September 19, 2011 issue, completed August 8, 2012

This issue included an article about the murder of a journalist in Pakistan, which was fascinating and built on some of the material I had mentioned previously about the duplicitousness of the Pakistani government and army in their dealings with the United States. It seems almost impossible that the raid that killed Osama bin Laden could have been successful if the US has collaborated with Pakistan. Relationships there between those in power and those who would bomb all non-believers to kingdom come seem to be very twisted there. Although keeping track of the unfamiliar-sounding names and places was a challenge at times, the article was a fascinating read.

Also, every time I read Alice Munro I think, if I were trying to become a writer of fiction and I were to read her, I would just give up right away, knowing I could never be that good. Here she is writing about life in the sleepy small Ontario town of her youth and somehow it still ends up entertaining and gripping. Not so the fiction story in this issue, that I thought was rather silly: an imagined diary of Pat Nixon, former First Lady. Maybe I am just too unfamiliar with the life of Richard Nixon to “get” it. I had hoped it would be something accessible and entertaining, but it just seemed odd. Much preferred the article about Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga recording together, although my opinion of Mr. Bennett is forever tinged with an ick factor since learning that he married his wife when she was eighteen and he was fifty-nine, and that actually they were first in the same room together when he met his wife’s mother when she was two months pregnant with her. Clearly they paid no heed to the rule of thumb for knowing if a person is too young (or too old) for you – divide your age by two and add seven, and that is the minimum age you should be considering. (Perform the reverse operation to obtain the maximum age.) With those guidelines, Mr. Bennett shouldn’t have even looked at someone under the age of 36, and she should not have gone with anyone older than 29. Though I suppose now, with her being 45 and he being 86, it’s all worked out just fine for them.