Newsweek articles from June 2009

Newsweek archives from June 2009

Perspectives.(Perspectives)(quotations from Al Gore, Roxana Saberi, and Newt Gingrich)(Quotation)(Brief article)
June 8, 2009... "Mother Nature does not do bailouts." --Former vice president Al Gore, advocating for international curbs on pollution at last week's World Business Summit on Climate Change. "The one thing that kept me going...was singing the...

Boom Times Are Back.(Fareed Zakaria)(economic boom)
June 8, 2009... Just not here in the United States. It is becoming increasingly clear that the story of the global economy is a tale of two worlds. In one, there is only gloom and doom, and in the other there is light and hope. In the traditional bastions...

Tony Kushner's Day.(Oprah Effect)(Culture)
June 8, 2009... Byline: Jeremy McCarter "I wish I was an octopus," says Roy Cohn in Angels in America, " a f--king octopus." These days Tony Kushner, the man who wrote that line, is a f--king octopus. With life more chaotic than usual--good news and bad...

Edie Over Easy.(Oprah Effect)(Television)(Edie Falco )
June 8, 2009... Byline: Joshua Alston Edie Falco doesn't mind that people still see her as Carmela Soprano, the matriarch of television's most influential family drama. She just doesn't want to be seen as one of those mothers. You know the type. The...

He's a Little Bit Country.(Oprah Effect)(Music)(Elvis Costello )(Secret, Profane and Sugarcane)(Sound recording review)
June 8, 2009... Byline: Seth Colter Walls You don't have to listen to the music of Elvis Costello (born Declan Patrick McManus in London) to know he's obsessed with Americana. First, there's that stage name. Next, you have the clues from the songs he's...

Isn't It Bromantic?(Oprah Effect)(Movies)(movies get brotherly love comedy)
June 8, 2009... Byline: Ramin Setoodeh We've all seen the damsel-in-distress movie before, but in The Hangover the damsel is a dude. The Hangover is a comedy about three guys who take their buddy Doug on a bachelor party to Vegas. When Doug disappears...

Save the Slice.(Oprah Effect)(Food)(pizza)
June 8, 2009... Byline: Andrew Romano Chef Mathieu Palombino is wearing a New Kids on the Block T shirt--and while it may be ironic, it's not inaccurate. Late last year Palombino, 31, opened Motorino in Brooklyn. His training was tony--Laurent Tourondel,...

The Bite Stuff, Again.(Oprah Effect)(Books)(The Strain)(Book review)
June 8, 2009... Byline: Malcolm Jones If there's anything more insatiable than a vampire, it's the public's appetite for vampire tales. The trick for an author or filmmaker is to vary the formula just enough (teen vampires!) to suck back in those of us...

The Prognosticator.(Oprah Effect)(Music)(Brief article)
June 8, 2009... in 3 months-- Last Train to Paris by Diddy. The Twittering mogul claims to have invented "train music." Ellington may have beaten him to the punch by 70 years, but radio will still take an interest. in 6 months Untitled by Adam...

Q&A: Alanis Morissette.(Oprah Effect)(Television)(Interview)(Brief article)
June 8, 2009... Byline: Joshua Alston The raven-haired Canuck is taking a break from music to join the cast of TV's Weeds. She spoke with Joshua Alston. You signed up for seven episodes of Weeds, which is a lot. I'm a huge fan. I used to watch it...

Yojiro Takita: Best.Movies.Ever.(Oprah Effect)(Movies)(Yojiro Takita's favorite movies)(Brief article)
June 8, 2009... His movie Departures, about a laid-off cellist who goes to work at a funeral home, was Japan's upset winner this year for best foreign film--in other words, it's the one that ruined your Oscar-pool ballot. Should it have beaten Waltz With...

Letters to the Editor: 'Everything You Think You Know About Iran Is Wrong'.(Mail Call)
June 8, 2009... Issue dated June 1, 2009 Zakaria tries to convince us that our thinking on Iran is incorrect, but actions speak louder than words. Martin Kay, Valley Village, Calif. A CIA coup overthrew the democratically elected president of...

The Reeducation of Abu Jandal.(Oprah Effect)(World Affairs)(Hamoud al-Hitar)
June 8, 2009... Byline: Kevin Peraino Can jihadists really be reformed? Closing Guantanamo may depend on it. Photographs by Karim Ben Khelifa All teachers have their problem pupils. Hamoud al-Hitar's was a young man who liked to call himself "Abu...

