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May 22, 2013

John Thorne: They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman

John Rosemond: 'Disciplinary math' adds up to parental successl

Warren Richey: Are prayers before public meetings OK? Supreme Court to decide
Rick Montgomery: Use of ADHD drugs as study aid raises concern on campuses

Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 convincing reasons you should keep carbs in your diet

Eoin O'Carroll: Scientists examine nothing, find something

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: This soup is made from one of the great pleasures of spring: A wonderful pairing of rosy color and earthy tang

May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting

May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel


Jewish World Review July 24, 2012/ 5 Menachem-Av, 5772

Tale of the South

By Paul Greenberg




http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The Oxford American is a peripatetic journal of Southern culture whose checkered past has been a series of crack-ups. It got started back in 1992 in Mississippi, deepest of the Deep South states, where the soil seems to bring forth literature as naturally as cotton and kudzu. In Oxford, Miss., naturally -- Faulkner's town and shrine. By now, the magazine has shut down four times, not counting suspensions. At one point, it took refuge in Arkansas, where it found shelter at the University of Central Arkansas.

Now both its founding editor and managing editor have been fired in circumstances not yet completely clear. The one good thing you can say about its latest crisis is that at least it's more interesting than anything the magazine has published in years. The combination of mystery, scandal and general confabulation surrounding the OA's latest misadventure has all the makings of a good second-rate Southern novel.

Naturally, this potboiler comes with the usual talk of a lawsuit. The magazine is called the American, after all, and litigation is our common national plague North or South. This latest scandal out of the OA comes with an admixture of speculation, aka gossip, and what could be more Suthuhn than that?

It's all enough to give any faithful follower of cheap fiction, or even cheap non-fiction, the vapors. Aunt Amanda would be just thrilled to death, while old Colonel Ambrister would probably just snort, and dismiss the whole matter in a word. ("Typical!")

A publisher's dream the OA has never been, though its various collapses might qualify as an accountant's nightmare. All through its ups and downs, or rather downs and further downs, the magazine has remained what it was at the start: a great idea. But one that has never fully blossomed -- or taken root.

It's a great dream, to resurrect Southern writing in the spirit of Faulkner or at least Thomas Wolfe, but the magazine has never had what made Thomas Wolfe a great writer: a Maxwell Perkins as his editor and amanuensis, someone who could take his logorrheic chaff, run it through a fine and discerning mill of a mind, and make great or at least semi-great literature of it.

Instead, it's been left to a glossy latecomer like Garden & Gun to combine both of those in fine Southern and commercially successful style.

Who ever thought the South would have anything to do with commercial style? Wasn't that sort of nouveau thing fit only for Yankees, carpetbaggers and scalawags? One can imagine Rhett Butler at a fashionable magazine's helm, but never the noble Ashley Wilkes, who was too good for anything as mercantile as journalism.

Granted, there have been all those New South types who promised to industrialize us from time to time. They've kept coming along since The War destroyed the old one. Even if some of us refuse to believe it's gone, and try to keep it alive as a kind of tourist attraction.

But the New South types always gave way to Newer South types who proved just as ephemeral. Nothing lasts in these latitudes except dreams. And it's the pillared past we dream of, not some glass-and-chrome future. For a prettied-up South wouldn't be the real one.

Ah, the South, the South, the South.... We never tire of talking about her. And how, like the Oxford American, we keep failing to bring back her Faulknerian glory. Let's put it this way: The OA remains the magazine of the future in these Southern parts and, sadly, may always be.

That's very Southern, too -- the dream never fulfilled. Issue after issue, this little magazine set out to answer the question every Yankee keeps asking: "What is life really like down there?" But, bless its heart, the OA got so caught up in its self-absorption, it never seemed to have sufficient time, talent, money or perspective to really answer the question.

The magazine did succeed in personifying Yankee editors' idea of what an interesting Southern literary/cultural journal should be. Which is scarcely the same as the real thing. You might as well trust a German to say what Russia is really like. The South, like any great lady, remains elusive, especially to Southerners.

Now that its Founding Editor has been cleared away, like an old plantation being cleared of underbrush, the Oxford American may yet find itself. Though it may be too much to hope that it will ever find the South.

Yet someday, who knows, the OA might fulfill its potential. It could still happen. The way The New Yorker started to sound a bit more like its old Harold Ross self after it had freed itself of the awful Tina Brown, the editor who was going to modernize it. But modernize the South? Then it wouldn't be the South anymore.

Good luck, ever new, ever displaced, ever shook-up Oxford American. You've still got a great future, kid, the danger being that that's all you will ever have -- and never a great present. For a great magazine requires a great editor.

Paul Greenberg Archives

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JWR contributor Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here.

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