As a rule, all change is bad. This rule holds particularly fast when it comes to graphic design and print media. It’s hard to think of many magazine or newspaper redesigns which do not substantially diminish their product. Which is why I was so nervous when I heard that First Things was working on a complete redesign of the magazine.

Regular readers know the esteem in which I hold First Things–it’s one of my three desert island magazines, and has been for many years. Its old design was so austere as to achieve a certain elegance, a little like ’80s era Volvos. I was immensely fond of it.

The redesigned First Things is out now. This link will show you a TOC, but give you no sense of what the physical magazine looks like. I haven’t lived with the new book long enough to pass a final judgment, but my first and second impressions are both that the redesign is a near-total triumph, in both the aesthetic and the strategic sense.

The internet poses a different challenge to magazines than it does to newspapers. Newspapers are largely utilitarian tools. A good magazine is more of a sensual pleasure. As they confront the internet, magazines must find ways to leverage the physical virtues. I wasn’t in the room as First Things thought through their redesign, but I’d bet that this goal was their lodestar.

For starters, the new First Things is beautiful. The new paper stock is soft and easy on the eyes. The fonts are absolutely gorgeous. (Font whores–you know who you are–will really enjoy the work put in on the design end here.) Everything about the foundation of the layout–the columns, the breaks, the drop caps–is elegant and inviting. The book now has art, which is done tastefully. You never think you’re reading Time. (Though for whatever it’s worth, my own personal preference would be for fewer photographs and more drawings, in the mode of the old WSJ.) The only real quirk is the decision to switch paper stock in the middle of the book, where you briefly have essays on the old FT paper. Some people will like this; some won’t. I haven’t lived with it long enough to know what I think.

Aside from the artistic virtues, First Things is now doing more of what can’t–or at least, isn’t–readily available on internet platforms: poetry and very long-form essays. For a variety of reasons, beginning with how we interact with our computer screens, people don’t read 15,000 word essays on the internet. Ditto short poems, I think. These forms are by turns too long and too short to be good fits for the web browser.

Finally–and this is a small, but important addition–First Things has added a crossword. I’m not a crossword lover. Actually, I detest them almost as much as I do Scrabble. But lots of people like them. And while technically you can do crosswords on the internet, I can’t think of any crossword lovers who do. The crossword adds an element of interaction with the physical book. It asks you to read with a pen in hand, to mark it up and work with it.

When she launched the short-lived Talk magazine, Tina Brown said that her goal for the book was to create an artifact–something to be picked up, folded, shoved into a computer bag, carried around, and lived with for a couple weeks as it was consumed. Talk didn’t live up to that ideal. But while Tina Brown may be many things, stupid about magazines she isn’t. Her idea for Talk has always struck me as the most viable model for magazines going forward.

The new First Things is, I think, the first magazine to accomplish what The Tina set out to do. You don’t simply thumb through, read two essays, and toss it. You want to carry it around, to enjoy and savor it. It’s a great success and if you’re not already a subscriber, now is a good time to come aboard.

Most memorable speeches are eventually abstracted to the point where what is remembered has little relation to the speech. The best-known example of this problem is Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” speech, in which he never used the word “malaise.”


Eisenhower’s farewell address is another case. We remember it for his warning about the “military industrial complex.” But listening to it the other day I was struck how poorly this tag fits on what is a seriously impressive speech.


Eisenhower chose to address two large historical and philosophical–not political–subjects in his farewell. The first was the “military industrial complex.” He was not, however, simply “warning” his fellow citizens about it. He was, instead, making a large and complicated observation: That prior to the World Wars, America did not have a permanent arms industry. That America’s pre-eminent position in the world now necessitated a large-scale arms industry. That such an industry would have transformative effects on a country which was now, for the first time, seeing itself as an important actor on the world stage. Some of these effects would be good, others would not. Eisenhower’s point, was that we should enter this new era with our eyes open. Here’s Ike:

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States cooperations — corporations.

Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

Courtesy of Galley Friend AK-47, the nerd’s illustrated alphabet. Don’t miss it. Sample letter:

A lot of people are up in arms about the crowning of the “gaffetastic” Miss Michigan Rima Fakih as Miss USA. I suspect many of those in a state of concern may be conflating the Miss USA pageant with Miss America. Miss America is the preeminent “scholarship program” and as such holds itself out as having some objective standards. Miss USA is a Donald Trump production. It’s an entertainment vehicle. Its “standards” are the standards of reality television. So you can only really get worked up about the injustice of Ms. Fakih’s victory if you’re the kind of person who’d also be willing to be outraged by the results on Dancing with the Stars.

