I received my second issue of Prospect magazine just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. I’m pleased to say that this issue not only confirmed my suspicions of the magazine, it actually impressed me a little bit more. And it sort of made me wish I had done something similar with all the magazines: do a write up and then see how the latest issue compares (but I won’t).
I’m not going to go into extravagant detail with this issue, since I just wrote about the previous issue, but I wanted to mention the article that I was not only fascinated by, but that made me wonder why I had to cross the Atlantic to read about them.
But referencing back: yes, If I ruled the world appears to be a regular feature and this one (about abolishing receipts for transactions under £5) was funny and well argued. And Brian Eno is back, with a funny column about increasing segmentation in music.
In this issue, I enjoyed the article about the sinister use of the word “inappropriate” (which asserts official power) instead of “indecent” (which appeals to you as a human being). And since I use inappropriate all the time with my kids, I totally got it.
The article about stronger maternity leave (in Sweden) was really great, arguing from both sides and giving me new things to think about (as I think women and men should get more). And most interestingly, the argument for importing vegetables from Africa was a shocking strike across the bow of the “eat local” argument. Africans hand pick their vegetables, and therefore use farm less carbon than machine-operated farms; this completely offsets any carbon they use in transport (most of which is shipped on commercial airlines that were going to fly anyway). Oh, and yes, the money spent on African food would obviously help poor African farmers quite a lot.
On the U.S. front, this was the first I’d heard of a theoretical presidential bid for General Petraeus.
I was also fascinated to read about the shortage of rare earth metals–China is planning on reducing the amount it sells to keep them for home production–which could vastly impact future technologies. And, in a another cool “word” article, I learned about the new online dictionary Wordnik, which, OED be damned, includes words from all over the web, provides context, and lets people know what words are being used, whether they are stupid or not (example: “awesomepants“).
In the book world, I’ve been getting a lot of requests at the library for Steig Larsson’s The Girl with Dragon Tattoo. I’ve wondered what the fuss was about, and conveniently, there was a review of the whole trilogy here (which makes me not want to read the books, although I’m delighted to find out the main character is a witch). Next, Sam Leith has a fun hypothetical: would you rather be bitten by a vampire or a zombie.
And there’s media reviews of both Law & Order (!) and Saw VI (as a metaphor for American political commentary).
I’m delighted to see The Way We Were back with quotes from old authors. And I was fascinated to read a personal history by a mixed-race man who discovered that his white mom grew up with a dog named Nigger. But when she married a black man, it showed that the name wasn’t mean to be racist, just culturally insensitive. It was a surprisingly funny recollection.
And of course, the cover article: about dictators using the web to disrupt civil disobedience was absolutely eye-opening for me (even if in retrospect, it seems obvious).
So, yes, Prospect, you rock my world. Thanks.
I was in Barnes and Noble recently and I looked for Prospect on the shelves. But the overwhelming breadth (and sheer disorganization) of their magazine section made me give up after a couple of minutes. So, I’m still not sure if you can get the magazine in the States. But you can subscribe here.
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