The Feminist Mistake?
Killer Woman Blues: Why Americans Can’t Think Straight about Gender and Power, Benjamin DeMott. Houghton Mifflin, 256 pages, $26.00. What do we talk about when we talk about feminism? That depends on what we think about women in general and contemporary culture in particular. Are we talking about makeup-free women with long, gray braids who,…
Gurl Power
On the Internet, the year 2000 was the year of the female. The number of women using the Web surpassed men for the first time last year, according to a study released by Media Metrix/Jupiter Communications in August. And girls between the ages of 12 and 17 make up the fastest-growing group of Web surfers.…
The Talk of the Web
The New Yorker, as the only widely circulated general-interest American magazine without an active Web presence, is one of the last holdouts against the barbarians at the digital gate. Which is why we were surprised when, not long ago, a piece by Malcolm Gladwell, a New Yorker staff writer, popped up in our online Nexis…
Trouble on the Mount
The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount, by Gershom Gorenberg. The Free Press, 275 pages, $25.00. A dispatch from the Middle East: “On the Mount, … Palestinians began hurling rocks… . a police paramilitary unit opened up with live fire, killing a score of Palestinians. Riots spread through the occupied…
A House Divided
G eorge W. Bush convinced many swing voters that he was “a uniter, not a divider.” He pledged to work with Republicans and Democrats to change the tone of partisan rancor in Washington. But Washington is not Austin, and the sense of a stolen election has strengthened Democratic unity in a closely divided Congress. Any…
His Fraudulency the Second?
U ntil recently there was no particular contemporary relevance to the nicknames of some of our less-favored presidents. Rutherford B. Hayes, victor in the hijacked electoral vote of 1876, was known as “Old 8-7” or “His Fraudulency.” John Tyler, promoted from vice president when William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia after only one month in…
King of the Hill?
E arly in December, as the Florida Supreme Court mulled over Al Gore’s fate, a few dozen reporters crowded into a Senate press gallery for a conference with the newly elected Democratic leadership. After several minutes of introductions, a reporter called out a question to Thomas Daschle, the Democratic minority leader since 1994. If the…
Say It Is So, Joe!
W hen Al Gore tapped Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman to be his Democratic running mate last August, there was plenty of concern among party liberals: Why was Gore (who many thought was already too much of a New Democrat) teaming with the chairman of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC)? And was Lieberman, best known…
Divided We Stand
O bedient as always, in quest of good grades, Al Gore delivered the excessively gracious concession speech that pundits told him to deliver: Pledging his absolute support for George Bush, he urged us to set aside partisanship and embrace patriotism; echoing Bush, he urged us to stand united, not divided, and most of all encouraged…
Comment: Senatorial Courtesy
T he nomination of defeated Missouri Senator John Ashcroft as attorney general will test whether Democrats will spend the next four years getting rolled. This is George W. Bush’s signature appointment, his thank-you gift to the far right. How bad is Ashcroft? This bad: He was one of three senators to sponsor the Human Life…
Bush’s Luck, Clinton’s Dilemma
T he final indignity of the Clinton presidency may bring yet another piece of good fortune to the man who just won the White House while getting fewer votes than his opponent. Although the Independent Counsel Act is defunct and will therefore never cause the least trouble for George W. Bush, the office created under…
Watching Greenspan Grow
Greenspan: The Man Behind Money, Justin Martin. Perseus Publishing, 284 pages, $28.00. Maestro: Greenspan’s Fed and the American Boom, Bob Woodward. Simon and Schuster, 270 pages, $25.00. For those seeking a personal portrait of America’s maximum economic-policy maker, Justin Martin’s biography of Alan Greenspan will serve nicely. Informed and sympathetic, Martin traces Greenspan’s personal and…
The Coming Bush Recession
P resident of the United States Economy Alan Greenspan is frustrated. George W., the mere president-elect, won’t deal. Worse, Greenspan can’t punish W. for not dealing. He can’t even credibly threaten punishment, because punishment is just what W. wants. Don’t throw me into that briar patch, Br’er Greenspan! The last two presidents have been willing…
Trigger Happy
T he Communist Manifesto exults over the “specter haunting Europe”–the growth of communism. Today, America’s ability to grow in a socially equitable manner confronts a serious threat from another economic theory, one that shares with Marx’s construct its devotees’ loyalty in the face of strong contradictory evidence. This danger can be even more appropriately labeled…
Bibliosophy
The Business of Books: How International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read, Andre Shiffrin. Verso, 181 pages, $23.00. Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future, Jason Epstein. W. W. Norton, 188 pages, $21.95. Once upon a time, the major American publishing houses could be counted on to bring controversial new ideas,…
California, Dreamed
P eople who try to get their arms around California inevitably have trouble. The place is too large, diverse, and complex; it isn’t really one place at all, except maybe in the minds of outsiders. So it’s not surprising that Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000, the monumentally ambitious and grandly titled show…
Bubba and Elvis
Double Trouble: Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley in the Land of No Alternatives, by Greil Marcus. Henry Holt and Company, 248 pages, $25.00. E ven now, it is an indelible image: Bill Clinton in sunglasses blowing “Heartbreak Hotel” through his saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show in 1992. It was the meeting of politics and…
Top Spin
“W hy do people who are so smart get up and say things that are so dumb?” wonders lefty political commentator Bill Press, announcing his pick for “spin of the day” on CNN’s snarky new talk show, The Spin Room. Press’s baby-faced on-air sidekick, the bow-tied Weekly Standard writer Tucker Carlson, defines the “spin of…
What Makes Arthur Tick?
A Life in the Twentieth Century: Innocent Beginnings, 1917-1950, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Houghton Mifflin, 557 pages, $28.95. I first met Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., 54 years ago at the founding convention of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) in Washington, D.C. I was dazzled by the array of notables in attendance–from Eleanor Roosevelt to the young…
Up in the Air
F lying cross-country after a photo-op with the border patrol, newly appointed U.S. drug czar Robert Wakefield tries to rouse his troops. Thrusting out a dimpled chin as only Michael Douglas can, Wakefield dares them to be creative. “I want everyone thinking out of the box for the next few minutes,” he barks in the…
Using the Brain
A User’s Guide to the Brain: Personality, Behavior and the Four Theaters of the Brain, John Ratey. Pantheon Books, 416 pages, $27.50. John Ratey, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, has written several books on neurological disorders. The most incisive and far-reaching of these is Shadow Syndromes, his 1997 work that argues…
The Transfer of Power
Perpetuating Power: How Mexican Presidents Were Chosen, by Jorge G. Castañeda. The New Press, 248 pages, $26.00. W hen businessman-turned-politician Vicente Fox was elected to the Mexican presidency last July, he helped bring an end to more than 70 years of one-party rule. As long as most Mexicans could remember, presidents had been selected by…
Patent Medicine
A bsurdly high prices have put lifesaving prescription drugs out of reach for millions of Americans and for hundreds of millions of people in developing countries. In large part, patent protection is to blame. The patent system is a trade-off: Consumers pay a monopoly price on a drug for 17 years to provide incentives for…
