Mother Jones, September/October 2008 As part of a cover package on fixing the Bush administration’s mistakes, a piece by James K. Galbraith explains that the high cost of fuel and food can’t be merely explained by simple laws of supply and demand. Instead, much of the blame should be placed on speculators and lawmakers like Phil Gramm, who enabled the rising prices. Fixing the price woes, Galbraith says, is fairly simple: Close the loopholes opened during Enron’s salad days, intensify criminal investigation into speculation, and “impos[e] limits for all traders on how much they can buy or sell.”… A quirky piece looks at “gospel magicians” who aren’t deterred by fellow Christians who call Harry Potter the work of the devil. Rather, the magicians see their work as a way to promote Christianity: “Mind-reading trick may illustrate God’s omniscience; an escape-artist routine reminds audiences that they can break free of sin; an illusion in which three black rings explode into color is a metaphor for what it’s like to suddenly see the light.”
New York Times Magazine, Aug. 31 The cover story examines President Bush’s final days, painting a picture of a man increasingly obsessed by his legacy while increasingly ignored by the public and media. Despite their well-chronicled friction, John McCain became more empathetic toward Bush when “the establishment figure from 2000 had become a lonely maverick in his own right.” McCain adviser Mark Salter says, “You feel bad for the guy, if you think about it.”… A piece on pregnancy-associated cancer notes that the estrogen changes associated with pregnancy may increase the risk of cancer, with risk “heightened in the 2 to 10 years following childbirth” and a doubled chance of death from breast cancer in the two years following pregnancy. Childbearing-related cancer occurs in 1 of every 1,000 pregnancies.
Texas Monthly, September 2008 The cover story is a fascinating profile on T. Boone Pickens, Texas oilman-turned-wind man in those ubiquitous energy ads. After a net-worth nosedive in the late ‘90s, Pickens’ wealth is now up to $4 billion. With significant investments in renewable energy, he’s poised to grow that wealth but wants to enact governmental change as well—although he’s “the guy, after all, who in 2004 helped fund the campaign by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to discredit John Kerry—Boone is suddenly acting like the greenest of Democrats.”… A collection of letters from a man who avoided execution five times offers excruciatingly vivid details of life on death row. He writes of the rats fellow prisoners adopt as pets, the prison guards who sell sex, and the recreational area that looks “like a cage at the zoo for gorillas.”
Economist, Aug. 30 A “briefing” on John McCain notes that although Democrats enjoy more support than Republicans, McCain is running nearly even with Obama: “[P]art of the credit for the way Mr McCain outperforms his party must go to Mr McCain himself. The piece says that although his speaking style is rough (speechwriters hand him “elegant texts that he stumbles through like a man of homely tastes choking on nouvelle cuisine”), voters respond to the air of sincerity he exudes. …” Fiscally, the magazine approves of his general platform but wishes he had greater economic fluency and had remained a fiscal “straight-talker.”… A piece puzzles out why Iraq war films have largely fizzled in the United States, concluding that there hasn’t yet been an actor cast in them whose star power outweighs the nation’s unwillingness to be depressed at the theater. The public is still searching for the new John Wayne who can make thinking about the conflict palatable.
Time, Sept. 8 John McCain gives an interview that the magazine diplomatically labels “prickly” but teeters over the line to rude. In one exchange, Time asks, “There’s a theme that recurs in your books and your speeches, both about putting country first but also about honor. I wonder if you could define honor for us?” McCain’s response: “Read it in my books. I’ve read your books. No, I’m not going to define it. But honor in politics? I defined it in five books. Read my books.”… In an accompanying piece on McCain’s wife, “Mrs. Maverick,” is polite enough for both of them, silkily spinning the upside of her husband’s time in Washington: “I felt like we saw more of him by living out in Arizona because when he was home, he was dedicated to us.”… A contrarian piece makes the case that Republican ideology might actually come out ahead if McCain loses in November, since a President McCain would be forced into bipartisan compromise, making it impossible to advance a conservative agenda.
Must Skip
Texas Monthly has a rambling piece that purports to be about Tony Romo, but turns out to be only tangentially about the Jessica Simpson-dating star. The piece, a trip down memory lane, devolves into a discussion of “Dallas Cowboys quarterbacks I have known”—skip unless you’re a hard-core Dallas fan.
Must Read
In the New York Times Magazine, Christopoher Caldwell (Disclosure: His daughter Lucy Morrow Caldwell is a Slate intern) frames November’s presidential election as a philosophical referendum on what sort of relationship the United States wants to establish with the rest of the world post-Iraq.
Best Political Piece
In the Atlantic, former Jimmy Carter speechwriter James Fallows examines the 2008 presidential primary debates and concludes that John McCain is not a particularly skilled debater but will push for town hall forums where he’ll do better in an informal setting; Obama, Fallows says, needs to recapture the” speed, aggressiveness, and swagger” he displayed during his Illinois senatatorial campaign against Alan Keyes.
Best Culture
New Yorker scribe Patricia Marx examines Manhattan shoe shopping as a cultural practice, telling the reader where to buy everything from a $1,450 pair with “a crinkly satin flower detail and a five-inch heel shaped like a thorn” to kicks made with “recycled innersoles (ewwww!)” She also catalogs shoes by profession: “[S]urgeons like clogs, but internists prefer rich-looking loafers.”
Best Line
During a 50-state wine taste test, Joel Stein decides to sample the spit bucket and hits upon a replacement for the melting pot metaphor: “I thought it tasted like America. It was sweet, funky, simple, aggressive and not as bad as you’d been led to believe.”
