Category Archives: Opinion

The Economist Magazine – May 4, 2024 Preview

Europe in mortal danger: An interview with Emmanuel Macron

The Economist Magazine (May 3, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Europe in Mortal Danger’ – An interview with Emmanuel Macron…

Europe in mortal danger: An interview with Emmanuel Macron

The new science of disinformation

More co-ordination and better access to data are needed to fight lies

Uncle Sam’s fiscal profligacy

America’s reckless borrowing is a danger to its economy—and the world’s

Conflicts on campus

Should American universities call the cops on protesting students?

Feeling horny: dragons meet erotic fiction

Novels starring hot fairies are selling millions of copies

Read full edition

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – May 6, 2024

Sonny Rollins plays the saxophone on the Brooklyn Bridge.

The New Yorker (April 29, 2024): The new issue‘s cover features Faith Ringgold’s “Sonny’s Bridge, 1986” – The late artist’s work recalls her pioneering spirit through vivid, inventive designs.

Teresita Fernández’s Shifting Sculptural Landscapes

Also: Kamasi Washington, “The Outsiders” reviewed, Bang on a Can’s Long Play Festival, and more.

The Return, Again, of the Power Lunch

Four Twenty Five, a luxe new dining room from the mega-restaurateur Jean-Georges Vongerichten, takes square aim at the expense-account crowd.

Donald Trump’s Sleepy, Sleazy Criminal Trial

The most striking aspect of the former President’s hush-money trial so far has been that, for the first time in a decade, Trump is struggling to command attention.

Opinion & Politics: Reason Magazine – June 2024

Reason magazine, June 2024 cover image

REASON MAGAZINE (March 21, 2024)The latest issue features ‘The AI Issue’

In the AI Economy, There Will Be Zero Percent Unemployment

AI developer Andrew Mayne explains why technology could create more jobs and lead to unprecedented economic growth.

The Future of AI Is Helping Us Discover the Past

An AI-generated image using the prompt, “Illustration of AI helping the study of history in the style of Da Vinci." | Illustration: Joanna Andreasson/Midjourney

Historical teaching and research are being revamped by AI.

VIRGINIA POSTREL

Will Antitrust Policy Smother the Power of AI?

An AI-generated image using the prompt, “Illustration of antitrust smothering the power of AI." | Illustration: Joanna Andreasson/Midjourney

Left alone, artificial intelligence could actually help small firms compete with tech giants.

PATRICK HEDGER

The Economist Magazine – April 27, 2024 Preview

How strong is India’s economy?

The Economist Magazine (April 25, 2024): The latest issue features ‘How Strong is India’s Economy?’; Campus Clashes and the Democrats; Where next in the Tech Wars; Ukraine – What $61bn will buy and Has Taylor Swift peaked?….

How strong is India’s economy?

Brechrit: another bad Tory idea

Why leaving the ECHR would be a bad idea for Britain

Where next in the tech wars?

America, China and the battle for supremacy

San Marino, Russia and spies

Intelligence sources are concerned about the country, which is surrounded by Italy

Has Taylor Swift peaked?

The musician is at the height of her commercial, but not her creative, power

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Special Report: “India’s Economy” – April 27, 2024

Special reports: The India express

The Economist SPECIAL REPORTS (April 22, 2024): The latest issue features The India express – With the right changes, it can continue as an engine of global growth, say Arjun Ramani and Thomas Easton….

For its next phase of growth, India needs a new reform agenda

An illustration showing a modern train pulling old carriages.

With the right changes, it can continue as an engine of global growth, say Arjun Ramani and Thomas Easton

The consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, a city in Uttar Pradesh, in January was a matter of supreme importance to Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister; attendance was thus de rigueur for those seeking his approval. The attendant courtiers included not just politicians, officials and foreign dignitaries but also India’s biggest corporate bosses. Uttar Pradesh is not their normal stamping ground, and Ayodhya has not until recently been much of a destination for tycoons. Now it has 115 hotels under construction, and some of those January visitors may soon be finding reasons to return.

