Category Archives: Opinion

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – Dec 25, 2023

A colorless New York City street exists above a psychedelic alternate reality.

The New Yorker – December25, 2023 issue: The new issue‘s cover features “The Flip Side” – The annual Cartoons & Puzzles Issue, inhabitants of a colorless New York coexist with their doppelgängers in a topsy-turvy reality.

Can Crosswords Be More Inclusive?

Drawing of a man with a crossword head.

The puzzles spread from the United States across the globe, but the American crossword today doesn’t always reflect the linguistic changes that immigration brings.

By Natan Last

Root around in the alphanumeric soup of the U.S. visa system for long enough and you’ll discover the EB-1A, sometimes known as the Einstein visa. Among the hardest permanent-resident visas to obtain, it is reserved for noncitizens with“extraordinary ability.” John Lennon got a forerunner of it, in 1976, after a deportation scare that could have sent him back to Britain. (His case, which spotlighted prosecutorial discretion in immigration law, forms the legal basis for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or daca.) Modern-day recipients include the tennis star Monica Seles and—in a tasteless bit of irony—the Slovenian model Melania Knauss, in 2001, four years before she became Melania Trump. 

The World’s Fastest Road Cars—and the People Who Drive Them

A Bugatti Chiron Super Sport near the companys factory in Molsheim France.

“Hypercars” can approach or even exceed 300 m.p.h. Often costing millions of dollars, they’re ostentatious trophies—and sublime engines of innovation.

By Ed Caesar

A Bugatti Chiron Super Sport, near the company’s factory, in Molsheim, France. The car, which has lusciously curved side panels, has been produced in a limited run of five hundred. Although its engine is as big as a Shetland pony, the interior is eerily quiet.

Return to New York City

Return to New York City

Revisiting old haunts leads to revelations about “real life.”

By Julia Wertz

The New York Times Magazine – Dec 17, 2023

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THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (December 15, 2023):

The Failed Promise of Police Body Cameras

U.S. taxpayers spent millions to fund what was supposed to be a revolution in accountability. What went wrong?

Provocative Sex Is Back at the Movies. But Are We Ready for It?

Alden Ehrenreich and Phoebe Dynevor in “Fair Play.”

After an awkward MeToo hiatus, ‘May December’ and other films are showing​ intimacy in messy, complicated ​ways again.

By ALEXANDRA KLEEMAN

Is the Way Men Talk About Fashion About to Undergo Another Sea Change?

How two “grown dirtbags” are reshaping men’s wear.

By T.M. BROWN

Commentary Magazine – January 2024 Preview

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Commentary Magazine (December 14, 2023) – The latest issue features After Hamas Is Destroyed, Here Are the Five Things That Must Not Happen in Gaza; The Future Isn’t Going as Promised; Putin Won’t Stop; Brush Off Your Shakespeare, and more…

After Hamas Is Destroyed, Here Are the Five Things That Must Not Happen in Gaza

After Hamas Is Destroyed, Here Are the Five Things That Must Not Happen in Gaza

by Richard Goldberg

Israel is resolved to remove Hamas and its terrorist infrastructure from the Gaza Strip permanently, and for much of the world, its determination raises one question more than any other: What comes next in Gaza? For those who disapprove of Israel’s actions in the war or those who either passively or actively support the role of Hamas as the Strip’s governing authority, the lack of answers provides a pretext not only to demand a permanent cease-fire but to suggest (often quietly and with a furrowed brow indicating supposed realpolitik wisdom) that the path Israel seems to be making for itself is a dead end from which it needs to be saved.

The Future Isn’t Going as Promised

The Future Isn’t Going as Promised

by James B. Meigs

In his new book, The Conservative Futurist: How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised,American Enterprise Institute scholar James Pethokoukis writes about the go-go years of the 1960s: Saturn V rockets were blasting to the moon, atomic power promised to make electricity “too cheap to meter,” and sci-fi TV shows like Star Trek depicted new marvels right around the corner.

