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

In the Line of Fire

By Julia TurnerUpdated Friday, Aug. 29, 2003, at 12:31 PM ET

New Republic, Sept. 8 and 15
The American people are not a bunch of mincing ninnies when it comes to military casualties, Lawrence F. Kaplan argues. But "casualty-phobia has confused the military's mission and ethos, which is to defend the nation, not itself." As long as a war is perceived as successful and for a good cause, the U.S. public is likely to support it, even if its toll on American troops is high. The Bush administration should pay more attention to restoring order in Baghdad than protecting GIs stationed there. … In the Howard Dean-o-centric race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Ryan Lizza concludes, "[John] Kerry is slipping out of the top tier altogether." … "TRB": Civil rights groups should focus not on Iraq but on Alabama, where the fight to make taxes fairer to the poor is currently limping along. … The editorial proposes that congressional Democrats play dirty. Possible tactic: "A symbolic exodus from Washington."

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Economist, Aug. 29
"Scuttle the shuttle," the editors argue, six and a half months late. NASA should focus on truly "path-breaking" science, including further forays to Mars, and relegate the more routine aspects of space travel to private industry. … The movie industry's listless efforts to fend off digital pirates are inadequate, a piece notes, disparaging "a curriculum for use in 36,000 American classrooms which teaches that swapping content is wrong." Also mocked: legal attacks on file-sharers of the sort pioneered by the music industry. Such efforts "alienat[e] customers" and give them further incentive to "rip off the industry."

Oui, August 1977
Arnold Schwarzenegger displays an early knack for sound bites in this 1977 interview, posted earlier this week by those scamps at the Smoking Gun (and discovered even earlier this week by resident Slate scamp Mickey Kaus). He dismisses the health nuts among his fellow bodybuilders: "I make my protein drink with whiskey." He cagily plots his then-nascent film career: "If there's one thing I ought to do, it's the unexpected. Whether it's [a film of Ernest Hemingway's short story] The Killers or something else, I should play the victim." He waves off insinuations that bodybuilders are gay: "Gay people are fighting the same stereotyping that bodybuilders are: People have certain misconceptions about them just as they do about us." But then there's the "gangbang": Once, at the gym where he trained, "There was a black girl who came out naked. Everybody jumped on her and took her upstairs, where we all got together." Schwarzenegger sounds unabashed, so perhaps all was consensual, but IOM wouldn't vote for Arnold until she heard the woman's take on the affair.

New York Times Magazine New York Times Magazine, Aug. 31
Lynn Hirschberg's profile of director Sofia Coppola is extremely kind. "I'm used to people not expecting much from me," Francis Ford's daughter says. But by being quietly particular and by collecting a cadre of multitalented friends, Coppola knows how to get things done her way, Hirschberg writes. Coppola's forthcoming Bill Murray movie, Lost in Translation, has set the indie film world a-twitter. … Why does much of the world think Israel shapes America's foreign policy? Ian Buruma offers a historical perspective. … Carson Hughes is trying to conquer the world of competitive eating. He can eat 2.5 pounds of collard greens in 17.5 seconds and is currently ranked 17^th on the planet. But Hughes still trains hard, taking cues from top-ranked Japanese chow-hog Takeru Kobayashi, who can down 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes. Kobayashi "works out three times a day, eats 10 packs of Ramen every night and talks to his stomach."

The New Yorker The New Yorker, Sept. 1
City residents already rattled by brushes with terrorism and darkness may not want to read this week's piece about New York's run-down water system. If they do, they will learn that all of New York's water reaches the city through two enormous tunnels. Both are in ill repair, and the tunnel that will replace them won't be finished until 2020. At the earliest. Intrepid readers should take a look, though; the story chronicles four generations of "sandhogs" in one family and describes what life feels like nearly 600 feet below Manhattan. … Adam Gopnik interviews two French "anti-anti-Americans" who, in defending American behavior in Iraq, "are forced to define a new kind of international liberalism." … A humor piece of the sort that has been appearing with increasing frequency in the "Talk of the Town"—this one on blackout-related questions posed to the New York Times Magazine's Ethicist—fails to elicit laughter.

Weekly Standard, Sept. 1 and 8
An editorial by Robert Kagan and William Kristol implores the Bush administration to put its money—and troops and resources—where its mouth is when it comes to Iraq. "Failure in Iraq would be a devastating blow to everything the United States hopes to accomplish, and must accomplish" in the Middle East, and the administration has thus far shown a "baffling" reluctance to pony up the requisite cash. … Kristol also argues that in the 2004 presidential election "more will be at stake in terms of the direction of the country than in any election since 1980, or perhaps since 1964." … David Tell scouts the Democratic contenders in Iowa. He finds John Edwards "impressive" despite the "snorts at the press table" when he speaks, and he compares John Kerry to the Mary Tyler Moore Show's airbag Ted Baxter, plus "40 or 50 IQ points." Joseph Lieberman's on-again off-again Iowa campaign is "a veritable shambles."

Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News & World Report Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News & World Report, Sept. 1
Last week's bombing of U.N. headquarters in Baghdad prompts questions about postwar security from Time ( "Are We Stretched Too Thin?"), Newsweek ("So What's Plan B?"), and U.S. News ("Troops or Consequences").

On sending more troops to Iraq: According to Time's cover story, the U.S. military is overtaxed at the moment; although it was a relatively small, nimble force (as per Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's request) that successfully invaded Iraq this spring, America is shorthanded when it comes to the "cleanup crews—the military police, the civil-affairs experts, the engineering units and all the other street-by-street peacekeepers—needed to occupy whole countries." … In an interview, Rumsfeld notes one concern: American military police are almost all reservists, many of whom are frustrated with increasingly frequent calls to duty. … In Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria argues that the United States needs help stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq: We should give the United Nations formal authority over the country's reconstruction, he writes, and let NATO take over the military forces there. … Time's Charles Krauthammer offers a "hardball" alternative: Threaten to withdraw American troops from places like the Balkans unless more countries send forces to help in Iraq. … Also noted: Time reports that "young G.I.s earn about $16,000 annually in base pay, [though] fringe benefits and bonuses can drive actual costs as high as about $60,000." How much of that $60,000 ends up in a serviceman's paycheck?

On sending kids to college: U.S. News issues its annual ranking of American colleges and universities. Among universities, Harvard and Princeton tie for first. Among public universities, Berkeley and the University of Virginia share the honor. And Williams is ranked top liberal arts college.