September 2003
In This Issue
James Fallows, “The Age of Murdoch”; H. W. Brands, “Founders Chic”; Paul Davies, “E.T. and God”; Christopher Hitchens, “Where the Twain Should Have Met”; Tish Durkin, “Bad Debt”; Caitlin Flanagan, “Housewife Confidential”; fiction by Elizabeth Stuckey-French; and much more.
Articles
The One-Term Tradition
Bush should not be overly sanguine about his chances for re-election
Founders Chic
Our reverence for the Fathers has gotten out of hand
People Like Us
We all pay lip service to the melting pot, but we really prefer the congealing pot
Four More Years?
The invincibility question
Bad Debt
Settling accounts in the vacuum of postwar Iraq
The Age of Murdoch
Many see him as a power-mad, rapacious right-wing vulgarian. Rupert Murdoch has indeed been relentless in building a one-of-a kind media network that spans the world. What really drives him, though, is not ideology but a cool concern for the bottom line—and the belief that the media should be treated like any other business, not as a semi-sacred public trust. The Bush Administration agrees. Rupert Murdoch has seen the future, and it is him
Housewife Confidential
A tribute to the old-fashioned housewife, and to Erma Bombeck, her champion and guide
Where the Twain Should Have Met
The cosmopolitan Edward Said was ideally placed to explain East to West and West to East. What went wrong?
California Catholics
Maile Meloy's first novel uses gaudy old-time religion to string together a sweeping family narrative
Encore
Charles Baxter's new novel brings back some old friends
On Second Thought
Ideas whose time has come, unfortunately
Primary Sources
Selections from reports, studies, and other documents. This month: Osama bin Laden and Jacques Chirac voted able "to do the right thing"; the coming suburban ghetto?; why the Vikings would have liked global warming
"Loosie!"
The rise and fall of a great collaboration
Mudlavia
A short story
Word Court
E.T. and God
Could earthly religions survive the discovery of life elsewhere in the universe?
Letters to the Editor
New & Noteworthy
What to read this month
Anarchy at Sea
The sea is a domain increasingly beyond government control, vast and wild, where laws of nations mean little and secretive shipowners do as they please—and where the resilient pathogens of piracy and terrorism flourish
To a Tortoiseshell Lyre
To Smoke
