Economist, May 28 France and the Netherlands are expected to vote “no” in an upcoming referendum on the E.U. constitution. Noting that economic worries probably have more to do with the negativity than actual dislike for the constitution, the cover article points out that the constitution won’t change much about the European economy. However, “an accurate criticism of the change envisaged by the constitution is that it is highly ambiguous, not to say bewildering; it will transfer some more power away from national governments and to the EU, but with effects of which no one can be at all sure.” And a defeat won’t be calamitous: “a Union that has lasted for almost half a century is surely strong enough to deal with the occasional rebuff from voters.”… Another piece asserts that China’s ascent “as the ultimate one-stop textiles shop” can’t be stopped, despite the efforts of the European Union and the United States.—B.B.
New Republic, June 6 A top education adviser to the Kerry campaign, Robert Gordon, urges Democrats to stop bashing the No Child Left Behind Act because “this is the sort of law liberals once dreamed about.” He criticizes President Bush for overemphasizing testing standards and notes, “[A]s talented women have moved on to other professions, teacher quality has declined.” He emphasizes that the government should seek out and retain better teachers, and that liberals should come up with creative ways to reform the act. … In a review of the exhibit “Rembrandt’s Late Religious Portraits,” Jed Perl insists, “Nowhere else in art is there such a strong sense that reflection is a form of action. These are the most disquietingly, intensely, insistently philosophical paintings that have ever been done.”… This issue also includes “Checklist,” a poem by Slate editor Meghan O’Rourke.—B.B.
Radar, Summer 2005
Radar magazine, which went defunct after two issues in 2003, is back because “at a time when many publications serve up a saccharine diet of celebrities and luxury goods, we wanted to create a publication that reflects how our readers really live.” Hmm. Actually, the magazine is brimful of celebrity gossip (Kevin Federline totally mispronounces “paparazzi” as “pazzarati!” The Desperate Housewives might be hooked on hoodia, an appetite suppressant favored by Bushmen!). Then there’s a watered-down version of the Atlantic’s index, and the guy on a $100 budget who recreated the Damien Hirst sculpture involving a 14-foot tiger shark in a formaldehyde tank, which sold for $8 million—and who is auctioning it for $80,000. And, to top it all off, the magazine offers a guide for talentless hacks who want to become famous (note to wannabe alt-rock sellouts: “Pick uncool name. … Start by looking around your kitchen: the Sponges, the Decanters. Throw in orthographic tricks or dates: Trivet 1985, HAND/T.O.W.E.L.”).—B.B.
Rolling Stone, June 2 Described as “one of the most skillful human-rights investigators of his time,” Peter Bouckaert’s job as a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch is to race around the globe documenting atrocities occurring in “the world’s hellholes … at their worst.” Bourkaert’s “Indiana Jones” style of investigating has shaken up the movement and some colleagues find fault in his style, saying,”The rights abuses are supposed to be the story … not us.” But Bourkaert’s efforts helped landed Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic at The Hague and played a role in President Clinton’s decision to intervene in Kosovo. … In May, Audioslave became the first American rock act to perform in Cuba since Billy Joel nearly 26 years ago. About 50,000 Cubans heard a 26-song performance at Havana’s Anti-Imperialist Plaza. Lead singer Chris Cornell, initially indifferent to the visit, left the country with a change of heart. “You can’t come here and not feel shame at being an American.”—Z.K.
New York Review of Books, June 9
With a close reading of the Downing Street Memo, which documents a closed-door meeting of senior British officials in July 2002, an essay suggests that appeals to the United Nations in the buildup to the Iraq war were intended to legalize military action, not avert it. The conversion of the administration to the “U.N. route” was not, the essay argues, Colin Powell’s chief political accomplishment or his most costly credibility gamble, but the predictable product of British unwillingness to cooperate in what would otherwise have been an extralegal offensive. Efforts to discredit the empty-handed inspectors, the essay suggests, were right out of Joseph Goebbels’ playbook. … In an essay on “The Case of Theresa Schiavo,” Joan Didion argues that advocates on both sides misrepresented Schiavo’s fate as a political question concerning personal “choice.” The political grandstanding, she writes, obscured the essential moral dilemmas: “the different ways in which we define a life worth living,” and whether “the broad economic and ethical interests of the society at large should outweigh any individual claim to either the most advanced medical attention … or indefinite care.”—D.W.W.
New York Times Magazine, May 29 The cover story looks at Tracy Della Vecchia, whose son is a Marine stationed in Iraq and who has become a friend, news source, one-woman support system, and grief counselor to many Marine mothers through a Web site and online community she manages, marineparents.com. “Much has been made of the breadth and immediacy of communication in this war, the first large-scale American combat since the proliferation of cellphone technology and the Internet,” says the article, which suggests those changes might ultimately produce more anxiety than comfort for nervous families back home. … A profile of precocious poker superstar Daniel Negreanu follows his preparations for June’s World Series of Poker, the pre-eminent tournament in the sport and a high-stakes trade show for the emergent cottage industry that makes bankable celebrities of charismatic players.—D.W.W.
