Time, April 16 The cover piece analyzes the Army’s logistical woes. The Army has found itself “under the greatest strain in a generation,” deploying half its combat brigades and readying much of the remainder for redeployment, often after abbreviated breaks.” Recruiters meet goals by offering more waivers than ever for applicants with criminal records, medical problems, and low test scores. Still, some units enter the field one-third empty, stuck with battered equipment left over from the last brigade and staffed with prematurely promoted officers. … An article explains the success of American Idol. The television show has lasted through six increasingly popular seasons, buoyed by its audience appeal: Viewers love the triumphant narratives embodied by Idol contestants and welcome “the idea that the nicest people are the most talented, promising karmic justice in a pop world of Ashlee Simpsons and Paris Hiltons.”— P.G.
Economist, April 7 The cover piece examines multinational corporations emerging from the Third World. Companies like India’s Tata Steel and Hindalco—which, combined, have bought foreign companies worth a total of $10.7 billion this year—are siphoning local talent from Western multinationals. These new rival corporations force established global firms to invest more tactfully and to foster innovation. The result: “[C]onsumers, wherever they are, will gain from the contest.”… Another piece paints Iran’s recent seizure of 15 British sailors as an indicator of America’s declining influence in the Middle East. “Though nobody would welcome an Iranian atomic bomb, not all countries agree that Iran’s nuclear programme is the clear and present danger the Americans say it is.” The article proposes that the United States seek compromise with Iran, provided that Iran ends its nuclear weapons ambitions and compromises on Palestine. Doing so “might even help to swing the argument in Tehran the right way.”—S.W.
New York Times Magazine, April 8
The cover article profiles Pope Benedict XVI, whose papacy has “largely disarmed the left wing of the church.” Benedict, formerly nicknamed “God’s rottweiler” for his hard-line “doctrinal correctness,” has been a softer, gentler pope than many expected. His “emphasis has been less on railing against the Catholic evils of abortion and birth control than on occupying the safe high ground: peace in Iraq, religious freedom, confronting poverty.” But Benedict’s primary target is European secularism, which threatens to leave “the splendor and majesty of the Western tradition reduced to a geriatric, art-filled echo chamber.”… A piece explores the business of creating television for tweens, a demographic loosely defined as kids ages 8 to 12. The group is “an economically fertile territory”: Nickelodeon made $800 million off sales to tween-focused advertisers last year. Creating programming to capture their attention—and dollars—“boils down to a bunch of adults trying to figure out what kids will like—a question that stays refreshingly elusive, even when the adults have M.B.A.’s.”— P.F.
New York, April 9 The cover story assesses the worth of narcissistic bosses. Studies suggest that the charisma attendant to self-centeredness propels narcissists up the office hierarchy. But “once he is the boss, the narcissist often sees the job as a stepping-stone to the next one,” stunting his effectiveness as a manager. Still, egomania has a plus for the bottom line: Hiring practices and workplace interaction weed out nonconforming personalities, and “[t]he narcissist’s selfishness, ethical blindness, and lack of empathy [are] indispensable to being an agent of change”… An article highlights the contradictions between state and federal law when addressing child prostitution. The federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 would have shielded 13-year-old Lucilia had she been “a 13-year-old Chinese girl smuggled to New York and made to work in a Queens brothel.” The Brooklyn-born adolescent bounced between family members’ homes until a pimp used threats of violence and promises of protection to coerce her into prostitution. But when police arrested her in 2004 under state anti-prostitution laws, Lucilia wound up in juvenile detention.— P.G.
Texas Monthly, April 2007 The cover article compiles anecdotes from real-life Texas Rangers. More than 100 men (and one woman) currently make up the state’s “elite investigative force.” Adaptability has saved the Rangers from being ornamental or anachronistic. Rangers still saddle up, and many carry the traditional Colt .45, but a “typical day looks more like CSI than The Lone Ranger.” The transition to modern crime-fighting hasn’t been entirely smooth. One Ranger recalls being issued a laptop but admits, “I used mine as a doorstop.” … An article profiles Bob Perry, “the nation’s largest individual political donor,” who is also “as mysterious as some of the groups he funds.” One such group was the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, to which Perry gave $4.5 million. Critics lump him in with “a cabal of wealthy donors” who are turning politics into a mudslinging contest. Friends and associates paint a more positive picture—a man who gives generously based on nonpartisan principles, never asks for favors, and who, the article’s title says, “needs a hug.”— P.F.
