"The
Atlantic" and "Harper's" are both iconic magazines that are responsible
for promoting the careers of many prominent writers. I have been reading
them for years. They also both have a profile of John Kerry in their
December issue. David Rohde did a individualist profile of Kerry,
lauding him as an "activist" diplomat shaking up the stuffy old foreign
policy establishment in "The Atlantic." In "Harper's,"
Andrew Cockburn rejects this sort on analysis completely and challenges
the idea that there is such a thing as foreign policy at all. Kerry
comes off as a power hungry but powerless hack who owes his position to
back room politics much more than shrewd determination. Cockburn was
actually communicating original thoughts and I turned each page with a
new morsel of knowledge. Rohde's fluff would have fit nicely after a top
ten vacation spot list on Delta's in-flight magazine. Reading the whole
thing felt like choking down sugarless oatmeal. With a few notable
exceptions, this is a good representation of the current trajectory of
each magazine.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/cdc-gets-list-of-forbidden-words-fetus-transgender-diversity/2017/12/15/f503837a-e1cf-11e7-89e8-edec16379010_story.html?utm_term=.9280df07ab70 I feel like this may be one of those stories that is quietly walked back in a week or so. Government bureaucracies are nothing if not committed to absolutely staying the same, and they can get around a word ban with little change in intent. Trump is hilariously committed to breaking brains of the liberal pundit class and his half-wit base loves it. It’s really all he has, as he hasn’t been able to get much else done. (Please don’t remind me of the tax bill that is all but certain to become law.)
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