PRECIS
An unusually interesting
New Yorker of 11/15/99 included several
articles worth a read.
In the Comment by Rebecca Mead in The Talk of the Town
section, primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy - author of
Mother Nature: A History of Mothers,
Infants and Natural Selection - on the
alpha male meme being largely a projection
of the hopes and wishes of the mostly elite
male early evolutionary biologists: "The
male hope is that there is one 'best male.'
And, of course, in the back of his mind, there
is always the fantasy `It's me.'" Recent
DNA evidence shows that female apes copulate
with more partners than the dominant male,
with speculation leaning towards this being
a way to blur the offspring's paternity and
discourage any of the males from harming it.
Hdry uses kin-selection theory to choose a
grandmother of post-reproductive age with many
grandchildren as an ideal human leader. The
grandchildren would be scattered across the
country in secret locations, causing grambs
"to take into account the effects of her
actions on everyone".
Another Talk item has Hendrik Hertzberg calling
several famous journalists to quiz them about
the leaders of various countries and, just to
be a proper wiseass,
several names of
reasonably famous people of past and present
who sound like they might be heads of state.
The clear winner was Jim Hoagland, the
foreign affairs columnist for the Washington
Post, with Christopher Hitchens doing fairly
well and William F. Buckley being an overly
erudite smartass.
In "The Family That Disappeared," Noga
Tarnopolsky writes about his cousin Daniel winning
a lawsuit against those responsible for
his family's disappearance in Argentina in
July 1976. His father, mother, sister, brother
and sister-in-law were among an estimated 30,000 "disappeared" from 1976 to 1983 by
the military junta that took over from the
Perons, promising economic recovery and
social stability.
After seven years of utter failure capped by
defeat at the hands of Britain in the Falklands
War, Raul Alfonsin was legally elected
President in 1983. The legal government started putting its own military on trial in
1985, convicting many of horrible crimes until
another military coup was attempted in 1987,
the year Daniel first filed his lawsuit.
Many compromises were made with the military over the next several years to avoid another
coup, with all those
previously convicted eventually being freed.
Daniel's lawsuit survived and a federal judge
ruled in his favor in late 1994, awarding
him a million dollars. Government appeals
dragged things out until a settlement was
reached on August 31 of this year. It won't
bring them back, but given that much of the
award has to be paid by specific people deemed
responsible, it's better than no punishment at
all.
A funny short riff by Steve Martin playing
off the controversy surrounding the Edmund
Morris "Dutch" bio.
Interesting fluff piece profile on Ming Tsai,
Food Network superstar chef with a background
in Chinese and French cooking (and a killer
squash game).
In "The Secret War in Starr's Office," Jeffrey
Toobin reveals how greed and sheer jackassery
caused that group to blow their only real
chance of nailing the object of their
obsessions.
William Ginsburg, Lewinsky's first attorney,
was genuinely furious at Clinton and wanted
to make a deal exchanging her testimony for
immunity.
After many negotations during which Starr's
minions managed to shift Ginsburg's anger from
Clinton to them by
threatening Lewinsky's doctor father with
an IRS audit, a compromise was reached
wherein Lewinsky would supply several pages
of written testimony about her relationship
with Clinton. A deal was struck with two
of Starr's lieutenants, who faxed a formal
immunity agreement to Ginsburg on Feb. 2, 1998.
On a handwritten chart on which the prosecutors
were rated for their toughness, the two who
had made the deal were in the "Commie wimps"
column as opposed to the manlier "Likud" column. Those in the latter column convinced
Starr to veto the deal.
It wasn't until six months later that a
deal was made with Lewinsky's new attorneys,
with the passage of time blunting most of the
shock value Starr's office would have had on
their side in February. They wanted Clinton
too badly, they got greedy, and they blew it.
In "Woody's Dream," Douglas Preston relates
a tale about the counterfeiting of Clovis
points, i.e. weapons used by the Clovis
people (who disappeared around 10,000 years
ago) by a man who probably did it to see if
he could rather than out of greed.
Finally, a review of an unpublished Edmund
Wilson novel by John Updike, bringing together
two of the premiere American belletrists
of this century.
posted by Steven Baum
11/27/1999 05:40:34 PM |
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