Like Father, Like Son.(Oprah Effect)(Politics)(Thomas Dodd and his son Christopher Dodd)
June 8, 2009... Byline: Evan Thomas, Mark Hosenball and Suzanne Smalley Thomas Dodd left the Senate in disgrace. Now his son Christopher faces his own crisis. Room S-211 is not on the Capitol tour. It is a small, ornate chamber, with the look and feel...

Revenge of the Nerd.(Oprah Effect)(Business)(Paul Wilmott)
June 8, 2009... Byline: Matthew Philips Paul Wilmott is out to save Wall Street's soul--one dork at a time. Imagine an aeronautics engineer designing a state-of-the-art jumbo jet. In order for it to fly, the engineer has to rely on the same...

Live Your Best Life Ever!(Oprah Effect)(Cover story)
June 8, 2009... Byline: Weston Kosova and Pat Wingert Wish Away Cancer! Get A Lunchtime Face-Lift! Eradicate Autism! Turn Back The Clock! Thin Your Thighs! Cure Menopause! Harness Positive Energy! Erase Wrinkles! Banish Obesity! Live Your Best Life Ever!...

Getting Out of Gitmo.(World Affairs)(United States on Guantanamo Bay Prison detainees)
June 8, 2009... Inside the struggle to send detainees home. somewhere between president Obama's post-inaugural pledge to close Guantanamo Bay during his first year in office and the more recent news that he may--like his predecessor--prosecute some...

A Trade Explosion In North Korea.(Scope; InternationaList)
June 8, 2009... Byline: Takashi Yokota North Korea is as famous for its poverty as it is for its provocations. That has many observers now wondering how a country that can barely afford to keep the lights on foots the bill for a...

To Disclose Or Not To Disclose: A Fight Inside The Cia.(Scope; Politics)
June 8, 2009... Byline: Mark Hosenball The honeymoon between CIA director Leon Panetta and veterans of the agency's undercover division--the National Clandestine Service--may be coming to an end. The dispute concerns how much access congressional...

Conventional Wisdom: Think Again.(Scope; Conventional Wisdom)(public opinion on Barack Obama, Sonia Sotomayor, and the Republican Party)(Brief article)
June 8, 2009... Obama (Up) Judging Supreme pick always takes years. But shrewd move politically, even though it seems to be completely sincere. Sotomayor (Up) She'll make it. Path-breaking choice with experience and an irresistible life...

Indignity Index.(Oprah Effect)(Scope; Culture)(Brief article)
June 8, 2009... An unscientific appraisal of dubious public behavior. The Center for Immigration Studies' Mark Krikorian calls the pronunciation of "Sotomayor" "unnatural" and argues that "we shouldn't be giving in to" pressure to say it correctly. ...

'The American Future'.(Oprah Effect)(Scope; Books)(book by Simon Schama)(Brief article)
June 8, 2009... We read it so you don't have to In his new book, historian and social critic Simon Schama traces how the big questions facing Obama's America have been asked and answered since the era of the Founding Fathers: Do we encourage immigration...

Straight to the Point.(Oprah Effect)(Scope; Culture)(Dovo razor company)(Brief article)
June 8, 2009... Byline: Eliza Gray In Solingen, Germany--dubbed the "City of Blades"--artisans grind straight razors in a one-room workshop that has barely changed since their company, Dovo, was founded in 1906. For decades, business was slow as King...

Why I'm Giving Away $1 Billion.(Scope; My Turn)(Viewpoint essay)
June 8, 2009... Byline: Peter G. Peterson; Peterson's memoir, The Education Of An American Dreamer, will be published by Twelve this month. The moment is overdue for us to become moral and worthy ancestors. In 2007 the company I cofounded, the...

Pumped Up.(Scope; Balance Sheet)(Chinalco's bid for Rio Tinto)(PetroChina's acquisition of Singapore Petroleum Co.)(Brief article)
June 8, 2009... Byline: Mary Hennock and Rana Foroohar PetroChina's recent decision to buy Singapore Petroleum Co. for up to $2.2abillion in cash must seem especially sweet to China's oil executives. They've been smarting ever since the U.S. blocked their...

The World's Biggest Losers.(Scope)(economic losses)(Brief article)
June 8, 2009... The Japanese economy shrank 4 percent in the first quarter, as exports to the U.S. plunged. If the rate of decline continues, Japan's GDP will contract by 15.2 percent in 2009, the biggest annual drop of any sizable nation in the past 40 years....

