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Fat Subsidies

By Julia TurnerUpdated Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2003, at 6:00 PM ET

Economist, Oct. 9
The cover story tackles CEOs who get paid too much when they're hired, and then take home generous golden parachutes to let them down easy when they're fired. In short, old news. But the magazine makes the case that bosses' pay is on the rise; while the average pay of a CEO in 1980 was 40 times that of the average construction worker, today it's "thought to be about 400" times higher. The Economist argues that shareholders must work to ensure that pay is "explicitly aligned with the long-term interests of the owners."

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New York Times Magazine New York Times Magazine, Oct. 12
Why are Americans obese? Michael Pollan blames farm subsidies. "When food is abundant and cheap," he writes, "people will eat more of it and get fat." Current agricultural policy has flooded the market with corn, which food conglomerates process into palatable products and dole out in heaping portions. (Pollan also recalls a similar glut, in the early 1800s, when Americans drank so much corn whiskey that the average workday included an 11 a.m. break, called "the elevenses," so employees could swig a nip.) … The cover story reports a largely unexplained pattern of illness among the country's urban poor. At unusually young ages, they suffer from a litany of diseases that suggest they're undergoing an "accelerated" aging process. … Matt Bai writes on a new Democratic think tank, the Center for American Progress, which seeks to develop a coherent political agenda from scratch. (Some Democrats wish the group would just come up with a coherent message.)

The New Yorker The New Yorker, Oct. 13
In a rare, if not unprecedented move, the magazine depicts a particular public figure on its cover: an implacable President Bush, with blinders on, riding an awfully leery-looking steed. … Elizabeth Kolbert profiles Hillary Clinton, suggesting that New York's junior senator has finagled a second shot at political success because she is much better at managing her own career than she was at furthering her husband's. Her celebrity allows her to adopt a strategy of utter humility—drafting small-change bills for New York, deferring to more senior members of the Senate, listening tirelessly to her constituents' concerns—without sacrificing any of the publicity that might prove crucial in future, possibly national, campaigns. … Cartoonists Aline and R. Crumb (hot off a style piece in the New York Times Magazine) offer a wry illustrated dispatch from New York's fashion week. Best line: "Seems impossible for this heel to support the weight of this ponderous leg." (Read Slate's dispatches from fashion's front lines.)

Outside, November 2003
What does it feel like to take performance-enhancing drugs? For eight months, Stuart Stevens downed a cocktail of human growth hormone, testosterone, EPO, and steroids. Ten hours into a 200-mile bicycle ride, Stevens reports, "All around me were riders—good, strong riders—who looked as worn out as you'd expect after ten hours in the saddle. I was tired, but I felt curiously strong, annoyingly talkative and fresh, eager to hammer the last 40 miles." The next day, he felt ready to ride another 200 miles. "It was a reassuring kind of world, and I could see why people might want to stay there." In the end, he comes down on the side of anti-dopers. Legalizing performance-enhancing drugs "would turn every sport into a test of how much damage an athlete was willing to risk."

Weekly Standard, Oct. 13
David Tell argues that Democratic front-runner Howard Dean is far from unstoppable: His support in Iowa may be tenuous, and his campaign, of late, has become "deliberately less interesting," touting itself and its own successes while ignoring substantive policy. Also, when he's critiqued, Dean tends to "cry foul" rather than disputing the accusations. Tell's conclusion: Since Dean could easily be overtaken by one of the Dems who's already in the running, there's no need for newcomer Wesley Clark to lace up his spikes. … The editorial advises President Bush to take charge of his suddenly foundering administration. He should fire whoever leaked Valerie Plame's name to the press and call her to apologize. He should also take the warring factions within his administration in hand "by strengthening the National Security Council's role in resolving intra-administration disputes. Perhaps a head or two has to roll." Condoleezza Rice had better look sharp.

Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 13
"Like knee-capping a hockey player." All three newsmagazines offer leak scandal wrap-ups that hit the basics: Joseph Wilson criticized the Bush administration for "twist[ing]" intelligence on Saddam's nuclear capacity, and then two administration officials leaked the identity of his wife, Valerie Plame, a covert CIA officer, to members of the press, possibly damaging her career and ongoing WMD investigations and endangering her contacts worldwide. (Both U.S. News and Time quote former CIA official Jim Marcinkowski's understatedly comparing this move to busting an athlete's kneecap.) Time emphasizes concerns about the impartiality of the Justice Department's investigation, noting that Attorney General John Ashcroft paid Karl Rove's consulting firm $746,000 during his campaigns. Newsweek: "It may be significant that both Rove and [Cheney aide I. Lewis] Libby deny leaking classified information"; either could now argue that they dropped Plame's name without knowing she worked undercover.

"The most powerful vice president in history." U.S. News runs a piece on Vice President Dick Cheney's unprecedented influence with President Bush. Noting that Cheney is a discreet adviser, trusted because he has no personal designs on the presidency, the story contends that the VP's confident conservatism may pull Bush to the right when voters would rather see him take centrist positions. The piece does not address Cheney's controversial corporate ties.

What about prom, Kobe? Newsweek puts Kobe Bryant's mug on its cover and digs up odd details from the Lakers star's "chaste" youth. His high-school girlfriend recalls a typical date: watching videos of Kobe on court. She also remembers how he ditched her on prom night for pop star Brandy, whom he'd met only once. The argument: Kobe's youth focused so exclusively on basketball that he became emotionally "stunted," which may be why he now faces a rape charge.

On synthetic synthetic fuel: Time reports an energy industry tax scam. Companies have raked in "more than $1 billion a year in energy-industry tax credits" designed to foster the development of synthetic fuels. Rather than developing them, "some plants merely spray newly mined coal with diesel fuel, pine-tar resin, limestone, acid or other substances" (so they can maintain that the coal's chemical composition has changed), sell it, and reap the tax benefits.