HOME / other magazines: Summaries of what's in Time, Newsweek, etc.

Lawrence in ArabiaAn American reporter working in the "schizophrenic" Saudi kingdom.

By Josh LevinUpdated Friday, Jan. 2, 2004, at 12:09 PM ET

The New Yorker The New Yorker, Jan. 5, 2004
Lawrence Wright's tenure with a Saudi newspaper provided him countless opportunities for facing everything exasperating and surreal about Saudi Arabia. In this "schizophrenic society" in which censorship, repression, and depression are on a hyperbolic rise, the specter of the religious police, the muttawa'a (many of them ex-convicts who memorized the Quran in prison), looms large. The press's role as agent of reform is simply out of the question. … A heartbreaking article chronicles Cathleen Schine's stewardship of a mad, aggressive dog named Buster. Like a disturbed Vietnam vet, he was haunted by phantoms that deranged him and caused him to attack others—and himself—without warning or reason. Schine's relationships with people and with society suffered as she tried to figure out how to ease the dog's misery.—S.G.

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New York Times Magazine, Jan. 4, 2004
A rather disturbing flight-suited donkey fronts James Traub's piece on the foreign policy bugbear facing Democratic presidential candidates. While Dems have been perceived by some as weak-willed peaceniks since the Adlai Stevenson era, candidates like Howard Dean and John Kerry hold up John F. Kennedy as a talisman of the party's national security vigor. While still antiwar regarding Iraq, Dean says he wants to "get around the president's right, as John Kennedy did to Nixon," which includes a desire to "outflank him to the right on homeland security, on weapons of mass destruction and on the Saudis." … Susan Dominus profiles Anne Wood, the business-savvy, eccentric creator of Brit kiddie-TV exports the Teletubbies. The 65-year-old Wood's newest show, Boohbah, which at least one enthralled critic suggests should be nominated for the Turner Prize, features five multicolored, Grimace-like "creatures who mew, ping and emit flatulent noises" and perform aerobics to "catchy electronica."

Mother Jones Mother Jones, January-February 2004
Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest's story on the Bush administration's "lie factory" sounds a familiar horn: Neoconservatives wanted to invade Iraq and were willing to cherry-pick intelligence to get there. The story, which focuses mainly on the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans and another unnamed "secret intelligence unit" within the Pentagon, does include a cute neologism—"Feith-based intelligence"—and a handy chart for conspiracy theorists, with lots of colored arrows connecting the Defense Policy Board, Office of Net Assessment, American Enterprise Institute, et al. ... Mark Dowie reports on Dr. Stuart Newman's quest to patent a chimera, a biological hybrid of two or more distinct species. Newman, who actually opposes the creation of such mythical beasts, hurt his chances with the Patent Office by declaring that he just wants to play defense against biotech firms who might create, say, "soldiers with armadillolike shielding" or "quasi-human astronauts."

Popular Science Popular Science, January 2004
In search of long-lost relatives, Rebecca Skloot goes online to get her DNA tested and finds she has 81 "genetic cousins." Or maybe not. Most scientists say tests on mitochondrial DNA, which everyone gets from their mother, are more likely to reveal anthropological roots than genealogical ones. Plus tests that promise to reveal, say, if you have Viking genes detract from the real scientific import of genetic testing. … Paul Horrell pops the hood on the Bugatti Veyron, a luxury car that delivers the holy grail of engines: 1,000 horsepower. There is one big glitch, though. This ultra-high-end ride, which supposedly goes from zero to 186 in 14 seconds and carries a $1.2 million price tag, spun out during an August demo in California. The biggest challenge, a Bugatti engineer says, is making sure that "the car doesn't fly."

Wired Wired, January 2004
Wendy Goldman Rohm reports on an embryo laboratory's attempt at human cloning. Advanced Cell Technology, which wants to harvest stem cells, not implant cloned embryos and grow them to term, may not be close to "the making of a human clone," as the magazine's cover suggests, but the project is still top secret. After a week, one scientist exults about a 16-cell "beautiful compacting morula," the stage at which "genes become functional," then refuses further updates on the nascent embryo's status. ... Joshua Davis reports from the "Wild West" of science—the wild, and hopefully woolly, world of hair regeneration. Scientists are experimenting with follicular neogenesis, in which hair follicle cells are cultured, then injected into the scalps of human patients. The success rate is limited so far, but with money pouring into the field, some are talking about Nobel Prizes and using the technology to regenerate organs and limbs.