History often emerges only in retrospect.

TIME did an excellent job of encompassing the crazy, eventful, tumultuous year 2011 has been in its "Person of the Year" issue. The person: the protester. Great infographics in the front of book that feature some of the year's most viral images, buzzwords (i.e. "occupy" and "planking"), best tweets, things of the year (i.e. percentage 99% and the 7th billion person born), how forces of nature have affected the world, and so on. It seriously blows my mind when I think of all that has happened. The cover story of protesters around the world features powerful portraits and words from some of the people who fought this year for their freedoms and beliefs. Also includes short profiles of Admiral William McRaven (led the Osama bin Laden raid), Chinese activist Ai Weiwei, Paul Ryan, and Kate Middleton. Finally, a farewell to some prominent people who died this year (Steve Jobs, Elizabeth Taylor, Gil Scott-Heron, Betty Ford, Joe Frazier, etc). Concludes with a Joel Stein piece about Ryan Gosling (<3!).

"History often emerges only in retrospect. Events become significant only when looked back on. No one could have known that when a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself on fire in a public square in a town barely on a map, he would spark protests that would bring down dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and rattle regimes in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain. Or that that spirit of dissent would spur Mexicans to rise up against the terror of drug cartels, Greeks to march against unaccountable leaders, Americans to occupy public spaces to protest income inequality, and Russians to marshal themselves against a corrupt autocracy. Protests have now occurred in countries whose populations total at least 3 billion people, and the word protest has appeared in newspapers and online exponentially more this past year than at any other time in history.

Is there a global tipping point for frustration? Everywhere, it seems, people said they'd had enough. They dissented; they demanded; they did not despair, even when the answers came back in a cloud of tear gas or a hail of bullets. They literally embodied the idea that individual action can bring collective, colossal change. And although it was understood differently in different places, the idea of democracy was present in every gathering. The root of the word democracy is demos, "the people," and the meaning of democracy is "the people rule." And they did, if not at the ballot box, then in the streets. America is a nation conceived in protest, and protest is in some ways the source code for democracy — and evidence of the lack of it.

The protests have marked the rise of a new generation. In Egypt 60% of the population is under the age of 25. Technology mattered, but this was not a technological revolution. Social networks did not cause these movements, but they kept them alive and connected. Technology allowed us to watch, and it spread the virus of protest, but this was not a wired revolution; it was a human one, of hearts and minds, the oldest technology of all.

Everywhere this year, people have complained about the failure of traditional leadership and the fecklessness of institutions. Politicians cannot look beyond the next election, and they refuse to make hard choices. That's one reason we did not select an individual this year. But leadership has come from the bottom of the pyramid, not the top. For capturing and highlighting a global sense of restless promise, for upending governments and conventional wisdom, for combining the oldest of techniques with the newest of technologies to shine a light on human dignity and, finally, for steering the planet on a more democratic though sometimes more dangerous path for the 21st century, the Protester is TIME's 2011 Person of the Year. -- Rick Stengel"

"I don't want to blow shit up. I want to get stuff done."

2012=1968? by John Heilemann

"In such an environment, formal claims to leadership are invariably and forcefully rejected, leaving the processes for accomplishing anything in a state of near chaos, while at the same time opening the door to (indeed compelling) ad hoc reins-taking by those with the force of personality to gain ratification for their deas about how to proceed. "In reality," says Yotam Marom, one of the key OWS organizers, "movements like this are most conducive to being led by people already most conditioned to lead.""

"Capitalizing on this support is the central issue facing OWS, and its ability to do so will depend on myriad factors, including the behavior of plutocrats, politicians, and police. (In terms of presenting shocking and morally clarifying imagery, the recent pepper-spraying incident at the University of California, Davis, struck many as reminiscent of Bull Connor's goons dousing civil-rights protesters with fire hoses in 1963). But it will also depend on which of two broad strains within OWS turns out to be dominant: the radical reformism of social democrats such as Berger, who want to see a more humane and egalitarian form of capitalism and a government less corrupted by money, or the radical utopianism of the movement's anarchists and Marxists, who seek to replace our current economic and political arrangements with ... who knows what? "My fear is that we become the worst of the New Left," Berger says. "I don't want to live in a fucking commune. I don't want to blow shit up. I want to get stuff done.""