Brush Off Your Shakespeare

Brush Off Your Shakespeare

by Joseph Epstein

“Joseph,” my friend Edward Shils said to me, “we have spoken about many things, among them about various writers, but we are both too civilized ever to talk about Shakespeare. After all, what could one say?” Yes, what can one say? Over a long writing career, I have never written about Shakespeare, and, best I can recall, among the many millions of words I have produced, have never even quoted him. Truth is, I have long admired Shakespeare without being especially nuts about him. 

Previews: The Economist Magazine – Dec 16, 2023

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The Economist Magazine (December 14, 2023): The latest issue features ‘The media and the message’ – Journalism and the 2024 presidential election; ‘Can you have a healthy democracy without a common set of facts?; Iran’s regime is weaker than it looks, and therefore more pliable, and more…

Can you have a healthy democracy without a common set of facts?

America’s presidential election is a test of that proposition

Journalists should not spend much of their time writing about journalism. The world is more interesting than the inky habits of the people who report on it. But this week we are making an exception, because the discovery and dissemination of information matters a lot to politics. Don’t take our word for it: “A popular government,” wrote James Madison in 1822, “without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both.” Were Thomas Jefferson offered a choice between a government without newspapers and newspapers without a government, he said that he would choose the press (though that is probably going a bit far).

Iran’s regime is weaker than it looks, and therefore more pliable

America should deter it from escalating the Gaza war, but also engage with it

Twelve months ago Iran was reeling from protests sparked by the death in custody of a young woman who had been arrested for showing too much hair. Its theocratic regime was increasingly isolated, as Arab states forged closer ties with its enemy, Israel. The economy was a mess, adding to popular anger at Iran’s ageing supreme leader and inept president. The Islamic Republic had not seemed so vulnerable in decades.

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – Dec 18, 2023

Olimpia Zagnolis “Let There Be Lights”

The New Yorker – December18, 2023 issue: The new issue‘s cover features Olimpia Zagnoli’s “Let There Be Lights” – The artist discusses strands of brilliance amid dark days.

All the Carcinogens We Cannot See

A grid of cells multiplying.

We routinely test for chemicals that cause mutations. What about the dark matter of carcinogens—substances that don’t create cancer cells but rouse them from their slumber?

By Siddhartha Mukherjee

In the nineteen-seventies, Bruce Ames, a biochemist at Berkeley, devised a way to test whether a chemical might cause cancer. Various tenets of cancer biology were already well established. Cancer resulted from genetic mutations—changes in a cell’s DNA sequence that typically cause the cell to divide uncontrollably. These mutations could be inherited, induced by viruses, or generated by random copying errors in dividing cells. They could also be produced by physical or chemical agents: radiation, ultraviolet light, benzene. One day, Ames had found himself reading the list of ingredients on a package of potato chips, and wondering how safe the chemicals used as preservatives really were.

The Troubled History of the Espionage Act

SECRET stamped atop the United States emblem.

The law, passed in a frenzy after the First World War, is a disaster. Why is it still on the books?

By Amy Davidson Sorkin

In March, 1940, Edmund Carl Heine, a forty-nine-year-old American automobile executive, reached an understanding with a company then known as Volkswagenwerk GmbH. Heine, who immigrated to the United States from Germany as a young man, had spent years at Ford, first in Michigan and then in its international operations in South America and Europe, landing finally in Germany. In 1935, two years after the Nazi regime came to power, Ford fired him, for reasons that are unclear. Heine next signed on with Chrysler, in Spain, but the Spanish Civil War was tough on the car business. And so he was out of a job again.

The New York Times Magazine – Dec 10, 2023

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THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (December 8, 2023):

Michael Stipe Is Writing His Next Act. Slowly.

A black-and-white portrait of Michael Stipe.

How do you reinvent yourself after being a global superstar? The former R.E.M. frontman is still figuring that out.

