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Culturally Speaking #29: The Mini-Rant Edition

By Sarah Stodola

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The Atlantic Monthly's summer double issue is quite tedious. As I read it I began to feel as though there are only two topics worth covering in the world today - Iraq and the presidential campaign. Of course these are important topics to cover, but in a double issue, one would think that a magazine with the talent behind it that the Atlantic possesses would be able to reach a bit further. In addition, although political coverage is doubled for the double issue, the books section doesn't seem any longer than in a single issue, and there is still just one short story. I do read The Atlantic for all of its sections (I am beginning to sense that its stance is a bit further to the right than I am comfortable with. However, this is actually a noble stance for such a magazine to take, since it forces readers to consider both sides of the issue, and to not be able to lazily assume that they are the choir being preached to), however my truly passionate interests, like many other readers', lie in the books and fiction sections. But, okay. Yes, The Atlantic is still my favorite magazine - just not for the months of July and August. They should do a fiction double issue like The New Yorker.

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And speaking of this same double issue of The Atlantic: Christopher Hitchens has an absolutely lovely review in it about Trotsky and a reissued volume about his life.

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It has been suggested to me that The Power and the Glory is also one of the best novel titles of all time. Dually noted.

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For personal reasons, I have become more aware of the differences between the way American speak versus the British. This article chronicles some of these differences, although some of the proclaimed Briticisms here don't seem so British to me at all.

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On the groundbreaking design of McSweeney's...

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I wish someone could explain why it is that corporations are perpetually compelled to get bigger.  In Fast Company this month, there is an article about Starbucks, and how its CEO no longer sees it as a coffee company. Please, damn straight it's a coffee company. But the reason he sees it as "not a coffee company" is that once a company gets to a certain size/point of success, it must delve into new markets and niches in order to keep growing, and that is just the position that Starbucks has found itself in. What I don't understand is this: Why can't a coffee company take over the entire coffee industry and then let well enough alone? It is already successful. These people no longer need to prove themselves. In fact, they can kick back and enjoy life now. Isn't that what we all want? To be able to have the means with which to simply kick back and enjoy life? Once you have that capability, why do you no longer want to be a coffee company?  Why is it just assumed that growth must never stop?

Click here for the last Culturally Speaking.

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Sarah Stodola is the Managing Editor of Me Three.  She can be contacted here.

© 2004 Me Three