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Kosher Wars
The New York TimesMagazine examines the battle over food and religion.
Morgan Smith
posted Oct. 10, 2008
Getting Bitter All the Time
The New Republic on Sarah Palin's class resentment.
Morgan Smith
posted Oct. 7, 2008
Depression 2.0?
Time compares the current financial troubles to the Great Depression.
Daniel Riley
posted Oct. 3, 2008
Virginia Slim
The New Yorker on Barack Obama's push for Old Dominion.
Daniel Riley
posted Sept. 30, 2008
Bringing Down the House
The New York Times Magazine on deconstructing foreclosed homes.
Kara Hadge
posted Sept. 26, 2008
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other magazines: Summaries of what's in Time, Newsweek, etc.

Why Gays Now Hate Garland

By Jeremy Derfner
Updated Friday, July 21, 2000, at 9:30 PM ET

Atlantic Monthly, August 2000

The cover story describes and defends the dangerous, polluting, and scary ship-breaking industry of India. On a huge beach in Alang, tens of thousands of Indian men demolish most of the world's obsolete ships and sell the steel for scrap. Greenpeace is on the warpath against ship-breaking because it releases terrible toxins, but ship-breaking at Alang creates a million almost-decent jobs in a poverty-stricken country. The human rights and environmental arguments advanced by Western reformers strike the ship-breakers as the worst kind of economic imperialism. … An article explains why gay men used to love Judy Garland but hate her now. Her contradictory personality made her a surrogate for gays who suffered as outcasts but aspired to emotional stability. Today, assimilating gays view Garland worship as a sign of weakness. … A piece profiles Peter Westbrook, a half black, half Korean former Olympic fencer who runs his own free fencing school in New York City. The Olympic fencing team this year includes three African-Americans, all his students.

New Republic, July 31

The cover story profiles Al Gore's new campaign manager, Chicago machine scion Bill Daley. An early advocate of the Third Way when he moved his family away from bossism in the 1970s, Daley has spent his career behind the scenes, getting others elected and lobbying for NAFTA and normal trade relations with China. The loyalty and small ego that make him an effective fixer have kept him out of the political spotlight. … A piece previews the upcoming political conventions. Bush will let surrogates do the talking to avoid displaying his policy weakness or undermining the general impression that he's a nice guy. Gore will make a spectacle of himself to escape the shadow of the First Family. … A piece claims that the anti-death penalty argument that Europe and Canada don't put criminals to death is flawed. In fact, most Europeans support capital punishment, but their governments are less democratic than the U.S. government and prohibit the practice despite the wishes of citizens.

New York Review of Books, Aug. 10

The cover story questions the rehabilitation of Norman Rockwell. Although there is a place in the canon for commercial art, and Rockwell is not nearly as bad as his ardent critics say, he was technically sloppy and cluttered his paintings with unnecessary details to make them more intelligible to magazine readers. … A piece argues that the pessimists predicting a stock market crash are right. Contrary to received economic wisdom, the market is fundamentally irrational, stock prices do not reflect the real value of a company, and bubbles will burst. Those who say the New Economy makes constant growth possible are even more irrational than traditional stock investors.

Economist, July 22

A piece reports that both China and the West are urging the Chinese to get wired. Chinese Communists think the Internet and cellular phones will prove the supremacy of the state, and Western politicians think they will democratize it. The West is wrong because the Chinese Internet is closely monitored and serves more as a diversion than as a cradle of democracy. … An article argues that Texas is an environmental disaster and that George W. Bush, while not responsible for the problem, has done nothing about it. Texas puts more chemicals in the air than any other state, but Bush, who has said regulation and litigation are not solutions, offers only voluntary clean-up programs that his oil friends have been reluctant to participate in.

New York Times Magazine, July 23

The cover story examines the bad blood between "child-free" adults and families with kids. The childless, annoyed by crying kids and colleagues who leave early to get home to the nanny, organize against child-tax credits, maternity leave, and emergency day care. Best detail: Some child-free adults call kids "anklebiters" and "crib lizards." … An article traces the evolution of former CIA Director James Woolsey from defense establishment stalwart to anti-establishment freedom fighter. Two years ago he represented Iraqi dissidents scheduled for deportation because his clearance was high enough to get access to the classified—and, it turns out, embarrassingly flimsy—evidence against them, but he was stonewalled by the Justice Department. He is now a public critic of the government and spook bureaucracy he used to serve. … A piece profiles Walter Anderson, an eccentric libertarian billionaire who tried and failed to build his own spaceship and who recently leased the Russian space station Mir for $200 million a year. Anderson plans to sell space vacations and produce a TV show modeled on Survivor in which contestants compete to become astronauts.