Let's Talk About God.(Oprah Effect)(Lisa Miller; Religion)('The Evolution of God')(Book review)
June 8, 2009... Byline: Lisa Miller; Miller is NEWSWEEK's religion editor. A new book redefines the faith debate. The atheist writers Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have presented us with a choice: either you don't believe in God...

There's No Place Like Home.(Oprah Effect)(Daniel Gross; Business)(second homes)(Column)
June 8, 2009... Byline: Daniel Gross; Gross is NEWSWEEK's economics editor. Good riddance to the vacation house. In recent years, I've approached the summer with something resembling dread. Another three months of having to explain that, no, we won't...

Philadelphia on the Nile.(Oprah Effect)(Howard Fineman; Politics)(Barack Obama in Egypt)
June 8, 2009... Byline: Howard Fineman; Fineman is Newsweek's Senior Washington Correspondent and an analyst for MSNBC. Handicapping Obama's Egypt speech. Barack Obama believes in his voice and his life story. Autobiographical speeches powered his...

Republicanism Reimagined.(Oprah Effect)(Jacob Weisberg; Politics)(Republican Party)
June 8, 2009... David Cameron's model for America. Dick Cheney's emergence as Leader of the Opposition delights two groups, one small and shrinking, the other large and growing. The small group is movement conservatives, who regard the former vice...

Caricature Witness.(Oprah Effect)(Ellis Cose; Politics)(Sonia Sotomayor)
June 8, 2009... The ugly assumptions behind the case against Judge Sotomayor. In introducing Sonia Sotomayor as his first pick for the Supreme Court, Barack Obama served up the requisite lavish praise. She possessed "not only the knowledge and experience...

A Save For Sotomayor?(George F. Will; Politics)(Sonia Sotomayor)(Column)
June 8, 2009... Byline: George F. Will Actually, more like a pop foul. Let us, as lawyers say, stipulate that the president is a gentleman and a scholar. He is not, however, a reliable baseball historian. Introducing Sonia Sotomayor, he suggests that...

Tiger By the Tales.(Books)(Between the Assassinations)(Book review)
June 15, 2009... Byline: Susan H. Greenberg Like an Asian sister city to Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, the fictitious town of Kittur, India, is full of anguished souls trying to find their place in the world. They fight, love and struggle their way...

Confessions of a Dangerous Novelist.(Books)(Who Killed Art Deco)(Chuck Barris)(Interview)
June 15, 2009... Byline: Nicki Gostin Barris created The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game and The Gong Show. But since his retirement he's become a writer best known for Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. His novel Who Killed Art Deco just came out in...

Color My World Burnt Sienna.(Society)(crayons)
June 15, 2009... Byline: Louisa Thomas For a child, a box of Crayola crayons can be a wondrous thing. When I was in elementary school, I was particularly taken with burnt sienna. It was neither brown nor red, but seemed taken from the earth, and it had the...

Letters: 'Crazy Talk: Oprah, Wacky Cures & You'.(Letters)
June 15, 2009... Oprah's not perfect, but that's why we love her. She can be full of herself at times--but at least she's authentic and trying to help people. She's done a lot of good. Julie Coan, Houston, Texas I've wasted many hours reeducating my...

A Note From Stephen Colbert.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
June 15, 2009... NEWSWEEK has bestowed upon me the honor of choosing this week's letters--huge mistake! Because now I'm just going to print all the letters I sent that the magazine didn't run. In your face, Other Letters! Ten cents an issue? Why, that's...

A Reader's Guide to the Colbert Issue.(Stephen Colbert)(Editorial)
June 15, 2009... Byline: Jon Meacham This is, to say the least, not your usual issue of NEWSWEEK. It is about Iraq, which is not unusual, but it has been guest-edited by Stephen Colbert, which is decidedly unusual. The story of how this came to be is told...

Why I Took This Crummy Job.(Iraq War)(Guest editorial)
June 15, 2009... Byline: Stephen Colbert, Guest Editor No, your eyes aren't deceiving you. You're reading Stephen Colbert. And for that I apologize. The last thing I want is to contribute to the corrosive influence of the print media. I prefer to yell my...

Victory In Iraq.(World Affairs)
June 15, 2009... How we got here is a matter for history. But the democratic ideal is still within reach. By Fareed Zakaria "America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire," said President Obama in his Cairo speech. There are many in...