"Teichberg is a 39-year-old Russian immigrant with stooped shoulders and a mop of brown hair who grew up in Rego Park and is so jacked in to the electronic grid that he comes across like a character out of Neuromancer. But what makes him so interesting is that you could just as easily imagine him making a cameo in The Big Short. A math prodigy who was a Westinghouse Science Talent Search finalist before matriculating at Princeton, he left college (temporarily) after his sophomore year and went to work for Bankers Trust, the first in a string of Wall Street gigs at firms including Deutsche Bank, Swiss Reinsurance Corp., and HSBC. And what did he do in those places? He created, modeled, and traded derivatives, including some of the first synthetic CDOs. And he told the London Times, he was "one of the people [who] built that bomb that blew up the whole economy.""

"Like Teichberg's, their criticisms of that system are more sophisticated and precise than those of many of their comrades. But their politics, also like Teichberg's, are the opposite: earnest and idealistic, for sure, but also vague and half-formed."

I could never quite align myself with the Occupy Wall Street movement, and I can't quite articulate why; I don't know why. One might think I might be a little more sympathetic (I have less than $1,000 to my name, about $25,000 in debt, no job, living with a single mother who got laid off a few months ago...). At the same time though, I'm really confident in my potential to succeed in the career I've chosen, I have an awesome internship, I'm optimistic that my mom will find a job soon, I'm lucky enough to be able to live at home in NYC. I don't quite feel screwed over by the system just yet. I don't know. I also met a lot of the protesters; interns headed down there in September to help with polling, and I don't know, I just wasn't impressed. I didn't get the idea many of them knew what they were talking about. Anyway, I liked that John Heilemann evaluated how this movement can and whether it will, influence politics next year. And especially loved that he spoke to some of the more intelligent leaders (though the movement claims to be leaderless) who have identified some of the problems I've had with the movement and their ideas on how to improve it and make it effective. And it's not that I don't think there aren't fundamental things that need to change. I just never thought camping out in a park and yelling was the best way to address the problem. I think they (we?) have to be smarter about our approaches if we want to make any real differences ... meh, that's all I have to say about it for now.

The efforts all share the upscale New York brand identity.

And Another Fifty Million People Just Got Off of The Plane, by Michael Idov

Really interesting feature (and package) that covers New York City's booming tourism industry. Fifty million tourists will have visited by the end of this year, breaking a record. Apparently the milestone has been reached because of Michael Bloomberg's and NYC & Company's (a marketing type agency) initiatives, connections, outreach, etc. Read and you'll see. Anyway, thought the way their niche-marketing/advertising/PR strategies for potential tourists from the U.S. and abroad was interesting. And how they've been able to convince hotels, airlines, and other members of the industry to join them in their efforts.

"Among travelers from the top foreign markets, Australians are the most adventurous. They are the most likely to attend a sporting event, go dancing, shop, buy tickets to a concert or a play--anything, really. The French are the likeliest to attend an art gallery or a museum. The British, Irish, and Arab Middle Easterners are the least interested in art. Brazilians are emphatically anti-guided tours. The Japanese are seriously into Harlem, crowding gospel brunches and church tours (it is an open secret among New York's jazz community that our jazz clubs are, at this point, all but subsidized by older Japanese men). The Norwegians, Danes, Finns, and the Dutch are the wealthiest, with 18 percent of the arrivals earning more than $200,000. Indians are the thriftiest, in a sense--because they often stay with friends or relatives and avoid hotels, they spend only $88 a person a day. But they also tend to stay longer than other groups, spending $1,000 per trip. The "Russian oligarch" stereotype, statistically speaking, is fiction. 

