I don’t often read the popular (American) press, but on a lazy summer day like today, I decided to pick up the latest Newsweek (3 June 2002) that was sitting conspicuously on the table next to me, and give it a read. It’s turned into quite a mixed assortment, ranging from poor to slightly interesting.

On the Repression of Women

I found the “My Turn” article pretty dumb. It’s titled “My 3-Foot-9-Inch Symbol of Freedom,” with the amzing sub-title of “Why do I let my aughter play hockey? Because in Afghanistan she would never have the choice” (14). Here’s even more:

«Watching that report [on the repression of women in Afghanistan], I realized that I’d purchased hockey equipment for my daughter just three days before the September 11 tragedies. I’d done something the Taliban would never have allowed … I felt ashamed of my initial urge to discourage Gabbie from playing ice hockey. I saw her as the anti-Taliban, a 3-foot-9 symbol of American freedom.»

The Taliban probably wouldn’t have allowed the author’s five year old daughter to tote an assult rifle around town or become a prostitute, either. Maybe those should be next on the list of things for the author’s daughter to take up before she turns, say, seven. Honestly, I believe gender inequality is a serious issue, and one that deserves attention, but when it is presented as an “those evil people wouldn’t allow women to do it, so we should” argument, I find it hard to take seriously anything that is said.

Gamma Girls

“Meet the Gamma Girls,” despite a few quotes which I might object to (read on), is a good article (44). In it, Susannah Meadows compares “popular” (alpha) and “wannabe” (beta) girls with “a third breed of resilient girls, the ‘gammas’” by visiting Valhalla High School in El Cajon.

«[Gammas] don’t long to be invited to parties - they’re too busy writing an opinion column in the school paper or surfing and horseback riding.»

There’s a part of me that definitely digs the whole “wholesome” vibe in teens
(and twenty-somethings) today. It seems that for too long all that’s been recounted and hyped are the negative aspects (albeit, with some validity), so this article is a breath of fresh air.

I’ll admit though, that there are aspects of this that clash with my ideologies. Take for example this gem: “[Church friends are] more on the good side than the druggie side.” (I must have missed the part where we admit that “druggie” is inherently bad.)

I’m torn by really liking what this article is getting at, and the feeling that I’d like to not like it, admitting that the “wholesome” image is just a product of the conservative propoganda machine. I think, however, in the end and in this particular instance, I fall in solidarity with the idea of the gamma’s (though I accept and embrace my connections with the opposite end of the spectrum).

«”Popularity is a funny thing,” she reflects later. “The people who consider themselves ‘popular’ seem mostly unlikable and shallow to me, yet somehow the way they act defines them as ‘popular.’ Popular, that is, among themselves. There are a few ‘popular’ people that I actually like and are depthful enough that I am friends with them, but mainly they seem like snots.”»

Misconceptions and FUD

Some real brief comments on some of the smaller articles:

The right-spin in coverage of drug use is annoying. The photo for the article “The ‘Sextasy’ Craze” shows a raver with glow sticks streaked across the frame (30). Now, the article title and (assumedly) the photo are in reference to ecstasy (“used with Viagra, it’s called ‘sextasy’”), but the article isn’t even really about ecstasy. The focus of the article is the increasing availability of Viagra through non-medical sources, and the effects on public health this is causing.

In “Think Globally, Skip Tax Locally,” I was a bit put off by the use of this teen stereotype:

«Getting big accounting firms to change their willful ways is like trying to get teenagers to clean up their act in return for the keys to the family car. They’ll promise anything but will revert to form at every opportunity.» (38)

This is especially bothersome considering the cover story deals specifically with dispelling the classic teen stereotypes as they relate to teenage girls today.

The Towers

To finish up this entry, which is already too big (will anyone read it all?), I’ve just got to put in a few quotes from Anna Quindlen’s “The Last Word” (68). It’s titled “Look at What They’ve Done,” and something about it bugs me - something I can’t quite put into words. The basic point is that putting a new building on the site of the World Trade Center would be a terrible mistake.

«Now that the wreckage of the World Trade Center has been cleared away, those left behind face a lesser, different sort of danger, but a danger nonetheless. And that is that what really happened here, the carnage and the suffering and the blind hatred and the sheer destruction, will be muted by an impulse so strong that it may well count as a national disease. It has many names: moving ahead, getting past it, closure, healing.

But healing is for wounds. Grief is for deaths.»

Now, up to a point, I’m with her up to here. Well, except for that “national disease” part. But she then goes on to bemoan sky-scrapers as “great hulking misanthropic glass cubes.” Misanthropic? She complains of the unsuitableness of a proposal for the site, “dominated by statues of two women representing the muses History and Memory.” In the final paragraph, she asks, “Are we a people so pinched of heart that we would trade memory for real estate?” Now, some of her points may hold some weight, but she fails to accept that the real estate of the site is not (necessarily) in opposition to the memory of the events that took place there. She seems convinced that no momument would be sufficient, and instead suggests the site be left as a “flattened plain.”

Ok, perhaps I’m a heartless bastard, but for me, this doesn’t seem likely, intelligent, or reverent.