Economist , Feb. 28
(posted
Saturday, Feb. 28)
The Iraq
crisis taught the world two lessons, according to the cover editorial: 1)
Diplomacy must be backed with the threat of violence. 2) All nations should
have stood together, instead of "taking an independent turn on the world stage
or scooping up lucrative contracts with Iraq." (That means you, France and
Russia!) ... An article says most corporate Web sites are badly
designed. Corporate sites are too specialized (geared only toward investors or
customers), and their jazzy graphics take too long to download.
New
Republic , March 16
(posted
Friday, Feb. 27)
The
editorial calls our failure to bomb Iraq "perhaps the greatest debacle for
American foreign policy since the end of the cold war." The U.N. agreement will
force no change in Saddam Hussein's behavior and boosts his prestige in the
Arab world. ... The cover story says the Republican Party is hopelessly
divided by a disagreement over the correct size for government. The Christian
right wants to dissolve the massive Washington bureaucracies, but conservatives
such as Steve Forbes and George W. Bush favor a powerful federal government
that will "use morality-driven, activist foreign policy and a series of grand
domestic initiatives to halt the right's drift into localism and
insularity."
New
York Times Magazine , March 1
(posted
Thursday, Feb. 26)
The cover
story says the worship of newness is the key to the Silicon Valley economy. New
ideas (3-D-graphic modeling) earn millions and render old ideas (2-D-graphic
modeling) instantly worthless. Entrepreneurs move on to the next big thing
before the last big thing is even established. (Full disclosure:
Slate
contributor Michael Lewis wrote the article. For Lewis'
take on a related subject in
Slate
, see "Scary Smart.")
... An article describes the calculated creation of a trashy hardcover
thriller. The cynical authors analyzed best sellers, parroted them, and hired
extra writers to fix the manuscript. They sold it for $2 million. ... A
story marvels at the Princeton basketball team, ranked eighth in the nation and
the best Ivy League squad in a generation. Princeton's fluid, artful passing
and selfless teamwork allow it to beat teams with more raw talent. The players
remain committed to their academic work. (No kidding.)
Time and Newsweek , March 2
(posted
Tuesday, Feb. 24)
Kofi Annan ruins
Newsweek 's unleash-the-dogs-of-war cover package. Newsweek 's war
preview includes a map listing U.S. weaponry and its concentrations, thumbnail
sketches of American military commanders, a short essay from Madeleine Albright
explaining the need for a military strike, and a story on Saddam Hussein's
intricate security measures (he maintains surgically altered body doubles).
Time 's cover package focuses on Clinton's failure to sell the war to the
American public. Time also runs an essay by George Bush in which he claims that removing
Saddam in 1991 would have upset the balance of power in the Middle East.
Time says Dolly the cloned sheep could be a fake. There is a
million-to-one chance that the clone was not of an adult ewe but of a fetus the
ewe was carrying.
A
Newsweek article says 1950s "modern" furniture is back. Clean lines and
blond wood are showing up everywhere, even in the furniture of Men in
Black and Friends .
U.S.
News & World Report , March 2
(posted
Tuesday, Feb. 24)
Graduate-school rankings. Winners: Yale law, Harvard business,
Harvard med, Columbia education, and MIT engineering. Mentioned only in
passing: The Association of American Law Schools requested that the magazine
stop publishing rankings because they're "misleading and dangerous." ...
An article says that Paula Jones' case has weakened. Jones can prove
no workplace hardships (save for not getting flowers on Secretaries' Day) and
can't use Lewinsky evidence in her case. ...
U.S. News asks
novelists how they would solve
Clinton's Lewinsky problem if it were their new book. Jackie Collins:
"[Clinton would] confess that Monica Lewinsky is his illegitimate daughter,"
thereby explaining their close relationship and the need for secrecy. Tom
Clancy: "My characters have a moral code from which they would not depart."
Weekly Standard , March 2
(posted
Tuesday, Feb. 24)
A cover
feature on Alabama's "religious war": The Standard takes God's side.
Lawsuits are being waged to stop an Alabama judge from displaying the Ten
Commandments and to prevent a school district from allowing prayer before class
and games. Alabamians--77 percent of whom favor school prayer--are outraged by
the legal meddling, none more than Gov. Fob James Jr., a dynamite-fishing good
old boy who believes that states are allowed to establish religion. According
to James, the First Amendment only prohibits congressional establishment
of religion. ... Also, yet another editorial urging the United States to
attack Iraq: "A fig-leaf compromise brokered by the U.N. would be
disastrous."
--Seth
Stevenson