    Our visiting compatriots, meanwhile, have their own quirks. Their behavior patterns fall into two main categories: day-trippers who tend to come from relatively nearby and get in and out quickly for a specific purpose, and overnighters, who swarm in from farther away and stay longer. While just about every day-tripper who comes to New York shops here, guests from D.C. are almost twice as likely as the average tourist to name that as their main reason to visit. Among overnighters, Angelenos do the most shopping, Miamians are the most inclined to hit an art gallery, and Bostonians tend to favor our nightclubs. 

    To capitalize on those and other differences, NYC & Company has launched niche-marketing campaigns for different places. While the efforts all share the upscale New York brand identity, they are tailored in unique ways. Asian ads focus on our main icons to entice first-time visitors. European markets get bombarded with messages meant to encourage repeat visits and a "live like a local" experience. In Italy and Germany, NYC & Company has been selling the notion of the city's "energy" and "vibrancy," as opposed to any specific sites. It's less Broadway and more Bedford Avenue--a place where you go to be cool. In the domestic market, the sales pitch stays largely the same: The ads for New York that appear in Texas are the same as those running in Connecticut."

"As their economy grew like never before, middle-class Brazilians abandoned traditional vacation destinations like Argentina for New York. NYC & Company quickly influenced American Airlines to create discount fares. After observing the Brazilians' consumer behavior and realizing they are disproportionately taken with Broadway theater, NYC & Company sent five musicals to Sao Paulo. "Nobody's paying for anything--AA is flying them in," says Fertitta, practically giddy. Between 2009 and 2010 alone, the number of Brazilian tourists in the city increased by an incredible 77 percent. And the typical Brazilian drops $415 a day here, about double the international average."

*For a few weeks this year I worked in a watch/jewelry store in midtown Manhattan that largely attracts tourists and I definitely noticed that many more than the last time (I also worked there in 2009) stemmed from Brazil. 

Also, I loved Tourist Profiling and I thought Geotagging the Tourists was really cool. And I really, really want to have some oysters at Grand Central Oyster Bar one day soon!

The hothouse brand of American malice stalks our country still.

What Killed JFK, by Frank Rich

"What's also clear is that, despite the ardent attempts of the Kennedy cult to keep his romantic image alive, it is fading among those Americans who are too young to have witnessed it firsthand, in Technicolor. They tend to see JFK now as the property of their parents and grandparents--a short, transitional chapter in the American story, gradually reverting to black-and-white. Listen to Jackie Kennedy in her conversations with Schlesinger--with her feathery voice and piquant observations bespeaking a vanished time and class--and it's hard to imagine what any 21st-century American under 40 could possibly make of her patrician eccentricities. In retrospect, that exhilarating rally at American University in Washington, D.C., in January 2008--where Caroline Kennedy, her uncle Teddy, and her cousin Patrick, soon to end the family's 64-year run in national office, passed the torch to Obama--was the dynasty's last hurrah.

On the other hand, read Manchester or 11/22/63 or any other account of that time, and the vitriol that was aimed at Kennedy in life seems as immediate as today. It's as startling as that "You lie!" piercing the solemnity of a presidential address like a gunshot--or the actual gunshots fired at the White House last week by another wretched waif. In the end, that political backdrop is what our 44th and 35th presidents may have most in common. The tragedy of the Kennedy cult is that even as it fades, the hothouse brand of American malice that stalked its hero stalks our country still."

This issue is packed with good stuff. Just look to the cover. Especially "When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality?" by David Frum and "When Did Liberals Become So Unreasonable?" by Jonathan Chait. The piece about Bloomberg's personal conflict with Occupy Wall Street. The design story, too. The juice-bar spread (the photo is perfect). And can't forget "He Shops She Shops," particularly the part with the senior couple, Leo and Tillie! Fuck it, here is the table of contents.

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

Steve Jobs's death on October 5 shocked the world, even though his illness guaranteed it sooner than later. Millions realized how significantly he changed our lives and the Internet was abuzz with expressions of sadness and gratitude. I was super impressed by TIME's last-minute decision to stop the presses with three hours left to close and recreate the issue to commemorate his death. A reflection from TIME's art director describes the process in more detail; it's really amazing. The cover photo was so moving. It was perfect, capturing Steve Jobs on the floor of his living room with his Mac, before he could imagine the success he would experience in the coming decades.