New York, May 30 Once a soprano prodigy at the prestigious American Boychoir School and now a Stanford University law professor and Internet law sage, Lawrence Lessig * says he was repeatedly molested by Donald Hanson, the school’s music director. An article explores how, 30 years later, Lessig is searching for justice on behalf of fellow victim John Hardwicke, as well as reconciliation with his past in a New Jersey courtroom. Lessig recalls asking his abuser, “Is this right? Should you be really doing this?” The response, “You have to understand, this is essential to producing a great boy choir.”… The magazine chronicles an attempt by two baristas to unionize a Manhattan Starbucks. Despite Fortune magazine’s rating the coffee giant as one of the best large employers in the country, Anthony Polanco, one of the union organizers, protests, “Starbucks pays peanuts and they treat the workers like elephants.” And, according to one employee, “You can get fired for not smiling.”—Z.K.
Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report, May 30 Stem cells: In a Time piece about Woo Suk Hwang, the South Korean whose team’s breakthrough in therapeutic cloning could allow doctors to make “custom stem-cell treatments for everything from Alzheimer’s disease to spinal cords,” the scientist emphasizes that he’s not cloning humans; rather, his work will shed more light on how diseases grow. The piece notes that Hwang “makes sure that at least one of his researchers keeps the cells company all day and most of the night, as a way of nurturing respect for them.” Noting that similar work will soon be under way in California, Newsweek articulates bioethicists’ concern for the women who would donate eggs. An expert says that “[D]onors will be informed of the risks (women must take hormone injections before egg retrieval), they will not be paid (outside of expenses) and they must understand that they are donating for research—not for an immediate cure either for one’s self or a family member.”
Villaraigosa: Newsweek devotes its cover to Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa, Los Angeles’ first Latino mayor since 1872. He was raised by his mom, a secretary, and started selling newspapers when he was 7. As a teenager, he got kicked out of school for fighting. After a teacher stepped in and mentored him, Villaraigosa graduated from UCLA and became a labor organizer. Although Time criticizes his lack of concrete plans for implementing his campaign promises, Newsweek reports that Villaraigosa wants authority over the school district, hopes to hire 1,600 cops, and advocates “reversible lanes and staggered work hours” to solve the city’s perpetual traffic congestion. A related Newsweek piece examines how Republicans courted Latinos during last year’s election, notes instances of acrimony between African-American and Latino voters, and points to Villaraigosa’s success in cobbling together a multiracial alliance.
Odds and ends: In the latest installment of Newsweek’s Guantanamo Bay Quran saga, the Department of Defense claims that it knows of about 12 instances in which detainees damaged their own Qurans; in three cases, they stuffed pages torn from Qurans into their toilets. “[P]rison commanders concluded that certain hard-core prisoners would try to agitate the other detainees by alleging disrespect for Muslim articles of faith.”… Noting that the Department of Homeland Security will distribute $11 billion in contracts this year, U.S. News’cover explores numerous contracts awarded to private firms that have former DHS officials on staff. It also points out that employees in one branch of the Transportation Security Administration spent “$500,000 on silk plants and artwork,” $3,000 on refrigerators, and $300,000 on a gym. …. Time’s cover profiles three cadets who entered West Point in 2001 and graduated this May, changing all the while as the school itself adjusted to wartime.—B.B.
Weekly Standard, May 30 Recently, British MP George Galloway appeared before the Senate to defend himself against corruption allegations stemming from the oil-for-food scandal. There he had a run-in with Christopher Hitchens and called him a “drink-sodden ex-Trotskyist popinjay.” In turn, Hitchens lights into Galloway, describing him as “Prolier than thou, and ostentatiously radical, but a bit too fond of the cigars and limos and always looking a bit odd in a suit that was slightly too expensive. By turns aggressive and unctuous, either at your feet or at your throat; a bit of a backslapper, nothing’s too good for the working class: what the English call a ’wide boy.’ ” Although Galloway protests that he never dealt in oil, Hitchens points out, “Galloway is not supposed by anyone to have been an oil trader. He is asked, simply, to say what he knows about his chief fundraiser, nominee, and crony. And when asked this, he flatly declines to answer.”—B.B.
The New Yorker, May 30 A profile of John McCain, who may be “the most popular politician in the country,” suggests that McCain is ramping up to run for president again in 2008; this time, he has much more recognition, money, and organization. His friends claim “he is far more serious and focused than he has ever been, and that they rarely see the McCain they knew—irrepressible, occasionally outrageous, impolitic.”… A review of A. Roger Ekirch’s At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past, finds Ekirch’s history of night frequently delightful. Ekirch believes that before artificial lighting existed, Western Europeans “experienced two major intervals of sleep bridged by up to an hour or more of wakefulness.” People often rose at midnight and hung out, studied, prayed, or worked. But electricity encouraged people to stay up later and to value sleep less. Segmented sleep placed people “in an altered state of consciousness not unlike meditation” and enabled people to be “better attuned to the part of the subconscious which is responsible for dreams.”—B.B.
Correction, May 26: This article originally and incorrectly referred to Lawrence Lessig by the name Richard. (Return to the corrected sentence.)
