Economist , March 22
(posted
Saturday, March 22)
Hollywood
is in trouble, says the Oscar-week cover
story. Studios ought to reap huge profits, but don't because they overpay
stars and produce too many expensive films. (The average studio movie costs $60
million to make and market.) The good news for Hollywood, according to the
Economist : Foreign movie producers are even less business-savvy. An
article on Zaire advises rebel leader Laurent Kabila not to compromise with
President Mobutu Sese Seko, because any delay in toppling the government will
damage the country even more. (For a backgrounder on Zaire, see Slate's
"The Gist.") A
package of stories on the British election blames John Major's troubles on his
personal weakness, not his policies. Also, a 24-page survey on management
consulting finds the industry vigorous, profitable, and a bit too
secretive.
New
Republic , April 7
(posted
Friday, March 21)
The cover
package takes Congress to task, noting that congressional fund raising is as
slimy as White House fund raising. Among the outrages cited: Legislators
selling bills and lobbyists writing bills. Another article rips Congress for
its sluggish implementation of the Congressional Accountability Act, the 1995
law that was supposed to apply labor and civil-rights laws to Hill employees.
Also, the "TRB" column offers this campaign-finance scoop: Clinton will soon
ask the Federal Election Commission to pass regulations restricting "soft
money," accomplishing by executive action what Hill Republicans refuse to do
legislatively. And a piece says that, despite the establishment of the $5
billion gold fund, the Swiss aren't at all sorry for their atrocious behavior
during World War II.
New
York Times Magazine , March 23
(posted
Thursday, March 20)
The cover
story compares Nelson Mandela to George Washington. Mandela suppresses his
emotions in favor of the common good, and this serene rationalism has allowed
South Africa to escape violence and recrimination. "Elders on Ice" observes the
twilight careers of New York Rangers Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier: The
"greatest player ever" and the "most-driven player ever" are past their prime,
but still know how to win. Also, the technology columnist dismisses Internet
"push"--in which content is delivered to users rather than fetched
by them--as a silly, doomed trend. (For Slate's take, see "Push Me, Pull
You.")
Harper's , April 1997
(posted
Thursday, March 20)
An
immensely long article condemns the Drug Enforcement Administration's war on
poppy growers. Though poppies have legitimate commercial use (poppy-seed
bagels, for instance), the feds are paranoid that gardeners will harvest them
for opium. The author grows his own opium poppies, and wonders if he's going to
be prosecuted. Also, a creepy explanation for the Rwanda genocide: "Judgment
Day" asserts that Rwandans are incredibly law-abiding, so when the government
ordered them to kill Tutsis, they obeyed without a second thought. The writer
visits Rwanda's awful prisons, where 92,000 people await trial.
Newsweek and Time , March 24
(posted
Tuesday, March 18)
Newsweek looks to the
heavens. Time looks for heaven. Newsweek 's cover package, "The
Great Comet," celebrates Hale-Bopp. A long article speculates about how ancient
Egyptians, Chinese, and Sumerians greeted the comet on its last visit in 2213
B.C. (It was undoubtedly an important omen--of what, no one knows.) A related
story tells the when-and-where of the comet's flyby.
Time 's cover asks,
"Does Heaven Exist?" Until this century, Christianity was
obsessed with describing heaven, but now "heaven is AWOL." Most Christian
clerics have stopped talking about it, because it's too controversial and too
hard to reconcile with modern science.
Both
magazines cover the Biggie Smalls murder and assert that gangsta rap has gone
too far. Also in Time : A profile of Zairian rebel leader Kabila predicts that he'll
topple Mobutu, but notes that he's only succeeding because Uganda and Rwanda
are helping him. Newsweek presents the government's case against Timothy
McVeigh, concluding that "it would have to be a very stubborn juror indeed to
hold out in the face of the evidence."
The
New Yorker , March 24
(posted
Tuesday, March 18)
"Unarmed
Warriors" describes the travails of the International Committee of the Red
Cross. The traditional rules of war don't apply in places like Rwanda and
Bosnia, where the Red Cross can't persuade soldiers to fight humanely. A
harrowing trip with Red Cross workers in Afghanistan is described. A long
article, pegged to The Godfather 's 25 th anniversary, recounts
its filming in intricate detail. Also, a writer proposes a grand unified theory
of stardom: Celebrityhood always lasts three years (David Letterman,
1992-95; Ronald Reagan, 1983-86; etc.).
U.S.
News & World Report and Weekly Standard , March 24
(posted
Tuesday, March 18)
Race makes the covers.
U.S. News ' cover
package, hooked to the 50 th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's
major-league debut, argues that sports are bad for black America. While only
one in 10,000 high-school athletes will ever play professionally, 66 percent of
black teen-age boys believe they could be pros, and the resulting overemphasis
on sports has diverted blacks from educational achievement. The Standard
deplores black and white obsession with "white racism," arguing that it turns
blacks into permanent victims. A related article savages the black newsmagazine
Emerge for its paranoid, anti-white style. The magazine's popularity
among black professionals is an alarming indication of how alienated the black
middle class is from mainstream white America.
Also in
U.S. News , a story asserts that the Polish army is too rigid and too
technologically backward to integrate successfully into NATO.
Vanity Fair , April 1997
(posted
Tuesday, March 18)
The
annual Hollywood issue is endless (386 pages). An article about Ted Turner and
Jane Fonda's marriage asserts that Fonda always dissolves herself in her male
partner, whether he's a radical like Tom Hayden or a plutocrat like Turner. A
movie critic blames the decline of movie criticism on Pauline Kael's disciples
(among those implicated, Slate's David Edelstein). Also, much Hollywood
history: articles on the feud between Hollywood gossips Louella Parsons and
Hedda Hopper, Roman Polanski's statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl, and the
shady activities of the now deceased Hollywood fixer/mob lawyer Sidney Korshak.
Ten budding starlets adorn the cover. Zillions of celebrity photographs by
Annie Liebovitz are inside.
--Compiled by David Plotz and the editors of Slate .