Love Is a Battlefield.(World Affairs)(post-traumatic stress disorder in American soldiers)
June 15, 2009... Byline: Daniel Stone, Eve Conant and John Barry; With Larry Kaplow in Baghdad For some soldiers, there's no place like combat. Staff Sgt. Shaun McBride would rather be in a war zone than at home. He likes the adrenaline, he says, even...

Canada's New Leaf.(Nation)(American military deserters in Canada)
June 15, 2009... Byline: Gretel C. Kovach America's war deserters could always take comfort in Canada. Now, it's the country that's deserting them. Kimberly Rivera thought joining the Army would solve her problems. Before she enlisted in 2006, she was...

If There Were a Monument.(World Affairs)(obelisk)(Brief article)
June 15, 2009... My archetypal obelisk would be installed on top of a shaft equipped with a hy-draulic lift. The monument then could be raised, lowered or even completely hidden in accordance with America's attitude toward the Iraq War. A vote in Congress would...

Off With Their Profits.(Scope; Balance Sheet)(revenues of TOTAL S.A.)(Brief article)
June 15, 2009... Byline: Tracy McNicoll Oil giant total is France's biggest company, which means it's also its most hated. It ranked last in a recent poll of France's most popular companies. Its announcement in February that it made a record [euro]13.9...

What A Long Strange Trip.(Scope)(automobile production )(Brief article)
June 15, 2009... The U.S. lost its place as the world's top auto producer to Japan in 2007, even before GM filed for bankruptcy. Now China is poised to pass them both. UNITED STATES PRODUCTION will nosedive in '09 as two of the Big Three retool. C'mon...

Alternative Medicine.(Television)(television drama Hawthorne)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Allison Samuels On a set in Inglewood, Calif., will Smith busts out of his trailer door and yells at the top of his lungs, "Woman, come rub my feet!" He's speaking, loudly and in jest, to his dynamo of a wife, Jada Pinkett Smith,...

Smith's Newest Jones.(Movies)(Kevin Smith)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Ramin Setoodeh Kevin Smith has been performing a sort of unplugged stand-up act since his movie Clerks came out in 1994. He started by traveling to college campuses to talk about the movie. That evolved into a verbal burlesque...

The Fire Next Time.(Movies)(Do the Right Thing)(Movie review)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Joshua Alston Considering all the effort put into shrouding Barack Obama in swarthy otherness during the election, it's a wonder that one biographical factoid went without much scrutiny. On their first date, he took Michelle to see...

Garden Variety.(Food)(Yucca Flats drink)(Viewpoint essay)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Julia Reed The summers of my youth were spent largely at the house of our neighbors, who had six children (including three good-looking, much older and very funny boys) and a playroom with a pool table, card table, stereo and...

Ray Romano: Best. Shows. Ever.(Television)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... You remember Ray Romano as the whiny guy at the dysfunctional center of Everybody Loves Raymond. Your kids remember him as the equally whiny Manny in the Ice Age movies (the third one, Dawn of the Dinosaurs, comes out next month, so consider...

The Capitalist Manifesto: Greed Is Good.(Business)(Cover story)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Fareed Zakaria (To a point) A specter is haunting the world--the return of capitalism. Over the past six months, politicians, businessmen and pundits have been convinced that we are in the midst of a crisis of capitalism that...

The Insurgents: The Secret Battle to Save Capitalism.(Business)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Michael Hirsh The Insurgents: The Secret Battle To Save Capitalism. Maria Cantwell sat aghast in front of the TV in her Senate office last fall, watching Wall Street crash. Not long after her arrival in D.C. in 2001, Enron...

The Accidental Slumlord.(Business)(long distance landlords and cheap rental properties)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Daniel McGinn At the height of the housing boom, I became a long-distance landlord. Then my tenants came home to roost. When you walk into the back apartment of the tan duplex on the west side of Pocatello, Idaho, the first...

Five of a Kind.(Culture)(the Pisner quintuplets)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Sarah Kliff Before 'Jon & Kate plus Eight,' there were the Pisner quintuplets. As they've grown, so has our mania for multiples. The Dionne sisters, born in Canada in 1934, were the first quintuplets to survive infancy. In...

Olmert's Lament.(International)(Ehud Olmert)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Kevin Peraino Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is proof of the perils of reining in settlements. He's also proof of why Washington should try. as the sun rose over new york city on Thursday, June 4, Ehud Olmert, the former...

