Economist, June 30 The cover story considers the “wounded” American psyche. Stretched-thin troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the menace of China on the horizon, and Americans’ own failing confidence in their government all generate “a sense of waning power.” But since America’s “last great strength” is the country’s ability to correct itself, the piece prophesies that the superpower will recover from this malaise.… A report on the opium trade focuses on Afghanistan’s Helmand province, which produces 92 percent of the world’s supply. The $3.1 billion trade accounts for one-third of the nation’s economy. In poverty-stricken Afghanistan, the lucrative opium market “rots any institution it touches.” Reports of police bribes and drug connections among government officials are prevalent, despite British and U.S.-led anti-drug efforts … An article predicts a “bumper-crop” of weddings for July 7, 2007 (7/07/07). Las Vegas chapels are offering marriage services as early as 12:30 a.m. to accommodate the number of couples wanting to exchange vows on the lucky date.— M.S.
Time, July 9 In the cover story, Rupert Murdoch talks about his plans for the Wall Street Journal— where it will fit in his media empire. The Journal bid is key for Murdoch’s corporation, especially with the upcoming launch of the Fox Business Channel, and he has an array of grand, vague ideas for its future. But the “restless septuagenarian” admits that he hasn’t plotted its course beyond “investing in a beefed-up Washington bureau and more foreign bureaus, the better to challenge the [ New York ] Times and the Washington Post.”… An article reveals that the volume of Chinese imports is “straining the capacity of U.S regulators to watch,” a situation highlighted by the recent recall of poisoned Chinese-manufactured toothpaste. Chinese safety standards are far below those of the United States, but with the FDA’s limited ability to inspect imports—the piece calls it a “tombstone agency” where “nothing happens unless someone dies”—the only way to ensure safety may be at the source—which might not happen any time soon.— D.S.
New York Times Magazine, July 1 An article looks at NASA’s attempts to use public competitions with large cash prizes (up to $2 million) to lure amateurs into developing better space technologies—from a more efficient astronaut’s glove to a new lunar lander. NASA is trying tap into America’s “great faith in the idea of the outside inventor” to revive its bureaucracy and bring space travel to the private sector. But competing mostly means costly failures and eking out modest improvements by a grueling “mechanical bartering,” the process of making fractional adjustments to the narrow and frustrating parameters of space gear. … An article looks at the growing interest in a Mayan doomsday prophecy forecasted for October 2012. Among believers, there is some question as to whether the date spells annihilation or re-birth, but for skeptics the real question seems to be, “how an obscure culturally circumscribed issue like the end date of one Mayan [calendar] could manage to gain such traction in the wider world.”— A.B.
New York, July 2 The summer issue highlights seasonal excitement—past and present—in the Big Apple. A piece examines how out-of-place New York hippies defined themselves during the 1967 Summer of Love. Grant Stoddard documents his journey to a deserted Brooklyn island, fighting mollusks, gagging on seaweed, and gaining “a fresh perspective on my own mortality.” And a summer music preview asks if Interpol’s highly anticipated third album, which runs the risk of “seeming beside the point,” can revive the fading New York rock scene. … Kurt Andersen calls the Iraq debate “kabuki theater,” with partisan arguments focusing on “comparatively minor, near-term details,” while the Democratic presidential candidates quibble over “inconsequential gotchas,” like who opposed the war first. “We only pretend to debate Iraq.” The truth is that we are responsible as a nation, Andersen argues, and we should stop denying our collective predicament.— D.S.
Texas Monthly, July The cover story profiles “killer nurse” Vickie Dawn Jackson, known in Nocona, Texas, as “the angel of death.” The deaths of 10 Nocona General Hospital patients racked the one-Dairy Queen town close to the Oklahoma border. Nurse Vickie murdered her patients with mivacurium chloride injections not because she was “a mercy killer” or suffering from the need to harm and then save her patients to gain approval from co-workers, according to law enforcement officials. One investigator says, “She [just] wanted people dead. Lots of people.”… An article follows the legal battle of Eva Rowe, who filed a $1.2 billion lawsuit in 2005 against British Petroleum. Rowe claims the energy company’s lax regulations at a Texas City plant caused an explosion that killed her parents. Documents from BP reveal a cost-benefit analysis of explosion prevention with this argument against increased regulation: “The big bad wolf blows with a frequency of once per piggy lifetime.”— M.S.
