The New Yorker, May 29 The cover piece asks how Democrats can win back the White House.They can start by getting off their high horses and embracing patriotism, Jeffrey Goldberg finds. Preaching lefty agrarian alternatives puts off middle America, and it didn’t get John Kerry or Michael Dukakis very far, he writes. Tougher talk on national security could help candidates seeking midterm congressional seats take states that sit on the verge between red and blue. “Even the most liberal Democratic officeholders recognize the need to speak to security-conscious voters in ways that will separate them from Republicans,” Goldberg observes. … A piece unveils an ornithology scandal that smacks vaguely of the Da Vinci Code plot. Ornithologist Pamela Rasmussen uncovers fraud allegations involving a coveted collection of “study skins” or preserved birds that aid in the classification of avian species. Heroic birdman Col. Richard Meinertzhagen gets knocked off his perch and international intrigue ensues … well, among bird-watchers.— M.M.
Weekly Standard, May 29 According to an editorial by Fred Barnes, one surefire way for congressional Republicans to flub the midterm elections is to fail to pass an immigration bill. Passage would not only improve their lot, but the president would surely get a bounce in the polls too: “It would help revive Bush and improve Republican prospects in the fall election.”… An article by a transplant recipient lambastes medical ethicists and physicians who refuse to conduct organ transplants on patients who circumvent waiting lists by using Web sites or the media to meet a match. “The message is clear: A slowly dying patient must not take any initiative to save his own life, even though the status quo … is pitifully inadequate,” writes the author. … Even as some conservatives rap the administration over the use of wiretaps and prisoner interrogation in the war on terror, an article takes the contrarian view and posits that last year’s July 7 London bombings wouldn’t have happened if British authorities had been more zealous in employing these two tactics.—Z.K.
Time, May 29 With hurricane season fast approaching, an article details how New Orleans is scrambling to plan for the next disaster even as it rebuilds. The Army Corps of Engineers is behind schedule in reconstructing 200 miles of levees, police and 911 dispatchers are working out of trailers, communications systems are badly compromised, and there are doubts about the strength of the city’s water pumps. Residents have learned that self-reliance is key to survival, the article finds. Preparations include evacuation schemes, home modifications, and informal notification matrices. … An article finds that soaring medical bills are leading patients to seek treatment outside the United States. “Medical tourism” used to be the domain of elective procedures such as plastic surgery, but now, employers are considering sending their employees abroad for procedures such as heart bypass and offering them a cut of the savings. With a $90,000 spinal surgery to be had for $10,000 in Thailand, U.S. hospitals have major competition, writes the author.— M.M.
Newsweek, May 29 A long piece explores Mary Magdalene, Jesus’ mysterious disciple and a central figure in the ubiquitous Da Vinci Code franchise. Mary’s role in history may have been downplayed because she was a woman, and her reputation as a prostitute might be undeserved, the writer asserts. “Even if she were the sinful woman, there is no evidence in any Gospels that her sins were those of the flesh—in the first century, a woman could be considered ‘sinful’ for talking to men other than her husband or going to the marketplace alone.”… Israel struggles with the question of asylum for Sudanese refugees fleeing violence in the Darfur region and other areas of the troubled country, says an article. Some who escape to Israel are jailed under the “enemy infiltration” law, others are placed in farm collectives or kibbutzim. But imprisoning refugees from genocide is weighing heavily on the conscience and legal system of “a state founded partly as a refuge for Holocaust survivors,” the piece explains.— M.M.
New Republic, May 29 An editorial carps on congressional Republicans for coddling the Bush administration through a lack of government oversight. After launching multiple overzealous investigations during Bill Clinton’s two terms, “what has followed in the Bush years is even worse than the abuses of the Clinton years: nothing.” The editors predict that the tactic will backfire and Republicans will pay during the midterm elections: “GOP control of Congress deserves to end this year, not least because Republicans have abused—and then abandoned—government oversight.”… An article rallies the Democratic Party to let go of the conception that Christian evangelicals are “just crazies with big Bibles.” Many evangelicals care more about global poverty, AIDS, and the environment—issues that jibe more with the Democratic platform—than intelligent design. Rick Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals says, “There’s going to be a lot of political reconsideration on this in the coming year. … The old faultlines are no more.”— Z.K.
Economist, May 20 The issue examines economics, politics, and public safety in Latin America. Slow and steady fiscal growth in many countries is doing little to improve poverty or the deficiencies in health care and education that plague the region, an article finds. “That is partly because income distribution in Latin America is more unequal than anywhere outside Africa. According to a recent report by the World Bank, widespread poverty can itself be a drag on growth.” Deadly clashes between prison gangs and police in São Paulo highlight the potential for the underworld to overtake Latin American cities. … An editorial accuses “radical populists” like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez of keeping Latin America mired in an outmoded nationalism at the peril of the people. But political moderates are also battling for their version of democracy, says the piece. “Latin America’s efforts to make democracy work, and to use it to make searingly unequal societies fairer and more prosperous, have implications across the developing world,” the author writes.— M.M.
New York, May 22 An article profiles Michael Arad, an architect plucked from obscurity who was set to become “the Maya Lin of 9/11” when he beat out 5,201 entries to design the World Trade Center memorial. Two years later, with the cost slouching toward $1 billion, the memorial design has turned into a turf war. And Arad, who has clashed with officials from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and others, believes “[h]is responsibility is to people other than his masters at the LMDC.”… The Catholic Church isn’t the only religious organization with a pedophilia problem within its ranks. Starting with an anecdote about a boy—now a rabbi in Israel—who was molested in more than 30 years ago, an article suggests that the repressive and shame-obsessed nature of the Orthodox Jewish community could help foster such crimes. Says one rabbi, “If we don’t have the training to deal with a victim who comes to us for help, we have the potential to make them a victim again.”— Z.K.
New York Times Magazine, May 21 Architecture informs the life of a city with an immediacy unparalleled in other art forms, according to a piece that discusses the rancor over how to rebuild Ground Zero and other historical sites. War, disaster, and age necessitate a continuous rebuilding of cityscapes, which turns every Joe Schmo into an expert on structure and perspective. “Architecture … is a subject that is fraught with genuine conflict, and it seems to have acquired an extraordinary capacity to make all kinds of people extremely angry about issues that range from the most intensely personal to the most diffusely political,” writes the author. … The architecture issue also includes a conversation with Richard Rogers, who will be designing a high-rise at the World Trade Center site; a profile of an almost uninhabitable home; and an article about what happens when a couple of hot-shot Swiss architects try to build the Chinese stadium of the future.— M.M.
