The other day, while watching my 13-year-old surfing and my 6-year-old appeasing his inner Xerxes by flogging the waves with a strand of kelp, I lounged under an umbrella with my wife’s copy of the September, 2004, issue of Vanity Fair.

I don’t read the magazine all the time, partly because it’s so much work to page through all the advertising showing fashionable young people who are supposedly fabulously good-looking, but who look to me more like a vaguely bored army of undead anorexics. But the September issue is worth the effort because of two articles.

The first is “The Monarchy of George II.” It is be-blurbed in the magazine’s web-based TOC thusly:

Reformed ne’er-do-well, reckless warrior, profligate spender — George W. Bush bears an uncanny resemblance to Shakespeare’s Henry V, who also launched an invasion that turned out badly. As the president awaits the voters’ verdict, acclaimed historian Niall Ferguson warns that time’s judgment may be exceedingly unkind. Illustrations by Paul Davis, Brad Holland, Gerald Scarfe, and Edward Sorel.

The second good article in the issue is “Of War and Presidents.” Blurb:

Another election year, another descent into the patriotic fault line left by Vietnam. As Republicans who avoided military service question John Kerry’s valor, David Halberstam explores a cultural divide that confuses warriors with wimps and courage with blind aggression.

So, in keeping with the apparent wishes of the corporate owners of those pieces, I hereby encourage you to go out and buy that issue in dead-tree form. Here’s a link to their TOC-cum-subscription-come-on, complete with stolen image of an improbably dressed Reese Witherspoon:

As long as I’m encouraging people, though, I’m compelled to encourage said corporate owners to reconsider their silly anti-Web policy. These are important pieces; they should be part of the public debate surrounding the election. If you’d put them online, I could link to them, rather than just linking to your TOC. People would follow those links, and read the articles. Many of those readers would be impressed. Some of them would go out and buy your magazine in order to have access ot that information in a more-convenient form (albeit with anorexics).

Note that none of your advertisers would be hurt by this. They would, in fact, be helped by it. Your antediluvian judgement that this web thing could be safely ignored, keeping your cherished words safely segregated from its piratical masses, has been proven wrong. Get with the program.

This entry was posted by jbc on Tuesday, August 17th, 2004 at 9:50 am and is filed under george_w_bush, the_media, the_usa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.