Forget the mondo-fashion magazines [girlhacker]
that September brings to bear -
read the September 2004 issue of Harper's Magazine, for it is divine:

Harper's Index
Sometimes numbers are the best way
to show that things don't just add up.

Readings (some favourites)

1. THE FIT AND THE DEAD
   A philosophical discource on the modern gym and the idea of exercise that would be perfectly at home in hermenaut but is actually from a new magazine called n+1 who publish strange and beautiful things such an index to the 9/11 Commission Report.
   
   
2. CONTROLLING THE HOUSE
   You don't ever ever want to go to jail. A former corrections officer describes the graphics reasons why.
   
   
3. NOT NECESSARILY THE NEWS
   Excerpts from leaked internal memos sent by Fox New's senior editorial vice president John Moody to his staff.
   
   
4. HOUSE OF THE DEAD
   A letter that is believed from a female detainee at Abu Gharib that alludes to detainees being raped. Note: allegations of rape were corroborated by General Antonio Taguba in his report on the prison. While we are on this topic, I don't think its appropriate to equate torture and rape to Animal House. DAMMIT.
   
   
5. IF MUSIC AND SWEET POETRY AGREE
   A bunch of requests that were submitted to Songs to Wear Pants To. My favourite favourite favourite is Rename your Rabbit although I have a fondness for I am Bjork, The Sarha Anderson Song, Dinosaurs with a outragous BMP.

ESSAY: TENTACLES OF RAGE by LEWIS LAPHAM

Harper's Magazine editor Lewis H. Lapham gives a history of the Republican propaganda mill. Other than some problems with tense, I think his insights are dead on. Over the last three decades, the radical Right of America have successfully courted and bought a staggering amount of influence (Lapham shows us the receipts) while

the universities chose to amuse themselves with the crossword puzzles of French literary theory, and in the New York media salons the standard-bearers of America's political conscience were content to rest upon what they took to be their laurels, getting by with the striking of noble poses (as friends of the earth or the Dalai Lama) and the expression of worthy emotions (on behalf of persecuted fur-seals and oppressed women).

REPORT: BAGHDAD YEAR ZERO by NAOMI KLEIN

Naomi Klein traveled in Iraq and returned to write a brilliant article that - for me - finally provided a context that I could understand the lack of reconstruction in the Iraq and the recent actions of the country's insurgents (I am loath to use this word as it implies that I agree with the description).

I don't think I can outline the insights of the article without going into some detail so let me say this - the key to understanding post-invasion Iraq is not through a religous context but an economic one. For example, think of those times you've heard your media of choice speak of "radical cleric" Moqtada al Sadr. Have you ever heard him speak? Naomi Klein writes of going Kufa during Friday prayers to hear al Sadr at his mosque. She heard a tirade against the intirim Iraqi constution as he called it "unjust" and a "terrorist document". After reading this article, it's difficult not to agree with him.

Miscellany: In Defiance of Gravity by Tom Robbins

I really wanted to like this piece from that crazy wisdom guy, Tom Robbins. But I couldn't.

Criticism: The Influence of Anxiety by Frances FitzGerald

Frances thinks that young adult novels are awful and more concerned with 'issues' than being enjoyable. She's right on. Love the last sentence: "Just ask kids which they like better, Thanksgiving or Halloween".