In the New Yorker...

[serious crayons]

It's just that I expect I've read essentially the same story in The New Yorker any number of times over the past thirty years. Just substitute anything else that's harmful to the environment and to people for "chemical spill" and we've all read this story already. I'm not that far into the article but I expect there isn't anything really new here. It's like the saying, "Dog bites man" isn't news; "Man bites dog" is news. The article is The New Yorker equivalent of cod liver oil: you read (take) it because it's good for you.

Once you realize that and get your dutiful gist of the problem -- chemical spill in West Virginia, bad -- do you not feel you can move on to a different article?

I finally moved on from the one about the international project in France to build the most powerful whatchamajig ever. I kept thinking it was going to get interesting, because basically it sounded like they were trying to build a miniature enclosed sun here on earth, which sounded fascinating and terrifying (do they really know what they're doing? could the thing get out of control and destroy the planet?).

But the article kept dwelling on how all the complicated funding problems and red tape involved in a cooperative effort of that magnitude had bogged down the project, and finally I got sufficiently bogged down myself and gave up. Life is short, boring article, and I've got plenty more New Yorkers where you came from.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Once you realize that and get your dutiful gist of the problem -- chemical spill in West Virginia, bad -- do you not feel you can move on to a different article?

Put that way, I didn't need to start it in the first place. I got all that from the television news just after the spill.

[Front-Ranger]

One thing that's good about the new issue arriving...you are released from any articles you're reading in the past issue! At least, that's the way I look at it.

And now I'm off to peruse the latest issue that arrived today. Going to bed early. I'm getting up at 2:30 am to go to the mountains!!!!

[Jeff Wrangler]

One thing that's good about the new issue arriving...you are released from any articles you're reading in the past issue! At least, that's the way I look at it.

Not me. I would miss too much interesting and educational if I treated the magazine that way. I simply do not have enough time in any week to get through an issue before the next arrives. Perhaps you're a faster reader than I am. 

[Jeff Wrangler]

Over lunch today I began reading Ryan Lizza's April 14 article on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. I was not at all surprised to read that even Christie's political mentor, former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean, considers Christie a bully. How else would you interpret Kean's comment, "He [Christie] doesn't always try to persuade you with reason. He makes you feel that your life's going to be very unhappy if you don't do what he says," other than that even Kean considers Christie a bully?

[Front-Ranger]

I just finished the February 17 & 24 anniversary issue. I enjoyed Roger Angell's "This Old Man" although I didn't think I would. I didn't enjoy the article "Starman" about Neil deGrasse Tyson as much as I thought I would. Also, the tribute to Philip Seymour Hoffman left me cold. What I enjoyed the most was the article by Adam Gopnik, "The frankly faithless" about agnostic/atheists through the ages.

[serious crayons]

I just finished the February 17 & 24 anniversary issue. I enjoyed Roger Angell's "This Old Man" although I didn't think I would. I didn't enjoy the article "Starman" about Neil deGrasse Tyson as much as I thought I would. Also, the tribute to Philip Seymour Hoffman left me cold. What I enjoyed the most was the article by Adam Gopnik, "The frankly faithless" about agnostic/atheists through the ages.

Those all sound worth reading! I'll have to dig that issue out of the pile.

I'm midway through a December article by Michael Pollan about scientists who believe that plants can "think." Once again, an interesting concept turns into a duty article. You kind of get the point early on -- plants interact with their environments and each other in far more complex ways than previously thought, showing awareness of conditions and responding with chemical changes or movement, which some scientists consider something like animals thinking, but others scoff at as not comparable -- and then the article goes on for pages and pages, reiterating and fine-tuning the concept, offering more evidence, quoting more people on both sides.

[serious crayons]

I'm reading Michael Kinsley's personal history about how his Parkinson's might or might not be affecting his cognitive abilities in the April 28 issue. (I skip around -- still plodding through Pollan's intelligent plants from December.)

Highly recommended so far. It's courageous -- what if a famous pundit gradually loses his intellectual edge? -- and, as always with Kinsley, measured and even-keeled and humorous. Kinsley has always been probably my favorite political writer.

[Front-Ranger]

I'm reading the Kingsley article too. It makes a nice complement to the Angell article I read last week.

[serious crayons]

Finished Kinsley. Highly recommended!