Time and Newsweek , Oct. 12
            

            
               (posted
Tuesday, Oct. 6, 1998)
            

            
               Newsweek 's cover story predicts a recession. The failure of so many foreign
economies will soon hurt America, crushing both the stock market and consumer
confidence. Higher unemployment may follow. Remedies: The Federal Reserve Board
must drastically cut interest rates, the International Monetary Fund must
continue to aid foreign countries, and Japan must reform its banking system.
... 
               Time 's cover package: a week in the life of a hospital. Following
doctors, nurses, and administrators around the Duke Medical Center, Time
offers vignettes of modern hospital life. General theme: It's hard to balance
belt tightening and effective health care.

            

               Newsweek says tabloids such as the National Enquirer and Globe
are losing readers. Why? "Mainstream" media have taken over their turf by
covering Princess Di's death, Flytrap, and other tablike stories. Tabloids are
now more prudish than network television, refusing to discuss the specifics of
the Flytrap sex acts. (To read 
                  Slate
               's tabloid roundup, click
here.)

            
               
                  U.S.
News & World Report , Oct. 12
            

            
               (posted
Tuesday, Oct. 6, 1998)
            

            The
cover story says humans have been in the New World for much
longer than previously assumed. "Clovis-first" theories (named for an
archaeological site in New Mexico), which hold that humans appeared here about
12,000 years ago, have been supplanted by evidence of seaside communities in
Chile and the Pacific Northwest 30,000 or more years ago. ... A story exposes a wave of kidnappings in China. Small-town Chinese
women who migrate to bigger cities for work are often shanghaied at the train
station. Sold to "husbands" for a few hundred dollars, the women spend years as
captive breeders. The Chinese government is only now cracking down on the
trade.

            
               
                  The
New Yorker , Oct. 12
            

            
               (posted
Tuesday, Oct. 6, 1998)
            

            More
celebrity writers praise President Clinton and bash Kenneth Starr. E.L.
Doctorow compares Starr to Joseph McCarthy: "Starr has shown us how a
conscienceless, ideologically vindictive use of the investigative privilege can
undercut the legitimacy of any duly elected American government." Bobbie Ann
Mason claims, "[W]e eviscerated the American government because a middle-aged
man dallied with a young, willing woman and then tried to hush it up." William
Styron argues that "a complicity between the public and the media has generated
an ignoble voyeurism so pervasive that we have never permitted a candidate like
Bill Clinton to proclaim with fury that his sex life, past and present, is
nobody's business but his own." ... A story describes the breakthrough
period of Muhammad Ali. Ali (then Cassius Clay) created his persona knowingly
and from nothing, and his defeat of Sonny Liston marked a turnaround in our
culture. Older sports fans hated the brash, loudmouthed Clay; younger ones knew
he was a revolutionary.

            
               
                  The
Nation , Oct. 19
            

            
               (posted
Tuesday, Oct. 6, 1998)
            

            

               The 
               Nation 's cover story proposes a "bank holiday," à la FDR, to pre-empt
further catastrophe in the global economy. Among proposals: close banks for one
day to allow them to reorganize; institute emergency tax cuts; sack the IMF's
failed leadership; and place emergency controls on capital flows. A related
article says that all nations can't emulate the United States, so
it was a given that capitalism as a single global paradigm would fail. Thus,
the United States should reverse its "imperial laissez-faire" policies and take
an active hand in the global economy.

            

               
                  Weekly Standard , Oct. 12
            

            
               (posted
Tuesday, Oct. 6, 1998)
            

            An
article tears apart Human Rights Watch's recent report on U.S. police brutality
as exaggerated and anecdotal. Most troublesome to the Standard : HRW's
recommendation to increase state, federal, and even global supervision of U.S.
police.

            
               --Seth
Stevenson
            

            More Flytrap
...