'Green Porno' Coming This Sunday in New York Times Magazine

So what's in the much touted "Green Issue" of the New York Times Magazine coming on Sunday? For one thing, some "Green Porno."

But first, the cover will likely not spark as much protest as the "Green" issue for Time magazine out today, which inspired some World War II vets to complain about its Iwo Jima flagraising image (but with a tree instead of a flag). The Times cover simply shows a few green leaves slipping through an hourglass.

Inside we find a feature by my old friend and colleague Michael Pollan on how you can take small eco-actions -- and why they matter -- with the classic headline, "Why bother?" But the issue is mainly a collection of dozens of mini-profiles and short takes on subjects ranging from "Really Slow Food" to "Organic Ready-to Wear."

But one extra twist is the Q & A with actress/model Isabella Rossellini, also on the Green theme. It seems she has often appeared in the "Green Porno" series of videos for the Sundance Channel -- dressing up as lustful bugs such as a housefly. She calls it a "crazy puppet show."

Asked by Deborah Solomon why she usually plays the "male" in these sex videos, she replies, "I am a ham. It makes people laugh when I play the male. So I played the male, when I am not playing a hermaphrodite."

She also reminds us that "the female praying mantis eats the male, so, Watch out, husbands."
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Greg Mitchell is author of the new book, So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq. It features a preface by Bruce Springsteen and a foreword by Joe Galloway. He is editor of Editor & Publisher.