Summaries of what's in Time, Newsweek, etc.

Journeys With George(s)

By Julia TurnerUpdated Friday, Sept. 12, 2003, at 7:39 PM ET

New Republic, Sept. 22
An article paints CIA Director George Tenet as a glad-handing pol who's too willing to manipulate key intelligence to suit his superiors' political agenda. The piece solidly details how Tenet championed the Clinton administration bombing of a Sudanese factory when only shreds of evidence suggested that unconventional weapons were manufactured there, but it rings a bit smarmy when it repeatedly quotes sources who describe Tenet as loyal, chummy, charming, and friendly, as though sheer niceness might indicate spinelessness. … A report from Tuesday's presidential debate argues that John Kerry turned in a "familiar, content-less" performance. (Slate's William Saletan disagreed.) Also noted: "the newest must-have accessory on the campaign trail"—the minicam. At one point, "George Clooney films a film crew filming Dennis Kucinich as a reporter films Clooney." One wonders if they were all inspired by Alexandra Pelosi's documentary Journeys With George. (Bush, not Clooney.)

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New York Times Magazine New York Times Magazine, Sept. 14
Devout readers of Lucky will be glad to note that "God is not at all opposed to a fashion magazine or its format." So argues Laurie Whaley, anyway; she's the woman behind Revolve, a new edition of the New Testament that's written for teenage girls and designed to look like YM. Revolve offers fashion and dating tips alongside psalms in modern idiom. Whaley on why girls shouldn't call boys: "There's no indication from Scripture that Mary Magdalene ever picked up the phone and called Christ." … Arthur Lubow uses newly released letters and diary excerpts to reassess photographer Diane Arbus. Because she often photographed what she called "freaks"—giants, transvestites, sword-swallowers—Arbus has sometimes been regarded as exploitative, an "opportunist." But Lubow finds that the startling intimacy of her photographs derives from her empathy with her subjects, with whom she spent much time: "Her vantage point denied the viewer any protective distance."

The New Yorker The New Yorker, Sept. 15
The world's first pharmaco-ethnomusicological mystery solved! John Morgan, a blues-loving doctor, heard about a strange paralysis called "jake walk" in med school, and again in the Allen Brothers' song "Jake Walk Blues"—"I can't eat, I can't talk, drinking mean jake, Lord, I can't walk." Further research turned up a forgotten epidemic: There was a spate of such songs in the early 1930s, when a contaminated batch of a medicinal alcohol called jake, or Jamaican ginger extract, rendered unlucky Prohibition-era liquor drinkers paralyzed and impotent. … Mel Gibson's forthcoming film The Passion has aroused much of it. Some Christian viewers weep upon seeing the Biblical adaptation; some religion scholars and anti-defamation groups contend that its portrayal of contemporary Jews is anti-Semitic. (The script refers to the "bloodthirsty" crowd at the Crucifixion.) Peter J. Boyer nimbly explores the debate, finding that The Passion is basically a violent war movie.

Weekly Standard, Sept. 15
Tom Donnelly calls Donald Rumsfeld the "Secretary of Stubbornness," noting that his opposition to increasing the number of GIs in Iraq has forced the Bush administration to make nice with the United Nations, petitioning for help from international troops. … The editorial warns that international troops may be hard to come by and that "hasty efforts in this direction have about them an unmistakable air of buck-passing." The U.S. must commit appropriate forces and funds now. … Club for Growth president Stephen Moore tells Republicans "salivating over the prospect of a Bush-Dean match-up" to think again. Echoing David Tell's April piece in the Standard, Moore argues that Dean's a centrist, Clintonesque politician who wouldn't necessarily tank in the general election. Plus Moore thinks Dean, as president, "would be monomaniacal about balancing the budget."

Newsweek, Time, U.S. News & World Report Newsweek, Time, U.S. News & World Report, Sept. 15
Marking the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror strikes, the newsmagazines take different tacks. Newsweek lists the names of the 433 Americans who've died in the war on terror since the attacks and offers "Portraits of Grief"-style vignettes about a few of them. In a separate story, several widows describe learning of their husbands' deaths. … A Time package attempts to unravel Saudi ties to Islamist terror, citing the country's crackdown on local religious militants—the government has arrested more than 200 al-Qaida suspects and fired 2,000 mosque officials with extremist leanings—while also chronicling extensive Saudi financial support for international institutions devoted to spreading Wahhabism in places as diverse as Kosovo and Cambodia. … U.S. News asks "Are we safer?" and evaluates the war on terror, which gets mixed marks. Osama Bin Laden is still at large, although many other al-Qaida operatives have been captured. But the war in Iraq has likely incensed al-Qaida members who remain at large, and the chaos there has made it an inviting new theater of operations. (In a Time piece, a U.S. official confirms there are now "almost certainly" dozens of al-Qaida agents in Iraq.) Other problems: Airline cargo is still insufficiently screened, and in many states, first responders, including firefighters and EMTs, are still low on funds.

Economist Economist, Sept. 5
Things are looking a bit grim for President Bush in 2004. His poll numbers are low, and the two biggest obstacles to Bush's re-election—the lackluster economy and the increasing violence in Iraq—call for opposite solutions: To shore up the economy, Bush should curb public spending. But to shore up Iraq, Bush should dole out more money. … Also grim: The current situation in Myanmar, where Aung San Suu Kyi remains in custody and hasn't been seen by an outsider since July. The generals who rule the country announced last weekend that democracy is a top priority, but "any talk of restoring democracy is meaningless without the participation of Miss Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy." … Does flat-broke Berlin have too many opera houses? Maybe, but the city's sparsely attended operas do feature riskier artistic choices: One recent production included a singing, dancing Osama Bin Laden.