Economist, Feb. 18 The cover story wonders what will happen when baby boomers retire. “Some companies are already complaining of a shortage of skills, even before they have started to dole out carriage clocks and fountain pens by the barrow-load,” the author writes, suggesting that replacements may be found in foreign labor, improved equipment, and a better-educated work force. But some boomers yearn to keep on truckin’. “Baby-boomers say they want to stay in the workforce for more than money. Many also want to carry on working beyond the standard retirement age for the mental stimulation.”… The Russian homelessness crisis is revealed in exposure deaths dubbed “snowdrops,” according to an article, which describes how runaways, convicts, addicts, and little old ladies are forced to “sleep rough.” Meanwhile, migrant workers have their own set of problems. “Nearly half its homeless have come to the city from outside Russia. … They come looking for work, then run out of money and can’t get home,” the author writes.— M.M.
New Republic, Feb. 27, 2006 The cover article by Amartya Sen explores multiculturalism and its unforeseen implications. Drawing upon his own immigrant experience, he finds that “plural monoculturalism” might be a more apt way of describing how multiculturalism has evolved in Britain. “Does the existence of a diversity of cultures, which might pass one another like ships in the night, count as a successful case of multiculturalism?” he asks. … Slate contributor Andrew Rice reports from Ugandan President Yoweri K. Museveni’s cattle ranch. Museveni, a former darling of the West, has recently shown his authoritarian and kleptocratic stripes. Museveni’s main opposition in this month’s presidential race was arrested in January, but he was released after Western aid groups made cuts in their foreign-assistance packages. “Whatever happens, fraud charges, court challenges, and public unrest are sure to ensue. But few Ugandans doubt who will remain in charge when the tear gas clears,” Rice writes.—S.S.
New York Times Magazine, Feb. 19 Francis Fukuyama renounces neoconservatism in an essay on post-Iraq U.S. foreign policy and labels the contemporary core of the movement—William Kristol and Robert Kagan, et al.—as Leninist: “They believed” he writes, “that history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will.” Fukuyama worries that our failures in Iraq will lead to a new American isolationism and argues that in rethinking our relationship to the world, we need “ideas that retain the neoconservative belief in the universality of human rights, but without its illusions about the efficacy of American power and hegemony to bring these ends about.”… The “Great Performers in Film” issue “salutes” 26 actors who gave memorable performances in 2005 with a portfolio of full-page studio portraits. Charlize Theron is photographed bronzed and nude, Jeff Daniels appears in a tuxedo with clowns drawn on his face, and Michelle Williams pouts between a wife-beater and big hair.— B.W.
New York, Feb. 20 Kurt Andersen * TKOs all the parties involved in the still-raging “clash of civilizations” over the Danish Mohammed cartoons. He delivers a right hook to Muslims for “complain[ing] about religious offense from Europeans, given that the state-controlled press in the Middle East routinely runs anti-Israeli cartoons that are also anti-Semitic. …” He haymakers the American right for “insisting that we keep waving the cartoons in the faces of apoplectic Muslims, even though five minutes ago they were screaming about our culture’s ‘war on Christmas.’ ” He then serves up a lethal combination to the Boston Globe for its “reflexive sympathy for wounded Islamic feelings, but next to none for American Christians’ anger over blasphemous art.” Andersen calls for “a new etiquette of globalization—not, let’s be clear, for the sake of sensitivity but for realpolitik, to keep the peace in order that we might win the longer, larger struggle.”. … A piece on the blogs profiles the A-, B-, and C-listers and their bloggerdoms.— Z.K.
Weekly Standard, Feb. 20 The editorial pages are dedicated to denouncing the “cartoon jihad,” with several contributors asserting that the violent protests were engineered by Danish imams yearning for a Western outrage to fuel the fires of Muslim extremism. William Kristol’s column reprints the Jyllands-Posten cartoons. One editorialist claims that “the so-called Arab or Muslim street comprises little more than a rent-a-mob available to burn, loot, and kill whenever Muslim demagogues attack political institutions and media anywhere in the world.”… An article is hopeful that a case concerning whether the Texas redistricting plan violates the Voting Rights Act will clean up what the author says has become a partisan issue rather than a push for equality. The act has devolved into questions of whether a non-Democrat can represent minorities’ interests and who qualifies as a minority. The author’s conclusion is “that the race-driven districting that has become pervasive—and accepted by both left and right—is harmful.”— M.M.
Newsweek, Feb. 13 The cover is dedicated to the travails of baby boomers who are navigating the murky waters of dating. Not only have the mores of courting changed since many of them last dated, not to mention since the advent of Internet dating, but many are finding themselves dealing with ex-partners, kids, social obligations, dwindling libidos, and sagging bodies—all of which only complicates the “not for the faint of heart” process of finding one’s true love. … An article reveals that nearly three years after the invasion, Iraqi-U.S. military relations are lukewarm at best. Each view the other’s motives with a jaundiced eye, hampering efforts to build an effective army. And with good reason, says an anonymous U.S. officer: “We’re not teaching them everything we know.” What worries this soldier in particular is that, “We could turn around and be fighting them in a few years.”—Z.K.
Time, Feb. 13 An article ponders whether Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page will be able to abide by their motto “Don’t be evil” as they expand into developing software, online classifieds, and voice communications. The duo’s arrested-development eccentricities are still evident—electric scooters and lava lamps dot the landscape of the company’s headquarters (the “Goggleplex”); the pair still favor T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers; and they toast Google milestones with a trip to Burger King—but they have taken heat for the decision to launch a censored Web site in China and have some investment analysts wondering if the company has what it takes to encroach on the territories of Internet behemoths Yahoo!, Microsoft, and eBay. Says Scott Kessler of Standard and Poors: “The company has been trying to diversify but hasn’t done a great job at monetizing its new offerings.”… An online exclusive profiles the man who met the wrong end of Dick Cheney’s gun while hunting this weekend, Harry Whittington.—Z.K.
Correction, Feb. 16, 2006: This article originally and incorrectly spelled the name of New York magazine writer Kurt Andersen. ( Return to the corrected item.)
