read the economist cover to cover every week

For more than ten years, I did this. I used to say Bill and Bill (Gates and Clinton) do this, so why not. Quite a bit is available on line. Technology Quarterly is great. Perhaps it would be better to read at a library as another reason for getting out more.
Though it is slanted, it is the best form of slanted, in that it declares its slant and doesn’t pretend that spin doesn’t not exist.

Even when I vehemently disagree with whatever they’ve written.

After a couple of weeks of travelling (and hence not finishing ‘The Economist’), I finished this week’s issue this morning.

I’ve made this goal for the past 2 weeks. It’s fun being on sabbatical. :)

One week it sits on the sofa and I flick through it in the evenings, and the following week it sits in the loo where the final articles get read… I don’t read a lot of newspapers, so television news is pretty much all I get, so it’s nice to have been able to keep up my Economist reading as it does provide so much more of the story!

Nice day today, so I took it out by the pool and dug in. Two hours and plenty of rays later, it was done. I feel ready to talk about the world this coming week (Peruvian elections, the trouble in Somalia, the pet taxi services in NYC).

KF

except i seem to have misplaced this weeks copy…

guess i’ll have to start next week!

bought a 1 year subscription to the Wall Street Journal, so a subscription to the Economist may have to wait until I can save up again.

Last week’s issue had a short article about the “Arkansas Cherokees,” who’ve been struggling to get federal recognition, while dealing with attempts by Cherokees across the border in Oklahoma to prevent it. The article did a great job of discussing both the issues that caused this group to split off from the rest of the tribe (C. 1828) and how casinos are causing others to lobby against their recognition. Also interesting was the comment in the article that the descendents of the original group were frequently called “Black Irish,” a term that’s been applied to my dad’s family (who’ve been rumored to be Cherokee). HOWEVER, the illustration that went with the article was a befuddled looking man in a feathered headress. Basically they put a drawing of somebody in Plains Indian clothing with an article about a group that’s in another. part of the country and culturally/linguistically different. So I wrote a letter to them saying “great article, but talk about adding insult to injury – they can’t even get the Economist to recognize them for who they are.” Who knows if it’ll get published, but I absolutely love the Letters to the Editor section of the Economist because they always begin with “SIR”

I signed up for a subscription, but I’m still waiting for it to come through. For right now I’m doing alright with the Financial Times daily.

I guess this is more of a perpetual goal.