The Nation Stats

We have three issues of The Nation since we last checked in on this feature. That's, in part, due to the fact that last week's edition was our summer read/fiction edition. We're grabbing one and only one issue for this edition, the next one in line, June 25, 2007. That will become clear at a later (but not that far away) point. June 25, 2007 finishes out the month of June and since we began this feature with the first issue for January (issued in December, however), we think that's fitting. As always, we provide the photo of Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, attending a staff meeting where she's belle of the ball.

This issue's cover story is "The New Atheists."



EDITORIALS & COMMENT



"The Great Pretender" -- unsigned, and no, it's not a confession from The Peace Resister.



Robert L. Borosage's "Jackal Time" -- it's been noted we have a book by Borosage and vanden Heuvel on our list of fave books in the profile. What can we say, but we've grown, to steal from Joni Mitchell, "Cart wheels turned to car wheels in the town" ("The Circle Game," off Ladies of the Canyon). But it should be noted, though it didn't result in as much e-mail as our current stance on the magazine does now (e-mails from the magazine's staff), we boosted The Nation here from day one, up until the disgusting summer of 2006 when their timid stance on the war (a fiery editorial followed by nothing) and refusal to cover war resisters became obvious.



John Nichols' "Neoconned Again"



Herman Schwartz' "Summer Lunch Crunch"



Max Fraser's "Farewell, Tony and Carm"



6 pieces



Score: 6 men, 0 women



COLUMNS



Calvin Trillin's "Alberto Gonazles Is Still at His Post"



Alexander Cockburn's "Dissidents Against Dogma"



Katha Pollitt's "Tough Luck, Ladies"



Patricia J. Williams' "Divining Demeanor" -- wherein Professor Patti makes like most law professors and gets her 'hard science' from People magazine. This allows her to utilize "Dog Discrimination" as her jumping off point on how black dogs are like African-Americans. And people question the magazine's commitment to exploring race!



4 pieces



Score: 2 women, 2 men



ARTICLES



Ronald Aronson's "The New Atheists" -- what is that, "new" atheists? Is there a ceremony for that? Is it like born-again Christians?



Felicia Mello's "Coming To America"



2 pieces



Score: 1 man, 1 woman



CRITICS



Rick Perlstein's "Chinese Mirrors"



Susan Stewart's "There Is No Natural Death (poem)"



Stuart Klawans' "12:08 East of Bucharest"



3 pieces



Score: 2 men, 1 woman



Issue score: 10 men, 4 women



Year to date score: 255 men, 74 women



Which brings the score for the last six months to 3.447 men receiving bylines for every single woman. In her column in the issue, Katha Pollitt noted, "For those who believe the feminist movement marginalized itself by taking its eye off the dollar" -- no, we don't know what she's talking about either unless she's talking about the raunch 'feminists' she's played den mother too -- "this is the perfect opportunity to get back to economic issues that have cross-class appeal."

Having all read Virginity or Death, including Sista' Katha's decree that that NAACP shouldn't 'waste' time worrying about TV portrayals, we can't predict that she'll be the least bit concerned with representation of women. But before she again trots out the column on The New York Times' sorry number of women showing up on the op-ed pages, she might need to weigh in on the magazine she works for.



The lack of women being featured in the magazine was brought to C.I.'s attention by a group of women late in 2006. For a column at Polly's Brew, C.I. went back and compiled the stats for that year. What we had discussed was following 2007's issues each time they arrived in the mailbox. Ava and C.I. were in charge of the December 24, 2006 edition and that was the first week that a 2007 issue had arrived (January 1, 2007 issue). They immediately started up "The Nation Stats." "The Nation Stats" ran again in our December 31st edition (covering the magazine's January 8, 2007 issue -- a "double issue"). January 21st, we covered the January 22nd issue in "The Nation Stats." January 28th, "The Nation Stats" covered two issues since two arrived the same day for three of us participating in this feature. February 4th, we covered the Feb 12th issue in "The Nation Stats." February 11th we covered the February 19th issue in "The Nation Stats." February 25th, we coved the February 26th issue in "The Nation Stats." March 4th we covered the March 5th and March 12th issues of the magazine in "The Nation Stats." March 11th, we covered the March 19th issue in "The Nation Stats." April 1st, we covered the March 26th and April 2nd issues in "The Nation Stats." April 8th, we covered the April 9th and April 6th issues in "The Nation Stats." April 22nd, we covered the April 32rd and April 30 issues in"The Nation Stats." April 29th, "The Nation Stats" addressed the May 7th issue. May 20th, "The Nation Stats" covered four issues -- May 14th, May 21st, May 28th and June 4th. June 10th, "The Nation Stats" covered the June 11th and June 18th issue.