By Jon Mooallem

When Michael Stipe was little, his parents called him Mr. Mouse. He was a scurrier. As soon as he could stand, he ran, and when he ran, he ran until he face-planted. His mother would deposit him in a baby walker, but if Stipe scrambled as fast as he could and hit the threshold of a doorway with a running start, he could topple the walker and eject himself onto the floor. Then he’d spring to his feet and run away.

The Border Where Different Rules Apply

When detained by the U.S. Coast Guard at sea, even children fleeing violence have no right to asylum — and often face an uncertain fate.

By Seth Freed Wessler

Tcherry’s mother could see that her 10-year-old son was not being taken care of. When he appeared on their video calls, his clothes were dirty. She asked who in the house was washing his shirts, the white Nike T-shirt and the yellow one with a handprint that he wore in rotation. He said nobody was, but he had tried his best to wash them by hand in the tub. His hair, which was buzzed short when he lived with his grandmother in Haiti, had now grown long and matted. He had already been thin, but by January, after three months in the smuggler’s house, he was beginning to look gaunt. Tcherry told his mother that there was not enough food. He said he felt “empty inside.”

Previews: The Economist Magazine – Dec 9, 2023

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The Economist Magazine (December 7, 2023): The latest issue features Israel and Palestine: how to get to peace – For there to be any hope, both Israelis and Palestinians need new leaders; What if Trump stumbles? – And what might happen if Trump dropped out; Make or break for renewables – Supply-chain dysfunction, rising interest rates and protectionism are making life tough; Our books of the year – This year’s picks transport readers to mountain peaks, out to sea and back in time

Israel and Palestine: How peace is possible

A peace process can go wrong in many ways, but a real possibility exists that it could go right

How to stop over-medicalising mental health

What the world could learn from Britain’s flawed approach

A messy contest is coming to a head behind Donald Trump

Our poll tracker sheds light on that competition. It may yet matter

Arts/Politics: The Atlantic Magazine – January 2024

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The Atlantic Magazine – December 7, 2023: The latest January/February 2024 issue features ‘IF TRUMP WINS’ – A second Trump presidency won’t just mirror the first. It will be much worse. In The Atlantic’s January/February issue, two dozen writers warn what could happen if Donald Trump is reelected, from destroying the rule of law to abandoning NATO and reshaping the international order.

TRUMP ISN’T BLUFFING

A black-and-white photo of the lower half of Trump's face while he's speaking

We’ve become inured to his rhetoric, but his message has grown darker.

By David A. Graham

“We pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” Donald Trump said this past November, in a campaign speech that was ostensibly honoring Veterans Day. “The real threat is not from the radical right; the real threat is from the radical left … The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.”

CIVIL RIGHTS UNDONE

black-and-white photo of Bill Barr and Ben Carson conferring with each other with audience in background
Bill Barr and Ben Carson: not fans of disparate-impact theory

How Trump could unwind generations of progress

By Vann R. Newkirk II

In late 2020, even as the instigators of insurrection were marshaling their followers to travel to Washington, D.C., another kind of coup—a quieter one—was in the works. On December 21, in one of his departing acts as attorney general, Bill Barr submitted a proposed rule change to the White House. The change would eliminate the venerable standard used by the Justice Department to handle discrimination cases, known as “disparate impact.” The memo was quickly overshadowed by the events of January 6, and, in the chaotic final days of Donald Trump’s presidency, it was never implemented. But Barr’s proposal represented perhaps the most aggressive step the administration took in its effort to dismantle existing civil-rights law. Should Trump return to power, he would surely attempt to see the effort through.

Trump’s Plan to Police Gender

His campaign is promising a more repressive and dangerous America.

A War on Blue America

In a second term, Trump would punish the cities and states that don’t support him.

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – Dec 11, 2023

A delivery man pushes packages across a roof toward a chimney.

The New Yorker – December11, 2023 issue: The new issue‘s cover features Barry Blitt’s “Special Delivery” – The artist discusses holiday shopping and his prized Popeye punching bag.