India’s financial system has improved dramatically in the past decade

India’s difficult business environment is improving

India’s leaders must deal with three economic weaknesses

Going green could bring huge benefits for India’s economy

Cover: The New Statesman Magazine – April 21, 2024

The New Statesman – April 21, 2024:

Israel and Iran’s deadly game

Israel and Iran’s deadly game

They bet that direct attacks would not lead to a disastrous escalation. The Middle East is now on the…By Jeremy Bowen

Why Iran’s attack on Israel failed

Why Iran’s attack on Israel failed

The drone and missile strike conveyed as much weakness as it did strength.By Lawrence Freedman

The Cass review into children’s gender care should shame us all

The Cass review into children’s gender care should shame us all

Why was the prescription of puberty blockers to distressed children allowed to continue for so long?By Hannah Barnes

The New York Times Magazine – April 21, 2024

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (April 19, 2024):The Modern Love issue features…

Online Dating After 50 Can Be Miserable. But It’s Also Liberating.

You know so much more about yourself and your desires when you’re older that dating apps — even with all their frustrations — can bring unanticipated pleasure.

Can a Sexless Marriage Be a Happy One?

A photograph of a miniature model with two beds separated by a door.

Experts and couples are challenging the conventional wisdom that sex is essential to relationships.

The Poems That Taught Me How to Love

Lessons from Pablo Neruda’s mind-bending verse.

By NICHOLAS CASEY

The Economist Magazine – April 20, 2024 Preview

The Economist Magazine (April 18, 2024): The latest issue features Reasons to be cheerful about Generation Z – They are not doomed to be poor and anxious…

Reasons to be cheerful about Generation Z

They are not doomed to be poor and anxious

India’s democracy needs a stronger opposition

The Congress party is set for a drubbing in the world’s biggest election

Israel should not rush to strike back at Iran

Instead it should try a novel response to Iran’s missile attack: restraint

Culture/Politics: Harper’s Magazine – May 2024

HARPER’S MAGAZINE – April 15, 2024: The latest issue features The Life and Death of Hollywood – Film and television writers face an existential threat; The Race for Second Place – The Republican primaries as farce

The Life and Death of Hollywood

Photo illustration by Nicolás Ortega

Film and television writers face an existential threat

by Daniel Bessner

In 2012, at the age of thirty-two, the writer Alena Smith went West to Hollywood, like many before her. She arrived to a small apartment in Silver Lake, one block from the Vista Theatre—a single-screen Spanish Colonial Revival building that had opened in 1923, four years before the advent of sound in film.

Smith was looking for a job in television. She had an MFA from the Yale School of Drama, and had lived and worked as a playwright in New York City for years—two of her productions garnered positive reviews in the Times. But playwriting had begun to feel like a vanity project: to pay rent, she’d worked as a nanny, a transcriptionist, an administrative assistant, and more. There seemed to be no viable financial future in theater, nor in academia, the other world where she supposed she could make inroads.

The Race for Second Place

Illustration by Nate Sweitzer

The Republican primaries as farce

by Kyle Paoletta

On the Saturday before the Iowa caucuses, the super PAC supporting Florida governor Ron DeSantis staged a “drop by” for the candidate at its headquarters in West Des Moines. Outside the modernist office park, much of the Upper Midwest was under a deep freeze brought on by a low-pressure system that had deposited more than a foot of snow in advance of a surge of arctic air that brought the wind chill into the negative thirties. Despite the atrocious road conditions, DeSantis was keeping his schedule as a “special guest” of the Never Back Down PAC, beginning the day at the far western end of Iowa, in Council Bluffs, and concluding it three hundred miles east, in Davenport.

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – April 22, 2024

Image

The New Yorker (April 15, 2024): The new issue‘s cover features Ana Juan’s “Clickbait” – The artist captures the mesmerizing—and distracting—glow of modern entertainment.

Can the World Be Simulated?

Video-game engines were designed to closely mimic the mechanics of the real world. They’re now used for movies, TV shows, architecture, military trainings, virtual reality, and the metaverse.

Are Flying Cars Finally Here?

They have long been a symbol of a future that never came. Now a variety of companies are building them—or something close.

By Gideon Lewis-Kraus