdain for “global warming alarmism” and his opinions are gaining weight in public policy arenas. “What Crichton’s worldview really amounts to is a kind of hectoring contrarianism that is increasingly targeted at America’s know-it-alls, against the liberal elites, against the very type of expertise that has given him his professional cachet,” the author writes. … The GI-Net project was started two years ago by Swarthmore students trying to help stem the rising tide of genocide overtaking Darfur, Sudan. “It was an out-of-the-box, arguably ludicrous idea—college students passing the hat to support a military force for a foreign intervention—but the idea got people’s attention,” the writer points out. The group succeeded in raising money for African Union peacekeepers in Darfur. But handing $250,000 in private funds to the AU has turned out to be more complicated than the students expected.—M.M.
Economist, March 11 The cover story details why Congress should reject President Bush’s proposal to give India our blessing to import nuclear materials. India declined to participate in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, so the United States would be breaking its own laws by supporting India’s efforts to produce nuclear weapons anyway. “Rule-bending for India is bound to encourage some other countries to rethink their nuclear options too,” according to the editorial. “Meanwhile, in his rush to accommodate India, Mr Bush is missing a chance to win wider nuclear restraint in one of the world’s tougher neighbourhoods.”… A piece looks at the economic viability of Libya, which is drifting toward a free-market economy. However a shabby infrastructure leaves the country mired in the past. Economically, things may be on the upswing with other countries eyeing Libya’s oil and consumer prospects, says the author, but corruption, “draconian laws,” and suppression of speech threaten to leave Libya in the Dark Ages.— M.M.
Rolling Stone, March 23
An article calls the follow-through on President Bush’s promise of $5 billion annually to aid the world’s poor “disastrous.” Four years into the initiative’s existence, only $1.2 billion has been distributed. The Millennium Challenge Corporation is understaffed, the few staffers are underqualified, and the people running it are too pro-business. All of which leads one Brookings Institution expert to conclude, “Maybe this is all bread and circuses, just a political game to make people think that the U.S government is committed to reality. When, in reality, the U.S. government doesn’t care.”… In a profile, Oscar nominee Heath Ledger unloads on the burden of achieving superstardom through his role as a gay cowboy. Ledger doesn’t hold himself or his fellow thespians in high esteem: “We all just think we’re brilliant, you know?” he says. “And ninety-eight percent of us are crap.”—Z.K.
Nation, March 27 White House press corps gadfly Helen Thomas goes cannibal on her colleagues in an article. She’s disturbed by what she sees as journalists’ slacking on their duty as “watchdogs for the public good,” and swallowing the administration’s WMD rationale for invading Iraq hook, line, and sinker. Thomas urges the press to “forget the party line, ask the tough questions and let the chips fall where they may.”… Disgusted with congressional Democrats and their unwillingness for troop withdrawal from Iraq, a piece supports a grass-roots approach to getting the message across to Washington. It cheers on local-level politicians who have joined the “Cities for Peace” movement by passing withdrawal resolutions. Says one Green Party anti-war activist, “The more communities say no, the more members of Congress should start wondering whether they should keep listening to the White House or start listening to the people they’re supposed to represent.”—Z.K.
New York Times Magazine, March 12 The cover story focuses on Mark Warner, the former Virginia governor looking to snatch the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination from Hillary “The Shoo-in” Clinton, assuming she enters the race. “The Democratic field now emerging … is looking a lot like Gladys Knight and the Pips—and you can guess who gets to be Gladys,” the author quips. Warner is hoping his liberal-but-not-too-liberal viewpoints will lead Democrats who harbor doubts about Clinton’s electability to choose him. … Women are suing doctors for not detecting birth defects during prenatal screening, thus eliminating the option to abort the fetus. Opponents argue that a child’s value cannot be reduced to its potential for a healthy life, contending that termination of an unhealthy fetus “drags us into a moral abyss,” according to the writer.— M.M.
