Reason, July 2008 The cover story finds developed nations obsessed with the need to ramp up birthrates. Russia, Poland, Sweden, Australia, Singapore, and others are ready to shell out cash bonuses to parents. “As they have for hundreds of years, societies are projecting their deepest anxieties onto empty wombs.” The article fears that pro-natalist policies will foster new social welfare programs. “A dearth of pregnancies is evidence that protections for workers are too few, social welfare allowances too small, public school days too short, mandated maternity leave too limited. Women want to fulfill their natural roles as mothers, goes the assumption, but dog-eat-dog capitalism stands in the way.”… A column chronicles the rise of so-called “Ron Paul” Republicans, former Paul supporters who are running for national office this year. “The reception they are getting from their state parties ranges from warm embraces to Terminator-like efforts to destroy them. After a year of supporting a presidential candidate the party’s gatekeepers treated like a radioactive performance artist, the Paulites are used to ridicule.” Paul has endorsed only four of the candidates, afraid others might misinterpret his message.
Newsweek, June 23 Newsweek’s cover story warns against invoking Vietnam and Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement toward Munich to describe every modern foreign conflict and hypothesizes that in the general election, “[r]ather than trying to look tougher than McCain, Obama is going to argue that the familiar tropes—every dictator is Hitler, every negotiation is Munich—do not apply to the challenges facing the next president.”… Jon Meacham eulogizes his friend Tim Russert in another piece. “He was cajoling and charming, playing it straight, pushing others to be braver and bolder, all in the service of creating an interesting conversation about the things that matter most.” The article goes on to explain just how deeply his Catholicism informed his life—it was a nun in school who brought him to his profession, making him editor of the school’s non-existent newspaper. … A piece offers guidance to McCain—who was a top adviser to Bob Dole’s failed 1996 presidential campaign—on how to avoid Dole’s mistake of showing his age.
New York, June 23 The cover story argues that Hillary Clinton’s legacy has not been sullied by her drawn-out, often bitter primary battle with Barack Obama. She has become “iconic,” signing just her first name when giving autographs, like Madonna. Her transformation to “happy warrior” came after winning Ohio and Texas. With her victory speech that night, “Clinton had finally found a theme: the resilient fighter, the underdog, the victim. And with each successive contest, as the calls for her to fold grew louder … that theme only became sharper.”… A column by James Cramer, co-founder of TheStreet.com, examines Wall Street, which is smarting from the worst round of layoffs in at least 25 years. During a typical downturn, laid-off workers could simply find jobs at another firm. But with all firms slashing jobs, this recession is different. … A photo essay captures eerie white bicycles placed around Manhattan, “viral memorials” to cyclists killed around the city.
The New Yorker, June 23 Jon Lee Anderson files a dispatch from Venezuela, where he was given close access to President Hugo Chávez. Chávez took Anderson around the region on his private plane, including an impromptu visit to Cuba, where Raúl Castro met them on the tarmac. One Chávez political rival claims that Chávez’s long friendship with Fidel Castro has been a “moderating influence” upon him. While in power, Fidel was “a source for level-headed and pragmatic consultation for the younger man.”… A profile wonders if Keith Olbermann is changing the face of TV news by mixing news and commentary—Olbermann’s own view is that “the labored pretense of neutrality in the news business is a fruitless exercise.” From his office in NBC’s Rockefeller Plaza, Olbermann can see the headquarters of Fox News—the home of his conservative nemesis Bill O’Reilly. “Sometimes I imagine that I hear a howl coming from there,” Olbermann said.
Weekly Standard, June 23 The cover story compares Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Frederick Douglass, freedom fighters separated by 150 years who are both best known for “fleeing the culture they’d grown up in and entering another.” Hirsi Ali ran to the Netherlands to escape a forced marriage in Canada, while Douglass fled slavery for Massachusetts. “Both grappled with the meaning of human equality in difference, whether difference of race or difference of sex.”… A piece on Defense Secretary Robert Gates finds that he has transformed the Pentagon more in 18 months than his predecessor Donald Rumsfeld did in his five years there. “Gates’s larger purpose [is] to make the U.S. military focus on the war they’ve got rather than the war they’d like to have.” He is shifting the focus from Rumsfeld’s “rapid war” of airstrikes to the “irregular warfare” that ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan fight. … A piece decries a Dutch T-shirt with the image of a kaffiyeh-wearing Anne Frank, calling it “tantamount to killing her a second time.”
Portfolio, July 2008 The cover story profiles Starbucks’ “chief caffeinista,” Howard Schultz, who came back to the helm of the ailing company in July. Schultz wants to make sure its core product—espresso—is up to snuff. “This February, in a great theatrical stroke, Schultz closed more than 7,000 stores for three hours to allow 135,000 baristas to relearn—or learn—how to make decent espresso.”… An article says that smuggled American guns are arming Mexican drug traffickers. Close to 10,000 have been killed in Mexico’s drug war since 2001, and the ATF has traced more than 90 percent of weapons seized in Mexico to American sources. Those who sell the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels’ drugs in America purchase the guns for them, aided by lax gun laws in the American states bordering Mexico. “If you can trust a guy to sell your 50 kilos, you can trust him to get you 50 machine guns,” said a former gang investigator with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
