 |
Newsweek, Dec. 2
(posted Monday, Nov. 25)
Two weeks ago, it was a statement: The New York Times Magazine declared "The End of AIDS." This week, it's a question: Newsweek asks, "The End of AIDS?" The cover package is skeptical but hopeful, delivering (now-familiar) vignettes of dying folks revived by new drugs ("the Lazarus effect"), but cautioning that the treatments are expensive and may not be effective over the long haul. (For SLATE's similar take, see "AIDS Isn't Over.") A feature on Whitewater investigator Kenneth Starr, "The Most Dangerous Man in Washington," says he's closing in on new indictments. Starr is interviewed, but gives away nothing. Also, the "Microsoft Century": Newsweek predicts that Microsoft will take over the world (or at least your car, house, and wallet). An interviewer asks Bill Gates what would happen if he "[got] hit by a truck."
 |
|
|
 |
Time, Dec. 2
(posted Monday, Nov. 25)
O.J. Simpson is on the stand and on the cover. Time concurs with the popular view that his Friday testimony was a draw: O.J. kept his cool, but the plaintiffs' attorney made his denials look ridiculous. A sidebar dishes dirt: O.J.'s gaining weight; he's going broke; no one is offering him work (see Harry Shearer's latest installment in SLATE). A long feature details the investigation of accused spy Harold Nicholson. His family believes he's too "spiritual" to be a double agent. Also, a kissy-kissy profile of Hillary Clinton says she will play a formal role in welfare reform. It also comments that the 49-year-old first lady, whose daughter leaves for college next fall, has entered "a vulnerable age. ... The encroachments of passing time become harder to ignore."
|
|
|
 |
The New Yorker, Dec. 2
(posted Monday, Nov. 25)
The New Yorker, whose 1992 story on Ebola invented the genre of Biological Horror Story (BHS), offers a new tale of terror. It recounts the British outbreak of mad-cow disease and wonders how the disease leapt to humans. The story has all the required elements of BHS: a gory, unstoppable illness (complete with disorientation, brain lesions, and horrible, inevitable death); a disease agent that baffles and frightens scientists (the "prion"); a human villain (the British agriculture board, which suppresses investigation of the disease); and a warning about a possible epidemic. It'll put you off McDonald's for weeks. Also, Alger Hiss' son eulogizes his father: He talks a lot about Hiss' love of literature; not one word about the No. 1 issue of Hiss' life. And, an article complains that economics has become too mathematical for regular folks to understand. (For a debate on the same subject, see SLATE's "Who's the Real Economist?")
|
|
|
 |
U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 2
(posted Monday, Nov. 25)
A slow week. The cover story concludes that computers can help in the classroom. (U.S. News' non-insight: It's not the computers, it's how they're used.) The magazine declares that humanitarian aid caused the Rwanda crisis: This position, which the New Republic staked out several weeks ago, has now become the conventional wisdom. An article speculates that sports trading cards indoctrinate kids into gambling. And, a story pegged to the movie 101 Dalmatians argues that Dalmatians are anxious, temperamental, and stupid.
|
|
|
 |
National Review, Dec. 9
(posted Monday, Nov. 25)
The post-election "Recriminations Issue" recriminates. Articles blame: Bob Dole (disastrous), the Dole campaign (disorganized), Democrats (dishonest), Al D'Amato (disloyal), Jack Kemp (disappointing), and many others. Also, a libertarian take on race: Dinesh D'Souza declares that America should not only scrap affirmative action, it should also permit private discrimination. William F. Buckley Jr. slaps the New York Times for equivocating about Alger Hiss' guilt (see The Nation, below). And, a woman columnist wonders if women deserve the right to vote: "Women lack an objective point of view and have not the inclination or ability to weigh and dissect dispassionately." Translation: They voted for Clinton.
|
|
|
 |
The Nation, Dec. 9
(posted Monday, Nov. 25)
The Nation makes the case for rudeness. The cover story bemoans the current rage for civility, calling it the new weapon of class warfare. Civility is just an excuse to get the poor, dispossessed, etc., to stop complaining and accept their lot gracefully. Also, The Nation--surprise, surprise--defends Alger Hiss, and slaps the New York Times for being too critical of him (see the National Review, above). And, an article alleges that the United States sanctioned South Korea's brutal 1980 crackdown on student protesters.
