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

Horton Hears a Who

By Jeremy DerfnerUpdated Friday, Jan. 5, 2001, at 8:30 PM ET

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New York Times Magazine, Jan. 7

The "Lives They Lived" issue remembers 24 people who died last year. Among the highlights: An article describes how Gen. Eisenhower summoned Gene Kelly's younger brother Fred for a dance lesson during World War II. Eisenhower thought it would reduce his stress level, and after the lesson, he suggested that Fred become a teacher instead of joining his brother in Hollywood. Fred eventually opened the legendary dance studio where John Travolta learned his trade. … A piece remembers Elliot Richardson, Richard Nixon's attorney general whose principled resignation signaled the beginning of the end of the Nixon administration. He never worked for Ronald Reagan or George Bush because the Republican establishment considered him disloyal. … An article profiles Ella Goldberg Wolfe, a high-level communist during the 1920s who became a devoted Reaganite. As she aged, she was a juicy source for historians trying to understand an increasingly distant radical era.

New Republic, Jan. 15

The cover story questions the current biparitsanship vogue in Washington. The closeness of the presidential race does not mean Americans want partisan cooperation. Moreover, bipartisanship is a means to an end, not a virtue in itself. Many bad pieces of legislation, the disastrous Balanced Budget Act of 1997 for instance, are passed on a bipartisan basis. … A piece argues that Tommy Thompson, Wisconsin governor and George W. Bush's nominee for secretary of health and human services, is more liberal than people think. Conservatives like him because he led the way on welfare reform and strongly opposes abortion rights, but he also implemented a huge New Deal-style safety net to help former welfare recipients get back on their feet, and he supported stem-cell research at the University of Wisconsin.

Economist, Jan. 4

Economist The cover editorial criticizes Alan Greenspan for cutting interest rates. Because he cut a half point instead of the usual quarter point and did so before the already-scheduled meeting of the Financial Open Market Committee, the move looks "hasty, even panicky." The cut is even more puzzling because Greenspan has long warned against too much growth, and the economy might simply be making its long-predicted soft landing, not entering a recession that requires drastic and destabilizing steps. … A special report approves of the principle of military interventionism and proposes two tests the international community should use to decide when to intervene: 1) when an identifiable group of people in an identifiable geographic area is violently denied the right to self-government by a neighboring ruler; 2) when a dictator holds on to power against the will of most of the citizens of a country. … An article reports that many animals possess a sixth sense, the ability to understand vibrations in the ground (known as seismic signaling). Elephants can send messages up to 50 kilometers, and they can sense thunderstorms long before they are audible to the human ear. Some scientists believe animals can even predict earthquakes.

Time, Jan. 8
Time The cover story lists six reasons why the New Economy shakeout differs from previous slowdowns. Because 49 percent of American households own stocks, market dips hurt more people than they used to. The global economy has tied America to world economic cycles, eliminating the traditional checks of financial isolation and international diversification. Ironically, the good times have lasted so long that even those not yet feeling the squeeze have simply stopped buying, their appetites for new goods seemingly satisfied. … A special section highlights a new education trend: partnerships between failing public schools and universities. Two dozen states run "K-16" programs, in which college administrators, professors, and students run public schools, from hiring and firing teachers to curricular development and tutoring. Some teachers object to the partnerships because they create bureaucracy, but most educators applaud the results. … A piece says Bill Clinton's last-ditch peace effort in the Middle East has almost no chance. Ehud Barak has to do something or he will lose the February elections, but the Israeli public so dislikes him that it will be difficult for him to sell peace even if Yasser Arafat agrees to it, which he is apprently not inclined to do. Clinton has been trying to pressure Arafat into a deal by insisting that Arafat's historical legacy depends on it.

Newsweek, Jan. 8
The cover story dotes on Oprah Winfrey, the "Woman of the New Century." Though "she is peaking professionally, spiritually and emotionally," it turns out that Oprah is "at a crossroads." Her new magazine is staggeringly popular (2 million circulation and 150 ad pages), but now that her empire has grown, she has learned she can no longer micromanage, and her immense wealth threatens to undermine the empathy that has made her such a hit. Oprah is also still despondent about Beloved, her movie of the Toni Morrison novel that grossed only $23 million. … An article previews the Bush administration type: non-ideological, experienced, loyal, with personal ties to Bush and the Bush family. The Cabinet leans slightly to the conservative, but even Gale Norton, the pro-development nominee for the Department of the Interior who is hated by environmentalists, works in the Bush style. Her conservatism is couched in amiability, not stridency. … A piece profiles Ken Burns, whose 17 1/2 hour documentary, Jazz, premieres Jan. 8. Burns sees Jazz as the final installment of a trilogy (The Civil War and Baseball were the first two) about the most important features of American life, and he sees race as the thread that links them all. Some critics argue that Burns neglected important jazz figures such as Charles Mingus and Erroll Garner and that his documentary suffers from a conservative prejudice against free jazz and fusion, but Newsweek gives Jazz a thumbs up.

U.S. News & World Report, Jan. 8
Last New Year's, U.S. News profiled the year 1000. This year, the cover story profiles the year 1 A.D. In the year 1, Roman Emperor Augustus was in the middle of 41 years of rule over the biggest empire in the world. (How was Rome like contemporary America? Augustus dealt with a nasty fight over whether to expand the welfare state and with a family-values crisis—married men and women with three kids got all sorts of special privileges.) The stability of the empire created an environment ripe for the spread of Christianity. … A piece describes the counter-terrorism campaign against Osama Bin Laden and his colleagues. Almost all veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the leading world terrorists have created a complex underground network that orchestrates attacks, trains new recruits, and raises money. American counter-terrorists forestall about 30 possible attacks each week, but the few they miss make the headlines. One obstacle: The State Department's strict background checks make it hard to recruit Muslims who can infiltrate Bin Laden's organization.

The New Yorker, Jan. 8
A piece criticizes the criminal justice system for failing to use science to improve its methods. Researchers have shown that lineups could be vastly improved by showing pictures of suspects sequentially instead of all at once. They have also demonstrated that domestic violence is more likely to recur when violent husbands get counseling because their wives assume they are cured and take them back. The legal system, however, is predicated on convention and precedent, and it resists scientific inquiry. … An autobiographical article describes how a woman suffering from depression grew to hate mental institutions. As a child reading books such as The Bell Jar and Tender Is the Night, she came to idealize sanatoriums as isolated paradises where healing could begin, but after three stints in actual mental hospitals, she realized they were cold and antiseptic and run as businesses, not as idylls.