CONSUMER REPORTS
December
How much should you tip at Christmas?
Among U.S. survey respondents who gave cash or a gift to a service provider, the average value of holiday tips ranged from $15 for your barber to $40 for a child-care giver and $50 for a cleaning person. (We're trying not to dwell on what that discrepancy says about the relative importance we place on a clean home versus a safe kid.)
If recent events have made you even more jittery about your budget, the magazine offers this timely advice: "Give cash or a cheque to people you think need it most. In many cases, one week's pay or the cost of one session (such as a guitar lesson) is appropriate."
If you have no budget, "handwrite a note of thanks." Says Anna Post, great-great-granddaughter of etiquette guru Emily, "Something is always nicer than nothing."
VANITY FAIR
December
"Marvin, think about your great image that you built up," Motown founder Berry Gordy recalls telling the voice behind what turned out to be one of soul's most enduring albums, What's Going On?
"Do you really want to talk about police brutality?"
While the home of Stevie Wonder, the Supremes and The Jackson 5 seems to celebrate an anniversary every couple of months, this year marks its 50th birthday (and a pretext for a magazine feature).
As for Gaye's reply to the ambivalence around What's Going On?: "He said, 'B.G., you gotta let me do this,' and I was really hesitant," says Gordy. "Not for me, but for him. I didn't want his career to be gone. I said, 'Okay, Marvin, but if it doesn't work, you'll learn something, and if it does work, I'll learn something.' So I learned something."
DWELL
Dec./Jan.
While the U.S. presidential campaign drew reams of coverage for its use of YouTube, Twitter and other online initiatives, it also inspired more old-school tools, such as graphic artist Shepard Fairey's striking (and unofficial) Barack Obama poster, a multi-shaded portrait accompanied by a single word: hope.
It was a pointed reminder of the enduring power of the print poster, a form that has "always been situated in that tension-filled space between culture and commerce, precariously touching both the fine and applied arts.
"Even at a small size, a poster can be easily duplicated and propagated on the street. The power of this medium to draw public attention may explain in part why it is often perceived, among designers, as the jewel in the crown of our métier."
THE NATIONAL INTEREST
November-December
"The best thing about disaster scenarios," writes former CIA field officer Robert Baer, "is that they rarely come about."
When it comes to Iran and "its tried-and-successful strategy of imperialism via proxy," however, that maxim might not apply. Which is why, argues Baer, "The United States needs to go to Tehran to see what kind of bargain can be struck."
Iran "would demand an open role in policing the Gulf, not unlike the role the Shah's regime played in the 1970s when Iran was the Gulf's `police officer.' Tehran would demand the lifting of all sanctions. But we won't know any of this with certainty until we sit down and listen to the Iranians.
"The other choice is to let the logic of war play itself out and hope, against the evidence, that we are wrong about Iran's rise."