'The Lady' And The Tramp.(International)(Aung San Suu Kyi)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Tony Dokoupil; With Lennox Samuels in Thailand and F. De Burgo-Naughton in Burma The Missouri misfit who helped bring down Burma's future. For years, John Yettaw had experienced visions that warned him of events to come....

The Perils of Punditry.(Ripple Effect)(Barack Obama and the liberal press)(Viewpoint essay)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Evan Thomas How bloggers turned me into the poster child for the argument that the liberal press loves Obama. I am an occasional talking head on TV, and I try to appear relaxed, though I am sometimes anxious. In those moments,...

Brazil Is the Odd BRIC Out.(Scope; InternationaList)(Brazil, Russia, India and China; emerging markets)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Mac Margolis Brazil, Russia, India and China have been slow to embrace the BRIC acronym, coined in 2001 to describe the four giant emerging markets. But now they're trying to convert their collective bulk into clout. This week BRIC...

China's Bamboo Closet.(Scope; InternationaList)(gay-pride celebration in China)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Duncan Hewitt and Melinda Liu Gay organizers had good reason to hope that Beijing, despite its hostility to most forms of activism, would tolerate Shanghai's first-ever gay-pride celebration last week. The new China gives a longer...

Iran's Comeback Kid.(Scope; InternationaList)(Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Babak Dehghanpisheh At press time last weekend, Tehran felt something like Miami circa November 2000. After an intensely fought campaign for president, election officials had declared the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the victor...

Heavy Medals.(Scope)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Evan Thomas and Aku Ammah-Tagoe Compared with their World War II counterparts, today's senior U.S. military officers are so weighed down with medals that they appear in danger of listing to port. The military at first disdained all...

Haunted by the Dean of Watergate.(Scope)(John Dean)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Michael Isikoff The war over Watergate never ends. The latest battle is over a decision by the Nixon Presidential Library to commemorate this week's 37th anniversary of the Watergate break-in by inviting an especially provocative...

Shooting the Messenger.(Scope)(trends in right wing movement)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Mark Hosenball In February, the Missouri Information Analysis Center, one of several "fusion" centers created after 9/11 to share intelligence among local, state and federal agencies, issued a "strategic report" warning about a...

Who Are You Calling Rambo?(Scope; My Turn)(American veterans)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Rieckhoff is the Executive Director and founder of Iraq And Afghanistan Veterans of America. By Paul Rieckhoff As any veteran can attest, coming home from war is a long journey, and it's never easy. Then again, neither is...

Saad Hariri: Heir Apparent.(Scope)(Interview)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Lally Weymouth hizbullah had been expected to win last week's election in Lebanon, but voters took to the streets in droves and unexpectedly voted into power the pro-Western March 14 Alliance led by Saad Hariri. NEWSWEEK's Lally...

Make It Stop: 'In These Tough Economic Times'.(Scope)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Kurt Soller Are we in a recession? A depression? Experts may differ, but here's something we can all agree on: in these tough economic times, the last thing we want to hear, ever again, is the phrase "in these tough economic...

Turn This Lemon Into Lemonade.(Scope)(how automotive industry should market cars)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... By Matthew Philips When General Motors executives heard the pitch for a mea culpa TV commercial titled "Reinvention"--which is airing now and ends with the line "The only chapter we're focused on is chapter one"--the brass needed...

Conventional Wisdom: Think Again.(Scope; Conventional Wisdom)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Obama (SIDEWAYS) Projected 8 percent unemployment in February. But now it's up to 9.4. Time to change the subject to health care. Chrysler (SIDEWAYS) Taken over by Fiat by fiat. Compared with GM's bankruptcy, this looks like a road to...

Fading Dragon.(Scope; Balance Sheet)(Hong Kong )(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Rana Foroohar The word in Asia is that Hong Kong may be a has-been. In April, Chinese officials announced they want Shanghai to become a global financial center by 2020. Premier Wen Jiabao then told Hong Kong to raise its game or...

Face-off: The Dollar's Doldrums.(Scope)(United States economy)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Last fall, the dollar surged as the world turned to U.S. Treasuries as a safe haven. But its recent decline has some wondering: is the dollar headed for a crash? Peter Schiff Absolutely. "At some point, the world will want out of the...

