Continuing the tracking that began last week, we offer the stats on the latest issue of The Nation. Please note, we won't have stats next week because this is billed as "a double issue" which strikes us as strange because a "double issue" to our minds means an issue that has twice the number of pages; however, the issue is 40 pages which is the same amount of pages in the December 4, 2006 issue which wasn't billed as a "double issue" and which is, in fact, eight pages less than the May 8, 2006 issue which wasn't billed as a "double issue."
Cover the back of a military service member (White, male).
Comments:
Jon Wiener's "The Last Lennon File"
Chris Hedges' "Get Carter"
Amy Alexander's "We Got To Do Better"
2 males, 1 female
Columns:
Calvin Trillin's "A New Policy for Iraq"*
AlterPunk's "And the Beat Goes On . . ."
2 males?
Articles:
Marc Cooper's "About Face"**
Mohamad Bazzi's "People's Revolt In Lebanon"
Ian Williams' "Annan's Principled Pragmatism"
3 males
Critics:
Richard J. Evans' "Hilter's Beneficiaries [. . .]"
Omer Bartov's "Five Germans I Have Known"
Judith Levine's "Spring Awakening"
2 males, 1 female
The previous issue feature 11 males and five females which didn't even amount to women getting half as much space. This issue? 9 males, 2 females. Though it may be hard to believe if you studied the 2006 statistics (in C.I.'s column in Polly's Brew last Sunday), the magazine is published by a woman (Katrina vanden Heuvel). Last week was shameful, this week is flat out appalling.
Notes:
* No we're not questioning AlterPunky's boyhood. Calvin Trillin we counted this time. We'll let readers decide whether we count him in the future. He does four lines of poetry. Though The Nation bills him as a columnist some involved in the writing of this edition can remember when Rolling Stone ran poetry in their album reviews and no one billed those contributors as "columnists." (Many of whom wrote more lines.)
**We're going by the table of contents; however, Marc Cooper actually has two pieces in the issue, the second isn't billed in the contents. If you're interested in reading the second article and you do not subscribe . . . From C.I.'s Friday "Iraq snapshot": "Marc Cooper has an article entitled 'Lt. Ehren Watada: Resister.' The Nation makes the article availble online to subscribrs only for whatever reasons but seems unaware that they've published it for all (subscribers and non-subscribers) on Yahoo -- click here." Note, The Nation finally covers war resisters in print. Which was apparently so taxing, they needed to take a week off right after hence the so-called double issue. When we renew our subscriptions, maybe we should half the amount owed and tell them it's a "double payment"?