New York, March 13 and 20 The annual “Best of New York” issue squibs the top places to eat schnitzel, meet for a rendezvous, shop for chandeliers, etc. The best martini in town? At Milk and Honey, a secret bar with a secret address, reservations required through a secret phone number. La-di-da. Thanks, New York. … A political column argues that Virginia Sen. George Allen, presumed to be a leading 2008 GOP presidential contender, continues to use plays from President Bush’s book even as he distances himself from the increasingly unpopular commander-in-chief. Sen. John McCain may still wind up with the Republican nomination, but “Weirder things have happened,” the article concludes, “than a charming, incurious, pseudo-southern pol filling a Republican vacuum and becoming the consensus candidate.”—B.W.
Washington Monthly, April 2006 Congressmen from Texas and Wisconsin are encouraging public employees to fight illegal immigration by collecting information about suspected illegal immigrants and even detaining them, an article reports. While lawmakers push police, teachers, and health workers to rat out illegals, some public workers say narc status will make it nearly impossible to do their jobs. “Local immigration enforcement, they say, will damage communities, destroy lives, cost far more than supporters understand, and do little to stop illegal immigration,” the author writes. … A piece paints Ralph Reed, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Georgia and former director of the Christian Coalition, as a calculating weasel. Reed seems to have alienated potential supporters by engineering insulting electoral campaigns and associating with Jack Abramoff. “Reed’s fundraising has declined, national GOP figures are no longer embracing him, and a smell of death is beginning to envelop his campaign,” Ed Kilgore writes.— M.M.
Newsweek, March 13 Ambitious scientific research, such as a recent study refuting the link between breast cancer and a high-fat diet, is too often trumpeted by the press as fact, confounding a public with too much unconfirmed health advice, according to the cover article. “Scientists themselves have become part of the media machine,” the authors write. “In the old days, researchers who went public with their petri dishes were scorned by colleagues.” The writers suggest scientists and media outlets not allow arch competition to inform their research and reporting. … A piece reports that in cities that opened their arms to Hurricane Katrina victims, some residents fear the evacuees are overstaying their welcome. Climbing crime rates, maxed-out school systems, and strapped health-care resources are causing some Houstonians, in particular, to resent their visitors. “In cities stretching from Atlanta to San Antonio, good will has often given way to the crude reality of absorbing a traumatized and sometimes destitute population.”—M.M.
Time, March 13 Examination of the 9,000-year-old bones of Kennewick Man in Washington could unlock the mystery of how the earliest Americans arrived on the continent, according to the cover story. Independent researchers have only recently been able to study the remains after protracted legal wrangling with local Indian tribes resulted in a court ruling in the scientists’ favor. … Interrogation logs obtained by Time indicate that abusive tactics were used to coerce confessions from suspected 20th hijacker Mohammed al-Qahtani, housed at Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon says al-Qahtani has admitted to meeting Osama Bin Laden and that he was sent to the United States by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, but the author claims interrogators turned al-Qahtani into a “broken man” to obtain intelligence that his lawyer says is false.— M.M.
The New Yorker, March 13
An article profiles Ted Breaux, a chemist who’s attempting to recreate 19th-century absinthe. Years ago, Breaux became fascinated by the once-massive popularity of a drink said to cause insanity and death and determined to analyze it by making some himself. A stickler for historical accuracy, he criticizes profiteers who trade on absinthe’s recent trendiness while selling a less-than-authentic beverage. … A piece attacks the Bush administration’s politicization of science, focusing his critique on its opposition to mandatory human papillomavirus vaccinations. A new vaccine would conclusively neutralize HPV, the primary cause of cervical cancer, but the administration, deferring to its religious base, argues that vaccinations would undermine abstinence programs by making sex seem safer. The author also indicts Bush for ignoring scientists on mercury levels, air pollution, and climate change. “Bush,” the author writes, “appears to view science more as a political constituency than as an intellectual discipline or a way of life.”—P.S.