What Happened When the U.S. Failed to Prosecute an Insurrectionist Ex-President

Trump looking at a statue of Jefferson Davis.

After the Civil War, Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, was to be tried for treason. Does the debacle hold lessons for the trials awaiting Donald Trump?

By Jill Lepore

Jefferson Davis, the half-blind ex-President of the Confederate States of America, leaned on a cane as he hobbled into a federal courthouse in Richmond, Virginia. Only days before, a Chicago Tribune reporter, who’d met Davis on the boat ride to Richmond, had written that “his step is light and elastic.” But in court, facing trial for treason, Davis, fifty-eight, gave every appearance of being bent and broken. A reporter from Kentucky described him as “a gaunt and feeble-looking man,” wearing a soft black hat and a sober black suit, as if he were a corpse. He’d spent two years in a military prison. He wanted to be released. A good many Americans wanted him dead. “We’ll hang Jeff Davis from a sour-apple tree,” they sang to the tune of “John Brown’s Body.”

The Inside Story of Microsoft’s Partnership with OpenAI

A robot made out a computer keyboard.

The companies had honed a protocol for releasing artificial intelligence ambitiously but safely. Then OpenAI’s board exploded all their carefully laid plans.

By Charles Duhigg

At around 11:30 a.m. on the Friday before Thanksgiving, Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, was having his weekly meeting with senior leaders when a panicked colleague told him to pick up the phone. An executive from OpenAI, an artificial-intelligence startup into which Microsoft had invested a reported thirteen billion dollars, was calling to explain that within the next twenty minutes the company’s board would announce that it had fired Sam Altman, OpenAI’s C.E.O. and co-founder. It was the start of a five-day crisis that some people at Microsoft began calling the Turkey-Shoot Clusterfuck.

The New York Times Magazine – Dec 3, 2023

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (December 2, 2023): The latest issue features Sunday Night Lights – How America’s most spectacular TV show gets made; The Chicken Tycoons vs. the Antitrust Hawks – As part of a broader campaign against anticompetitive practices, the Biden administration has taken on the chicken industry

Behind the Scenes of the Most Spectacular Show On TV

Camera operators hovering above a crowd in sports jerseys.

Months of preparation, hundreds of staff, convoys of cutting-edge gear: inside the machine that crafts prime time’s most popular entertainment.

By Jody Rosen

Arrowhead Stadium, the home of the Kansas City Chiefs, the N.F.L.’s defending champions, is a very loud place. Players say that when the noise reaches top volume, they can feel vibrations in their bones. During a 2014 game, a sound meter captured a decibel reading equivalent to a jet’s taking off, earning a Guinness World Record for “Loudest crowd roar at a sports stadium.” Chiefs fans know how to weaponize noise, quieting to a churchlike hush when the team’s great quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, calls signals but then, when opponents have the ball, unleashing a howl that can even drown out the sound of the play call crackling through the speaker inside the rival quarterback’s helmet.

The Chicken Tycoons vs. the Antitrust Hawks

A photo illustration of a chicken in a suit.

As part of a broader campaign against anticompetitive practices, the Biden administration has taken on the chicken industry. Why have the results been so paltry?

By H. Claire Brown

At Kentucky Fried Chicken, sales tend to peak at the same time every year: Mother’s Day. This has been the case since the 1960s, when the chain began to experiment with TV advertising. In a spot from that era, a man in an office answers a phone call from an anonymous male narrator who asks, “Sir, do you have any idea what your wife has to do to run your house?” Cut to a sped-up montage of an impeccably dressed 30-something as she dusts, irons, vacuums and balances the checkbook. Newly enlightened, the husband shows his appreciation by stopping at Kentucky Fried Chicken on his way home. Cut to a close-up of a happy wife biting into a drumstick. “Colonel Sanders fixes Sunday dinner seven days a week, and it’s finger-lickin’ good.”