This Week in Magazines

It's perfectly fitting that cable shouter Glenn Beck stuck out his tongue for the Sept. 28 Time. It nicely captures the intellectually- underwhelming, angst-ridden media phenomenon.

Adoring Michael Jackson fans, and their many journalistic enablers, will gag over a stinging critique in the Aug. 13 New York Review of Books, a high-brow publication not likely to be found by their beds.

If you're into yoga, you might want to skip "Body, Brain and Wallet" in the Aug. 3 Forbes.

If people turn to Kindles and iPods, rather than showing off what books they're reading or what albums they've collected, what will be the emblems of the high-brow?

If the economy is driving you to drink, head to Trader Joe's for the Two Buck Chuck, then check "Drink Up -- The Rise of Really Cheap Wine" in the New Yorker.

It's not as sexy as trying to save Chrysler, but the government is trying to save defense contractors from a peril as great as lousy car sales -- slimeball computer hackers.

It's almost over. Just a few more days. Then, no more chatter about President Obama's first 100 days.

Newsweek has the most vivid rollout so far of Spitzer's obvious image rehab -- he goes jogging around Central Park with a reporter as his shame and ego continue their internal battle.

Katha Pollitt has had about enough of the amateur psychoanalyzing of Michelle Obama, as well as those who seem somehow threatened, even by her bare arms.

Geithner and Summers don't mention ancient Babylonia in addressing the financial crisis. But Chicago attorney Thomas Geoghegan sure does in Harper's "Infinite Debt."

Time proclaims that the "end of excess" is upon us, and Jack Shafer at Slate disagrees that vibrant daily newspapers are important to democracy.

Journalists crave access, even if it often means access to get lied to, especially in Washington. But deceit plays out across the media spectrum.

If even Jim Cramer cuts Treasury Secretary Geithner some slack, perhaps there is bonafide hope for our most influential tax evaders' plan to save the economy.

So what kind of guy is engaged to Uma Thurman, is a magnanimous patron of charities, and is proof that, if born with a huge silver spoon in your mouth, you can still do good while doing well?

Magazines are awash with our fear- and debt-ridden mess, with lots of profiles of key players -- and then there's ShopSmart, a wonderful potpourri of smart consumerism.

In the inauguration battle between the big newsweeklies, Time kicks butt with great photos, while Newsweek wins the war of words by being sharper and, at times, more provocative.

The 24-7 Obamamania is upon us and, you'd do well to check very different and generally sober looks at the sure-to-be-self-assured first lady, Michelle Obama.

Folks, Smart Money's got real news you can use, namely, "Ten Things Your Online Dating Service Won't Tell You."

Despite the difficulty for journalists in reporting on the latest mess in Gaza, given onerous press restrictions, it's an obvious topic for many magazines, with most suggesting more reason for fatalism.

Michael Vick, a scummy pro football quarterback, has improbably inspired an uplifting New Year's odyssey, according to this week's Sports Illustrated.

If you inexplicably found any of those auto guys arousing in a more primal way, a leading news magazine suggests that "the quality of a man's sperm depends on how intelligent he is, and vice versa."

One shouldn't even wonder why the Obama's didn't go through the motions of visiting a public school, Fareed Zakaria's article could be used as a job application, and Money's superior counsel.

It's unclear whether the GOP will convince itself that its panacea is a plug-in hybrid of a politician, and here's a question to jumpstart a boring dinner party: why don't we take perfumes seriously?

It's pretty unclear if the latest version of Bond could handle Foreign Policy's "The List: Five Real Missions for 007." Back in the real world, here's what I'd love a secret agent to do.

Not all's lost for the Republicans: John McCain apparently took the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Algeria according to the Economist's Global Electoral College poll.