A Friend in Need.(Jacob Weisberg; Politics)(United States-Israel relations)
June 22, 2009... Byline: Jacob Weisberg; Weisberg is chairman and editor in chief of the Slate Group. Barack gets tough on Bibi. Since the first stirrings of the Arab-Israeli peace process after the Yom Kippur war in 1973, America's relations with...

The Sins of the Fathers.(Lisa Miller)(family life of gay couples and religion)
June 22, 2009... Raising kids in a same-sex union. First comes love, then comes marriage. Then come all the thorny issues that arise with raising kids in a religious tradition when that religious tradition doesn't see you as married. When another state...

Barney Frank, Car Guy.(George F. Will; Politics)(automobile industry and politics)
June 22, 2009... Byline: George F. Will And green guy. So he pressures GM. General Motors changed its mind. Or maybe not. It is unclear that GM still has a mind of its own, so let us just say that GM changed its decision. The company first announced...

The Capitalist Manifesto.(Letters)
June 29, 2009... Fareed Zakaria reminds us that no economic system is perfect, so we cannot always expect a bump-free ride. Katherine Mancuso, Incline Village, Nev. The freeloading lemmings are marching toward the cliff and taking the rest of us with...

Theocracies Are Doomed. Thank God.(The Editor's Desk)
June 29, 2009... Byline: Jon Meacham For years American conversation about Iraq has included a refrain about how we cannot expect to create a Jeffersonian democracy on the Euphrates. The admonition is true: if you think about it, America itself is not...

Gitmo North? Bring it On.(Scope; My Turn)(Guantanamo Bay prisoners to Two Rivers Detention Center )
June 29, 2009... Byline: Greg Smith; Smith is the Executive Director of the Two Rivers Authority. In 2004, the state of Montana was faced with overcrowded prisons. With the endorsement of our then governor, Judy Martz, the Two Rivers Authority, the...

Kathryn Bigelow: Road Warrior.(Movies)(The Hurt Locker )(Movie review)
June 29, 2009... Byline: Jennie Yabroff Just before dawn one July morning, Kathryn Bigelow was setting up a shot for The Hurt Locker in the Jordanian desert. The movie follows an Explosive Ordnance Disposal bomb technician, one of the hundred or so...

Donald Ducks the Truth.(Books)(By His Own Rules: The Story of Donald Rumsfeld )(Book review)
June 29, 2009... Byline: Fred Kaplan; Kaplan is Slate's national-security columnist and author of 1959: The Year Everything Changed. Donald Rumsfeld may be the most tarnished figure from the George W. Bush administration--his theories of warfare...

Speak Softly And Carry--.(Television)(Hung)(Television program review)
June 29, 2009... Byline: Joshua Alston In "Impossible to Tell," former poet laureate Robert Pinsky refers to "the rude, full-scale joke, impossible to tell in writing." Hung, a new HBO dramedy, is that kind of rude, full-scale joke. It stars Thomas Jane as...

Neil's Blu-Plate Special.(Music)(Neil Young)(Video recording review)
June 29, 2009... Byline: Seth Colter Walls Neil Young is a pain in the ass. A brilliant one, but a pain nonetheless. When the initial volume of his long-promised Archives landed on my desk in the form of 10 Blu-ray discs, my first thought was "Wow." My...

Living With The Dead.(Culture)(Najaf's vast cemetery)
June 29, 2009... Byline: Larry Kaplow; With Hassan Al-Jarrah in Najaf Gaze over the road circling the Iraqi city of Najaf's compact center and it's clear that this spiritual capital of Shiite Islam is first and foremost a vast cemetery. Shiite forefather...

Trent Reznor.(Music)(Interview)(Brief article)
June 29, 2009... Long known as one of rock's angriest men, the Nine Inch Nails frontman is engaged to be married and is planning to put his band on hiatus after a summer tour. He spoke with NEWSWEEK'S Seth Colter Walls about life after angst. YOUR COMEBACK...

Hey, Small Spender.(Business)(China's economy)
June 29, 2009... Byline: Rana Foroohar Are Chinese consumers ready to save the world by finally taking their place alongside profligate American shoppers? A glance at the sales numbers seems to indicate they are. While U.S. consumers stayed home fretting...

Reagan Was Wrong.(Politics)(Cassandra Henry Fairlie)
June 29, 2009... Byline: Jeremy McCarter To conservative Cassandra Henry Fairlie, republicans sowed their present-day destruction from the start. When Henry Fairlie came to America, the editors of this magazine deemed his arrival sufficiently momentous...