(posted Tuesday, Dec. 17)
"The Cancer Killer" cover story focuses on p53, a gene that prevents cancerous cells from multiplying. Malfunctioning of p53 may cause as much as 60 percent of all cancer, so scientists are seeking ways to prevent the gene from breaking down. A sidebar predicts that genetic testing by employers and insurers could be "the civil rights issue of the 21st century." Also, "Gore's World" argues that the vice president is "laying the groundwork for 2000" by stocking the new administration with allies. And, the magazine profiles figure-skating champion Ekaterina Gordeeva, who has returned to the ice a year after the sudden death of her husband/skating partner.
(posted Tuesday, Dec. 17)
Time's "Best of 1996" names The English Patient and Big Night its favorite movies; EZ Streets and Seinfeld make the list for TV; musicians, Cassandra Wilson and the Fugees; athletes, Tiger Woods and Kerri Strug; Web sites, Salon and amazon.com. Also, Time wonders whether welfare reform will overwhelm America's day-care industry. And, an article on Sears' comeback.
(posted Tuesday, Dec. 17)
U.S. News goes " In Search of Christmas" and finds a mess. The holiday was invented in the third or fourth century as a way of co-opting the Roman solstice festival Saturnalia (the first Christians didn't celebrate Xmas). Christmas remained a drunken, raucous celebration until the mid-19th century, when American merchants helped turn it into a gift-giving holiday. Also, a trio of articles about affirmative action. One explains how a recent Supreme Court decision is gutting affirmative action in university admissions. Another praises the military's affirmative-action policies.
(posted Tuesday, Dec. 17)
The annual fiction issue. The centerpiece is an Alice Munro novella. Don DeLillo contributes a short story about J. Edgar Hoover at a masked ball. Several writers offer short appreciations of food; Salman Rushdie sings the praise of leavened bread. Other highlights are a biography of eccentric travel writer Bruce Chatwin, and TheNew Yorker's traditional holiday poem ("Why, here's Joe Torre, summer Santa,/Bearing presents from Atlanta").
(posted Tuesday, Dec. 17)
The cover story mulls "The Feminization of America," finding that women have become America's dominant class, largely because they're fickle. Politicians and advertisers court them because they are easier to sway than men. (It's the triumph of difference feminism, sort of.) An article condemns the Rehnquist Supreme Court for pampering criminals. The editorial condemns the Clinton administration for pampering China.
(posted Friday, Dec. 13)
The " Neocon v. Theocon" cover story analyzes the growing fissure between neoconservatives who believe America's government works pretty well, and religious conservatives who believe it is an illegitimate "regime" that violates God's laws (especially those laws concerning abortion and homosexuality). The Weekly Standard put the same subject on the cover several weeks ago. TNR's new twist to the debate is blaming neocons for bringing this anti-American revolt on themselves by enlisting theocons into the conservative movement. Also, a funny article slams the Center for Science in the Public Interest, whose "public interest" seems to be destroying all the pleasure of eating. And TNR reprints poet Wislawa Szymborska's Nobel acceptance speech: She explains how hard it is to explain poetry.
(posted Friday, Dec. 13)
The Economist discusses a favorite and thoroughly opaque topic, the European Monetary Union (EMU). The lead article argues that a German-proposed "stability pact" regulating EMU eligibility is flawed. The accompanying editorial agrees, adding that the pact could destroy currency union forever if it's not fixed. A story examines the computer monopoly of--surprise, surprise--IBM: Big Blue still holds 83 percent of the mainframe market. It's friendlier to competitors than Microsoft, and rivals seem to be eroding its domination. Also, an immense survey of Spain: The EMU is considered at length.
(posted Friday, Dec. 13)
Vanity Fair offers a new spin on the feud between Rupert Murdoch and Time Warner/Ted Turner. The magazine reports that Time Warner promised a Manhattan cable channel to both Murdoch's Fox News and MSNBC, but then Turner reneged on the deal with Fox because he feared that two new news channels would threaten CNN's franchise. Also, JFK mistress Judith Campbell Exner claims that Kennedy impregnated her in 1962, then had mobster Sam Giancana arrange an abortion. A profile sympathizes with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, and a stupendously complicated article tries to explicate the Rothschild dynasty's troubles. Goldie Hawn is on the cover; inside, she poses in a gold bodysuit.
(posted Friday, Dec. 13)
In "Prisoner of War," a combat correspondent who has reported from Chechnya, Uganda, Sri Lanka, and Beirut offers an impressionistic essay explaining the lure of battle. A professor of African-American studies contends that Kwanzaa's "paltry, contrived symbols" don't do justice to the story of black America (For S LATE's account of Kwanzaa, see " The Gist.") And a review condemns a book about T.S. Eliot's anti-Semitism, denouncing the "deeply conservative desire to bring all cultural expression into harmony with the moral conventions of our day."
(posted Thursday, Dec. 12)
The cover story, based on a survey of 32 historians, ranks the presidents of the United States. Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who conducted the poll, finds few surprises: Washington, Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt top the list; Buchanan, Grant, Hoover, Nixon, and others pull up the rear; and all presidents since Nixon are clumped in the middle. Schlesinger counsels Clinton that he can improve his ranking for posterity by embarking on a grand project, such as national education reform (hasn't Bill already tried that?). Also, an article details the strange academic feud over whether Melville beat his wife. And, a conservative scholar argues that America should use force to stop starvation and slaughter in distant lands.
--Compiled by David Plotz and the editors of S LATE.