None of that, however, is particularly important. The questions about the “judging” at Miss USA are just an excuse for me to point out a wonderful and often overlooked book: William Goldman’s Hype and Glory. (Don’t be the sucker to pay $132 for the paperback version on Amazon.)

Goldman wrote Hype and Glory after a year in which he sat as a judge for both Miss America and Cannes. He had plenty of good stories to tell.

What always interested me most, however, was his deciphering of the Miss America voting. Goldman claimed that the judges were instructed on what to look for in a Miss America, and that with those guidelines, it was instantly clear to the entire judging panel who the winner was. He reports that from the first moment, there was never any question among the judges who the winner would be. What were they looking for? I’ll paraphrase, because I don’t have my copy near at hand: The Miss America judges were told to look for the woman who would best represent the Miss America organization at public and private appearances throughout the year. That meant a woman who was calm, unflappable, articulate, and politic. In other words, they wanted the young woman who most represented a polished, TV news head.

Nothing else, Goldman wrote, mattered. Not the swimsuit, not the talent. And once you know that that’s the quality the Miss America pageant is looking for, most of the time the winner is obvious.

Just what the world needs: a 3D remastered Battle Royale.

A fantastic post about the IPCC and the climate change movement that incorporates this show-stopper line:

Movement toward conservation, renewable and alternative fuels, and a decreasing reliance on hydrocarbon fuels per unit of GDP will continue and, I think, accelerate in most of the world’s most important advanced and developing economies.  This will happen whether or not the IPCC issues another report, because it is in the interests of the major economies to cut fuel use to be economically competitive and to increase their national security.  Efforts to establish comprehensive monitoring of CO2 emissions around the world will also continue — if for no other reason than that agencies like the CIA, organizations like the IMF and corporations like hedge funds and investment banks would like to have faster access to reliable data on shifts in global economic activity.  The sheer blind bureaucratic lust for power that drives the culture of the United Nations and the world’s governments will also ensure continuing efforts to give politicians and their appointees the last word on regulating as much economic activity as possible.

In other words, the review panel in Amsterdam, like the IPCC itself, is something of a sideshow.  To use the kind of simile that might appeal to an author of Dr. Pachauri’s ambitions, the IPCC and the review panel are like the piano in a house of ill repute: useful for establishing atmosphere, but playing no substantive role in the core operations of the firm.

I’m already planning to steal that. 

Fake Steve Jobs, that is. Seems that he decided to alter the developer agreement for the iPad to ban the dieresis. And David Remnick’s people are pissed. The confrontation begins here and then continues here and finally concludes here:

“Who am I? I’m Steve fucking Jobs, bitch. I invented the friggin iPod. And the iPhone. And the iPad. And I’m not changing the language. I’m making it better.”


PS: Also from Fake Steve is a link to this fantastic anti-Facebook rant. Do not miss it.

Two interesting pieces today. First, John Judis:

Brenner’s analysis of the current downturn can be boiled down to a fairly simple point: that the underlying cause of the current downturn lies in the “real” economy of private goods and service production rather than in the financial sector, and that the current remedies—from government spending and tax cuts to financial regulation—will not lead to the kind of robust growth and employment that the United States enjoyed after World War II and fleetingly in the late 1990s. These remedies won’t succeed because they won’t get at what has caused the slowdown in the real economy: global overcapacity in tradeable goods production. . . .

Paul Volcker summed up the situation thusly: “The fate of the world economy is now totally dependent on the growth of the U.S. economy, which is dependent on the stock market, whose growth is dependent upon about 50 stocks, half of which have never reported any earnings.”

And then, Robert Samuelson:

The normal mechanics of the business cycle signal recovery, while deeper economic weaknesses threaten it. In late 2008 and early 2009, fear and hysteria were almost palpable, especially in the United States. Consumers and companies cut spending anywhere they could. From September 2008 to June 2009, the U.S. economy lost 6 million payroll jobs. In 2009, American car sales were almost 40 percent lower than in 2007. Governments’ frenetic interventions stabilized confidence. People and firms are opening their wallets again, here and abroad. The world economy will grow almost 4.3 percent in 2010 and 2011, with the United States expanding at an average of nearly 3 percent, reckons the International Monetary Fund.

But the deep-seated problems remain. Three stand out: first, the weight of the welfare state and aging populations; second, the burden of huge private debts (mortgages and consumer loans in America and elsewhere); and finally, huge imbalances in global trade, with some countries — notably China — running massive surpluses and others — notably the United States — having large deficits. Each threatens a vigorous recovery that could conceivably plunge the world back into a protracted slump.