Time, July 24

The cover story gushes over the new philanthropists—notably Bill Gates, who has given away $22 billion, far more than anyone else in history. The philanthropists, who include lots of high-tech entrepreneurs, demand New Economy efficiency, and their hands-on (or meddlesome) approach to giving is throwing the old philanthropic order into disarray. (Click here for "The Slate 60," a list of the largest American charitable contributions.) … An article explains why the International Space Station (10 years behind schedule and, at $96 billion, 10 times more expensive than expected) keeps getting funded: pork. NASA has spread the station money around to 92 contractors and subcontractors in 22 states. Even though the Russian Mir space station has already conducted most of the studies planned for the ISS, Congress voted 337-92 to approve its funding last year. … A piece describes how George W. Bush exploits the down-home, family-values quality of his boyhood hometown, Midland, Texas. He mentions Midland at every opportunity, and his media campaign will be awash in Midland imagery in order to underscore his easygoingness and defend against the accusation that he is an Andover/Yale/Harvard preppie.

Newsweek, July 24

The cover story profiles Jerusalem, the cradle of Arab-Israeli conflict and a stumbling block in the Camp David negotiations. The centers of Jewish and Muslim life are located in the same tiny part of the city, so the much-discussed compromise of splitting Jerusalem in two is going nowhere. Meanwhile, secular and religious Jews are at odds, and rebellious young Muslims escape their strict upbringings in freewheeling Jewish dance clubs. … An article predicts that although the $145 billion Florida tobacco verdict will be overturned, it will inspire numerous copycat cases that could bankrupt the industry. Big Tobacco's tactic of focusing on its recent good deeds did not impress the jury, which harbored a deep-seated hatred for the industry. … A piece collects evidence that the brain is specially wired for music. Our memory for music far surpasses our memory for prose; some epileptics experience seizures when they hear certain styles of music but not others; students trained in music perform better in math; and the part of the brain that connects the hemispheres is much larger in musicians.

U.S. News & World Report, July 24

A mysteries of history special issue. The Shroud of Turin could date back to the time of Jesus, after all. There probably was no Pope Joan who was stoned after she gave birth to a child. Stonehenge was not constructed by aliens, though no one knows who made it or for what purpose. … An article argues that congressional Republicans are for the first time organized enough to outmaneuver President Clinton in the fall. They will force him to veto two popular tax cuts and should finish their appropriations early enough to prevent the perennial last-minute budget battle in which Clinton always humiliates them.

The New Yorker, July 24

A writer visits the rat-eating city of Luogang, China. Two famous rat restaurants (the Highest Ranking Wild Flavor Restaurant and the New Eight Sceneries Wild Flavor Food City) serve 12,000 rodents on an average weekend. Simmered Mountain Rat or Spicy and Salty Rat supposedly keep hair from falling out. Diners pick their own rat, and the waiter dashes its brains out while they watch. The author samples rat and finds it tastes like … rat. … An article laments the development of microfilm and the simultaneous trashing of millions of newspaper hard copies. Libraries give away, sell, or throw away old volumes because they can't spare the storage space and because wood-pulp paper yellows and crumbles. But the replacement microfilm is only black and white and often blurry or unreadable.

The Nation, July 24/31

The cover story suggests that Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa is not a Mafia-connected racketeer like his father was but a genuine progressive. The reformers inside the union are still skeptical of his intentions, but politicians like working with him and independent labor experts say he has done a good job. They argue that his influence with the rank-and-file makes him more effective than other, too high-minded reformers. … A piece argues that music-sharing Web sites such as Napster nurture musical communities ignored by big record labels. Emerging artists support MP3s because they provide free publicity. The MP3 wars are really about big labels and big artists maintaining their monopoly on the music business.

Weekly Standard, July 24

The cover story by a law professor argues that the Second Amendment protects individuals, not simply militias. … A piece cites two violations of Proposition 209, the California anti-affirmative-action ballot initiative passed four years ago, to prove that public officials and university administrators refuse to comply with the law and need to be taken to court. … An article accuses the media of expressing its pro-arms-control bias in its reporting on missile defense. Almost all major news outlets call the system unworkable while refusing to recognize the rational case for missile defense.