American Prospect, April 2007 The cover story debunks the adulation among Democrats for fiscal policy go-to guy Robert Rubin. Rubin’s advice to key Democratic politicos often exhibits conflicts of interest, as when the Citigroup chair pushed for the repeal of commercial bank regulations. But Democrats excuse Rubin of any misdeeds, crediting him with kick-starting the prosperity of the 1990s (which the author attributes instead to globalization and the computer revolution). … An article argues that contemporary economists have become oblivious to globalization and outsourcing. Studies of power-consolidating corporate behemoths’ impact on pricing and employment fell out of favor with the rise of the well-funded Chicago School, which depicted a level economic landscape. Since then, the “real world” of economics “is the world that existed in mid-20th-century America.” But the ascendance of Wal-Mart and Dell signals a new form of hierarchy that defies free-market assumptions, and the once-prized notion of global specialization has become unsustainable in practice.— P.G.
The New Yorker, April 9 A profile of former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz shows a man ever at the center of controversy. Besides being “indelibly associated with the decision to invade Iraq,” Wolfowitz has come under fire for his leadership of the World Bank. Staffers complain that he “has been averse to making decisions, slow at filling vacancies, and unwilling or unable to lay out a strategy for the bank, beyond battling corruption.” Even Wolfowitz’s anti-corruption campaign has its critics, who claim he is using the bank to play politics—selectively suspending aid to certain countries while “expanding the bank’s activities in places where the United States and its allies have intervened militarily.”… An article details the ongoing debate over juvenile bipolar disorder. Between 1990 and 2000, the percentage of children diagnosed with the disorder has “increased more than fourfold.” More diagnoses mean more kids are being prescribed potent psychiatric drugs, which can cause obesity, diabetes, and liver failure. Says one concerned psychiatrist, “we are going to have hell to pay in terms of side-effects.”— P.F.
Weekly Standard, April 9-16 The first in a pair of Republican presidential candidate-themed cover stories examines frontrunner Rudy Giuliani’s mixed-bag platform. Giuliani supports the expected welfare overhauls and “tough, intense interrogation” techniques against terrorists. Paradoxically, he advocates gun restrictions and “domestic partnerships” for same-sex couples. But his comfort in “taking out positions at the further points of the ideological spectrum” stems from his mayoral attempts to transform New York into a socially mobile “city of aspiration,” making him “the most economically libertarian presidential candidate since the doomed campaign of Phil Gramm.”… The second cover story assesses John McCain’s prospects for a Republican nomination. Despite the de facto Republican tradition of nominating the most senior hopeful, McCain now trails Giuliani in the polls. His chief stumbling block: the conservative base, whose trust he shattered with campaign-finance reform. But McCain is bouncing back, and can stay afloat as long as he avoids courting the media, scraps his “maverick” image, and leads his party by steadfastly backing the Iraq war.— P.G.
Newsweek, April 9 In the cover article, Newsweek columnist and senior editor Jonathan Alter details his battle against blood cancer. The recurrence of cancer in Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow has brought the subject into national conversation, but Alter claims that “for all the new openness about cancer, sick people still get sidelined.” Competition among oncologists results in an unwillingness to collaborate with fellow researchers, slowing progress toward curing the disease. Alter reveals, “I also found oncology full of the same mammoth egos and petty jealousies that plague any high-powered field.”… Another piece describes the U.S. troop surge in Iraq as a “chicken-and-egg conundrum of security and development.” In order for the surge to prove successful, U.S. and Iraqi troops must obtain the cooperation of civilians by securing the country for reconstruction and generating more jobs. But the fact that planting IEDs for insurgent militias is the most lucrative job in Baghdad makes both security and development in the country unlikely.—S.W.