But it was Newsweek's commemorative issue that blew me away. Granted, I think they had more time to put it together. While TIME's issue was not entirely devoted to Steve Jobs (I believe they still ran much of the original intended content), Newsweek pulled together a wide range of excellent editorial solely devoted to the man. It included, yeah, the typical articles reiterated everywhere about both his early life (adoption, high school partnership with Steve Wozniak, dropping out of college, LSD in India, etc.), and how he ultimately changed the world with his innovation and eye for good design. But it also included an essay about Steve's relationship with Laurene Powell Jobs, the "apple of his eye," and an essay about his relationship with Bill Gates. It included an excerpt from his famous Stanford University commencement speech, another from a conversation between him and screenwriter/producer Aaron Sorkin, and an in depth look at the disease that killed him. Several infographics tracked: his magazine covers, his "geek chic" fashion, the businesses he transformed (computers, movies, videogames, music, phones), the gadgets he created, and his flops. It included an essay about the geniuses who came before him and a thought-provoking essay about the geniuses who we will never know. Quotes demonstrated how Steve Jobs foresaw many innovations. I loved the excellent photography of worldwide tributes and of the young Steve. The sad mac on the inside cover: minor detail but nice touch. It was a well-rounded tribute to Steve Jobs's life and career, and I really enjoyed reading it and recommend to all. (Try to find a print issue, because articles are nearly impossible to find on the Daily Beast)

EXCERPT OF COMMENCEMENT SPEECH NEWSWEEK PUBLISHED

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, some day you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7.30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumour on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for "prepare to die". It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumour. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful, but purely intellectual, concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but some day not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And, most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

It often takes a disaster to get people thinking about their power

If someone had pitched the cover story about the Ashkenazi Jews to me, I'm not sure I would have run with it. But it worked and lended itself to a great cover (and great opening spread photograph).

I really liked Robert Sullivan's "A Slight Chance of Meltdown." It alerted me to the conflicts surrounding Indian Point, a nuclear power plant so close to home. I thought Sullivan did a great job of presenting both sides of the conflicts and demonstrating that, we kind of lose either way. (At least until we find alternative sources of energy).

"It often takes a disaster, or the threat of one, anyway, to get people thinking about their power--otherwise they just plug in or charge it overnight, without giving a second thought to where those electrons are born."

"The magnitude-5.8 quake in Virginia hit in the vicinity of the North Anna nuclear plant with twice the amount of ground movement the structure was designed for, cracking a wall of a reactor's containment unit and shifting the concrete pads under casks that store used nuclear fuel. It was the first time an operating U.S. nuclear plant experienced a tremor that exceeded its design parameters."

"If there was a fire in the reactor, then Indian Point would, by regulation, begin to shut down. Fortunately, if the sprinkler system was damaged in the quake, then workers could turn to the additional fire requirement and backup generators installed after 9/11. Unfortunately, the scenario that involves enough shaking to damage the reactor building also involves damage to the buildings containing the emergency fire equipment. Indian Point would then call in local fire officials, who, Entergy boasts, are well prepared to deal with radiation releases. But suppose this quake has damaged area transportation routes. Suppose trees and wires are down and the plant is running on backup power. Suppose emergency officials are dealing with other buildings that have collapsed on emergency equipment: A 2001 study argued that a magnitude-7 quake in nearby Bergen County would destroy 14,000 buildings and damage 180,000. In this scenario, the fire spreads and the reactor is no longer under control."

"As far as releases of radiation go, the NRC mandates only a ten-mile evacuation area for Indian Point. In other words, official policy states that New York City would be spared any sizable risk from a meltdown. But perhaps it's more sensible to look at what the NRC had to say in Japan. After the Fukushima meltdown, the NRC told Americans living there to clear out of a 50-mile zone. Subsequently, the Japanese government declared huge swathes of land uninhabitable for decades. The local 50-mile equivalent is a circle defined by Kingston to the north; Bridgeport, Connecticut, to the east; the Delaware Water Gap to the west; and the southern tip of Staten Island to the south. It includes all of the 8.2 million people living in New York City."