|
|
|
 |
Atlantic, December 1996
(posted Monday, Nov. 25)
The cover story searches for Jesus, chronicling a debate among New Testament scholars about whether there was a pre-Gospel Gospel--dubbed "Q"--that contained Jesus' original sayings. The nub: If Q existed, Jesus was a hippie sage, not the Messiah. Also, an article celebrates the military as the perfect communitarian society: It offers order, security, universal health care, and, of course, authoritarianism. The piece frets that defense-budget cutbacks will weaken the military safety net.
|
|
|
 |
Weekly Standard, Dec. 2
(posted Monday, Nov. 25)
An abortion cover, with a twist. "Eugenics, American Style" condemns the medical establishment for promoting the abortion of Down syndrome babies. Although children born with Down syndrome can now live relatively normal lives, doctors routinely encourage fetal screening to identify Down syndrome, and then counsel mothers to abort afflicted fetuses. The next step, the articles warns, will be starving retarded newborns to death, a practice common in the Netherlands. Also, an article gloats that the Republicans who lost key congressional races were moderates, not conservatives. So much for Weld/Whitman in 2000. And, the editorial maintains that Clinton was right to continue the Bosnia mission, wrong to have deceived America about it for the last year.
|
|
|
 |
New Republic, Dec. 9
(posted Friday, Nov. 22)
An O.J. opus on the cover. It reaches a familiar conclusion, "The Triumph of Color Over Justice," but only after an unfamiliar journey. The argument is that Johnnie Cochran's LAPD-conspiracy defense embodied all the awful qualities of "critical race theory"--a school of legal thought that esteems the social suffering of blacks more than facts or the rule of law. The jury's "racist nullification" in the O.J. trial, it concludes, undermines justice just like white Southern juries until the 1950s. Also, an article claims that Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin struck a secret pre-election deal with the Japanese to bolster the dollar against the yen. And a story condemns American conservatives' new love affair with Asian dictatorships.
|
|
|
 |
Economist, Nov. 23
(posted Friday, Nov. 22)
The Economist frets about Clinton's second-term foreign policy. The cover editorial and lead story warn against the just-in-time policy of the last four years: The United States needs "consistent" policy about China, Russia, weapons proliferation, etc. The top business article wonders why Microsoft has dived headlong into the media business, since MSNBC, MSN, and, of course, SLATE, are going to lose huge sums for years. (The Economist's answer: Subscriptions, unlike software sales, are steady, renewable income.) Also, a long survey on European business efficiency: It's not an oxymoron anymore.
|
|
|
 |
New York Times Magazine, Nov. 24
(posted Thursday, Nov. 21)
Having celebrated sports heroines in a special Olympic issue last summer, the Times Magazine expands its reach to include the entire second sex, with a special issue titled "Heroine Worship." The introduction waxes eloquent about female icons: "The pantheon to house the women in our minds is getting crowded." Mostly, it exalts the usual suspects--Eleanor Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Martha Graham, Mae West, Babe Zaharias--but the tone is less stiff than the headline suggests. Wendy Wasserstein muses on "Princess Brides" (Grace, Diana, and--in a stretch--Carolyn Bessette); Twiggy and Naomi Campbell each get dissed; an article venerates hair-goddesses Farrah (Fawcett) and Jennifer (Aniston). There is the requisite quota of celebrity contributors: Roseanne Cash on Patsy Cline; Lauren Bacall on Katharine Hepburn; Jessye Norman on Marian Anderson; etc. Imagine Esquire's "Women We Love" issue, only thoughtful and written by women. Mercifully absent from the magazine: Madonna, Roseanne, and "soccer moms."
--Compiled by David Plotz and the editors of SLATE.
|
|
|
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
other magazines
News & Politics
Facebook
MySpace
Mixx
Digg
Reddit
del.icio.us
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Sphere
StumbleUpon
PRINT
DISCUSS
E-MAIL
PostPartisan: The Debate
