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Grim Tales

By Julia Turner
Updated Friday, Sept. 5, 2003, at 1:39 PM ET
Economist

Economist, Sept. 5
Things are looking a bit grim for President Bush in 2004. His poll numbers are low, and the two biggest obstacles to Bush's re-election—the lackluster economy and the increasing violence in Iraq—call for opposite solutions: To shore up the economy, Bush should curb public spending. But to shore up Iraq, Bush should dole out more money. … Also grim: The current situation in Myanmar, where Aung San Suu Kyi remains in custody and hasn't been seen by an outsider since July. The generals who rule the country announced last weekend that democracy is a top priority, but "any talk of restoring democracy is meaningless without the participation of Miss Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy." … Does flat-broke Berlin have too many opera houses? Maybe, but the city's sparsely attended operas do feature riskier artistic choices: One recent production included a singing, dancing Osama Bin Laden.

New York Times Magazine

New York Times Magazine, Sept. 7
Michael Ignatieff offers a breezy—occasionally windy—recap of historical American interventions abroad and then does his best to sort out a "coherent strategy of engagement." After taking a moment to excoriate Bush & Co. for offering misleading rationales for invading Iraq—if they'd simply explained that Saudi Arabia is no longer a reliable Middle Eastern ally and that we need to build a new one, the American public wouldn't mind this long and costly reconstruction—he concludes that what's needed is a reformed United Nations. The new United Nations should privilege human rights over state sovereignty, and an expanded Security Council should outlaw vetoes and make decisions by majority vote. … What seems intended to be an ominous photo survey of the vast, unmonitored stretches of our all-too-penetrable border with Canada doesn't get quite enough room to make its point. Crammed onto two pages, nine photos of desolate wilderness landscapes look like dinky patches of grass.

Time, U.S. News & World Report, and Newsweek

Time, U.S. News & World Report, and Newsweek, Sept. 8
Time's "What's Next?" cover promises "fearless forecasts" of the future and depicts a person of deranged affect and indeterminate gender gazing, like a cat with yarn, at a rather hokey-looking crystal ball. (This person is also Asian; it's unclear whether Time's editors view Asian as the most clairvoyant or most futuristic of ethnicities.) But the magazine's predictions are fairly mundane: Brad Pitt's Iliad will make a splash next year, two new Mars rovers will land, and air travelers may notice more sophisticated screening devices at local terminals. … Much funnier is Time's dead-on squib about "What's Always Next," the Jetsons-esque gadgets that tantalize but never materialize. Among these: jet packs and food in pill form.

On al-Qaida's Saudi and Pakistani allies: Time also recaps the "gripping" final chapter of Why America Slept, a new book by Gerald Posner. According to Posner, al-Qaida leader Abu Zubaydah, who was captured last year, was taken to "an Afghan complex fitted out as a fake Saudi jail chamber" where he was interrogated by Arab-Americans posing as Saudi investigators. Zubaydah, with evident "relief," rattled off phone numbers for a Saudi prince who might help him out (the owner of the Kentucky Derby-winning War Emblem) and asserted, among other things, that Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief had been channeling funds to Osama Bin Laden since 1991.

On tracking devices both creepy and useful: U.S. News issues a Big Brother alert, reporting on cell phones that can reveal your location to emergency dispatchers and divorce attorneys alike. Also noted: the use of EZ-Pass toll tags to monitor traffic flow up and down the highway, and GPS bracelets that notify parents of a kid's location.

On gender and autism: Newsweek's cover story reports that autism may result from "an imbalance between two kinds of intelligence: the kind used to understand people … and the kind used to understand things." Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen argues that women tend to be better empathizers, and men better at systemizing information—that may be why autism, which Baron-Cohen sees as a dearth of the former type of intelligence and a wealth of the latter, is more common in men.

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Julia Turner is Slate's deputy editor. You can e-mail her at .
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