"If you agree with the governor that this small risk of contamination of 2.7 percent of the U.S. population is not worth the benefit of nuclear power, then you have to come up with some other way to replace the 2,000 megawatts of energy Indian Point currently provides to New York City and Westchester." The image of a dark Times Square mentioned later in this graf was pretty powerful. Never even thought about how much energy is required to keep Times Square lit, more today than ever before, I think.

"Entergy poses a good question: If you are against the possible destruction of New York City by Indian Point, and also against the as-yet-unquantifiable possibility of watershed damage caused by fracking, and at the same time against summer blackouts and all their attendant public-health and safety issues, is there anything left to be for?"

Also thought Gabriel Sherman did some great reporting for his story about Elisabeth Murdoch; James Murdoch (her brother) resigned from the boards of News Group's newspapers yesterday. Think this family has a long way to go before any good is associated with their name.

I also haven't really mentioned the Strategist section, but it's always solid. Loved Art of the Feast, the holiday food guide. Almost decided to make one of the featured dishes for today, but yeaaaahh, not happening.

Happy Thanksgiving!

In those days, nothing happened without men.

Loved this issue's cover story, an oral history to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the launch of Ms. magazine. I love oral histories! Sometimes it's just better to let the sources tell the story. Aside from learning about how this magazine changed so many women, liberating them, giving them a voice, I really enjoyed learning about the challenges of starting the magazine. Doing so in the face of that adversity made it all the more interesting. But just the tidbits about brainstorming the name of the magazine, the covers, story ideas. I loved that. Coming up with the money. The conflicts about representing diversity--how they wanted to more often but had to consider their Southern readers. The letters to the editor and commentary after the first preview issue (especially the negative ones). I don't identify myself as a feminist. (Not even sure what it means today). I'm not sure of what kind of woman I would have been in the 1970s. I'm not sure I would have been the bra-less, sign-bearing, vocal protester (though who knows). But I think I would have loved the provocative, thought-provoking, intelligent nature of the magazine. It went there. Also, what really hit home was the mention of the limited opportunities women had to become journalists. Not until I read it did I realize there was a time when being a journalist would not have been an option for me.

EXCERPTS

Pogrebin: In those days, nothing happened without men. You needed one man to be nice to you and then maybe you could run with it.

Milton Glaser (New York design director, 1968–77): We worked right out of the office and started simultaneously doing our weekly magazine. We really felt, all of us, that we were on the brink of a moment in time.

Steinem: It had a universality because it’s harking back to a mythic image—the many-armed Indian God image. And it solved our problem of being racially “multibiguous” because she’s blue: not any one race. (on the cover)

Pogrebin: We chose Ms. because it could be explained and justified—since “Mister” or “Mr.” doesn’t communicate a man’s marital status, why should women carry “Miss” or “Mrs.,” as if to advertise their availability as mates?

Louise Bernikow (contributor, 1970s): The story was my politics-is-personal moment. I grew up knowing “girls couldn’t,” and when it came to being writers, I knew that I couldn’t be a reporter for the New York Times or Newsday; I could only be a researcher. But I had never put it together in terms of the pyramid that the story reveals.

President Nixon to Henry Kissinger on White House Audiotapes, 1972 
Nixon: [Dan Rather] asked a silly goddamn question about Ms.—you know what I mean?
Kissinger: Yeah.
Nixon: For shit’s sake, how many people really have read Gloria Steinem and give one shit about that?

New York Times Headline, March 22, 1972:
“In Small Town U.S.A., Women’s Liberation Is Either a Joke or a Bore.”

Gillespie: The magazine, despite its flaws, provided so many words that had been missing. So many silences finally broken. Ms. changed lives, changed attitudes, helped to create and change laws, policies, practices.

&&&

I was also thoroughly amused by the 2,000+ word feature about rats in New York City. Rats have become kind of an inside joke with a few of my friends. They always come up in conversation somehow and we freak. One of my friends has experienced unpleasant encounters. Did you know rats can collapse their skeletons to fit through a hole no bigger than a quarter?