New Republic, July 2 Martin Peretz foretells the “bitter end” of Palestine *:”[T]he very idea of the nation is so weak that its violent eruptions seem to be dismal admissions of failure.” The factions are not directed by a sense of unity or “mature national will,” but by “rage” and “the bane of fanaticism.” Israel, Peretz argues, will not stand for attacks from the increasingly fragmented Palestinian state, especially from West Bank Arabs, whose aggression “would revive both the anxieties and military reflexes of the state and its population.”… An opinion piece takes to task “partisan scolds” who think that “rejecting party ties or ideology is synonymous with the demonstration of virtue.” Many of them are pushing for a bipartisan presidential ticket fronted by NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who recently jumped Republican ship. But, the piece posits, their “centrist” rhetoric is dubious: “They are moderate Democrats who don’t want to admit it.” And if Bloomberg had taken the “honest route” and turned to the Democrats, “he’d be condemned as a transparent opportunist.”— K.E.
Reason, July
The cover article examines how ‘60s hippie counterculture developed simultaneously with a revived generation of conservative Protestantism. Surprisingly, adherents of both lifestyles had much in common: They “sought firsthand spiritual experience,” “favored emotional intensity over intellectual rigor,” and “saw their spiritual lives as a refuge from a corrupt and corrupting world.” The two countercultures “left the peace of the ‘50s in ruins,” but no cultural consensus emerged to replace to it. The resulting synthesis is “an accidental byproduct of ideological stalemate” most sensibly called “libertarian.”… Through the lens of the 2001 Andrea Yates case, an article questions the role of psychiatry and neuroscience in court. The expert-witness testimony in the Yates trial “sounded more like literary criticism than medical science” and was no less speculative than the theories of CourtTV.com readers. The writer concludes that science connecting brain activity and behavior is sketchy at best, and brings us no closer to understanding why Yates drowned her children.—D.S.
Newsweek, July 2 Twenty years after E.D. Hirsch published the best-selling Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs To Know, a special report on “global literacy” finds that Americans are shaky on current events and display “general cultural confusion.” According to a Newsweek poll, 41 percent of Americans believe that “Saddam Hussein’s regime was directly involved in financing, planning or carrying out the terrorist attacks on 9/11,” and only 53 percent know that “Judaism is an older religion than both Christianity and Islam.” On the plus side, 65 percent of respondents know that soccer is the world’s most popular sport. … An article assesses Michael Bloomberg’s viability as an Independent presidential candidate. A billionaire who can finance his own campaign, Bloomberg has an impressive mayoral record: He banned smoking in bars and the use of trans fats in restaurants; he also “pushed aside the crony-ridden Board of Education.” Nevertheless, he’s a long-shot at best: He’s a divorcee, he “sometimes turns wooden behind a podium,” and he’d be the first Independent in the Oval Office.— J.L.
Weekly Standard, June 25 The Summer Reading issue doesn’t skimp on praise: A tardy review of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union declares that Michael Chabon is “the best writer of English prose in this country, and the most interesting novelist of his generation.”Hermione Lee’s long-anticipated Edith Wharton: A Biography is “as compulsively readable and as coherent in all its parts as Wharton’s best novels.” The runt of the litter is Elmore Leonard’s Up in Honey’s Room, which is too slow. Although Leonard’s die-hard fans “will and should” purchase the novel, first-timers would be better off with past works such as Get Shorty and Pagan Babies. … Ten years after the United Kingdom ceded Hong Kong to the Chinese, an article examines the territory’s political climate. On the one hand, Hong Kongers lack certain democratic staples such as universal suffrage. The mainland government controls the electoral system, and pro-Beijing candidates always win the general election. On the other hand, Hong Kongers enjoy an independent judiciary, right of assembly, freedom of religion, and little economic regulation. “In a small corner of this totalitarian system,” the author concludes, “a dim light of freedom still flickers.”— J.L.
Correction, June 26, 2007: This entry originally and incorrectly stated that the Martin Peretz feature in the New Republic was a cover story. ( Return to the corrected sentence.)
