February is the shortest month, but it carries a good number of distinctions: Black History Month, Presidents Day — and the oldest of them all, Valentine’s Day.
We’ve had our share of the usual pink hearts and advice to the lovelorn. What we have now, in unusual abundance, are a few articles of real substance — though not everyone will agree with their content.
The New Yorker is celebrating its 80th anniversary with a double issue (dated Feb. 14 and Feb. 21) that surely will warm the hearts of blue-state voters. Its Talk of the Town feature sets the tone with an opening comment from Hendrik Hertzberg (illustrated by a rather mean-spirited caricature of President Bush by Gerard Scarf).
The story, in general, is skeptical toward the recent Iraqi elections. “Iraq is still a very, very long way from democracy,” Mr. Hertzberg writes.
He concludes: “But, for the moment at least, one can marvel at the power of the democratic idea. It survived American slavery; … it survived Cold War horrors like America’s support of Spanish Falangism and Central American death squads. Perhaps it can even survive the fervent embrace of George W. Bush.”
In much the same blue vein, as it were, Jane Meyer authors a long report on “Outsourcing Torture,” a fairly scary piece introducing a new word and a new concept to us, “a secretive program known as ’extraordinary rendition.’ ” Simply put, it means extraditing terrorism suspects from one foreign state to another for interrogation and prosecution.
The article appears to be meticulously researched, so we trust we’ll be seeing some follow-up in the media.
Elsewhere in the magazine:
• Nicholas Lemann takes up the question “Why is everyone mad at the mainstream media?” in “Fear and Favor.” After talking with Bill Keller, the New York Times’ executive editor, and Ann Marie Lipinski, the Chicago Tribune’s editor in chief, he decides a better understanding of conservatives is manageable.
But has the media’s covenant with the public been damaged? “What if people don’t believe in us, don’t want us, anymore?” Mr. Lemann wonders.
• Richard Preston’s article “Climbing Redwoods” makes for dandy reading — even though environmentalism is something of a politically correct issue.
• You’ll also find a heart-melting photograph of a dog illustrating Susan Orlean’s article “Lost Dog.”
• Finally, the magazine will be sending an exhibit of 80 covers (from 1925 through today) to Los Angeles, Seattle and the District during May and June.
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The winter issue of the excellent quarterly City Journal has a story by Heather Mac Donald , “How to Interrogate Terrorists,” which makes the case for rethinking our interrogation doctrine. “The Islamist enemy is unlike any the military has encountered in the past,” the story notes.
In case those of us living in the 21st century have forgotten just how terrible torture can be, Miss Mac Donald’s article is illustrated with black-and-white engravings from the 15th century that depict — quite chillingly — just how hellish it is.
• • •
The American Enterprise in its March issue presents a powerful argument in favor of overhauling the Social Security system, written by editor in chief Karl Zinsmeister. Delving into the somewhat recent past, he begins with two full pages detailing American life in 1935, then asks, “So: Do you want to base your security in old age on a program engineered at the same time as the Model A and the vacuum-tube radio?”
In conclusion, Mr. Zinsmeister writes: “The next moment a Democratic politician tells you that school choice, and individual Social Security accounts, and worker-owned medical savings are ’dangerous,’ I suggest you answer with four simple words: Power to the People.”
• • •
Writing in the February issue of Commentary, Norman Podhoretz delivers a mighty paean of praise for President Bush in the beginning of his article “The War Against World War IV.”
Mr. Podhoretz — who previously served as the magazine’s longtime editor in chief — also refers to Mr. Bush as “the amazing leader this President has amazingly turned out to be,” comparing him to “the comparably amazing Harry Truman before him when he took on the Communist world.”
The story certainly provides a good look inside the neoconservative mind.
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The March issue of Air & Space, one of several periodicals published by the Smithsonian Institution, features “Falling With the Falcon,” an extraordinary article by Tom Harpole that tells us about the astonishing feats of a 6-year-old peregrine falcon named Frightful.
It’s a fitting name, indeed. Sixteen inches long, weighing 2.2 pounds and with a 41-inch wingspan, she’s undoubtedly an imposing figure to many other birds. “When Frightful is stooping-diving after prey from nearly three miles up, she has been clocked at 242 mph, and it’s possible she can go faster,” Mr. Harpole writes.
Frightful’s owner, Ken Franklin — a 46-year-old pilot and master falconer from Friday Harbor, Wash. — took to sky-diving with his falcon to understand how a 2-pound bird can achieve higher speeds than most small airplanes. He has sky-dived with Frightful more than 200 times, sometimes as much as five times daily. “Birds are the blueprint for aeronautical engineering,” Mr. Franklin says.
• • •
To end on a libertarian note, Reason in its March issue delivers a cover story on Ayn Rand a century after her birth, by Cathy Young, a contributing editor for the magazine and columnist for the Boston Globe.
Miss Young describes Miss Rand (who died in 1982) as “an oddity on the cultural scene, a cult figure with plenty of worshippers and plenty of desecrators.”
That may be. Still, Miss Rand became mainstream enough to be honored by a U.S. Postal Service stamp in 1999.
Miss Young’s article also claims that the best-selling author of “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” is more relevant today than ever. After reading it, you may agree.
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