Maybe Newsweek Should Have A Subscription To Me? (First Thoughts)

It wasn't so long ago that I pointed out that Newsweek writer Mark Hosenball was also a reader of The Best Of Everything. What I didn't realize back then is that apparently every computer in the Newsweek offices uses one of my blogs as a home page.

This insight comes from Newsweek's latest edition this week, the one in which the writers theorize about what would have happened if Al Gore had won the presidency or something. (Well, the latest one of those issues, which Newsweek puts out about quarterly.)

This morning, paging through that issue backwards as I drank my cup of coffee before I went upstairs to find Mr Bunches pantless (I knew he would be), I first came across the article titled "Rocket Men." In that article, writer/Thinking The Lions reader Jeremy McCarter argues that an expansive space exploration program is a good thing, and that writers and other creative types could help push just that. McCarter says:

What scientists and artists shared then, and what we need to regain now, is a fascination with what Holmes calls "the exploratory voyage, often lonely and perilous.

Readers of Thinking The Lions, though -- including McCarter, and all of Newsweek's staff, will recall what I said, on September 29, when I suggested that we launch people to Mars or further:

If there's one thing we can learn from history -- and I'm not entirely sold that we can learn anything from history-- it's that mankind benefits from exploration.

It seems that I've already inspired McCarter, who should at least leave a comment on this blog to thank me.

But that's not all! Newsweek writer/Thinking The Lions reader Jon Meacham also has an essay in which he urges people to think on a large scale about environmental problems. Pointing out that he only recycles his newspapers under duress, Meacham writes:

I suspect many of you are similarly ambivalent about the efficacy of small-scale action to address a planetary problem.

Jon, why would you suspect that? Is it because I said, on October 28, that we should quit "Cell Phone Charger" thinking and urged people to think larger?

Jon goes on to write:

It is just that my lightbulbs and Diet Coke cans are not going to make up for the CO2 pouring forth from China's coal-fired plants.

You're right, Jon -- as all readers of Thinking The Lions, including you and your staff-- can tell you: unplugging your cell phone, or planting trees, will not offset 120 Empire State Buildings being hauled around the world.

As I pointed out.

Thanks for reading, Newsweek staffers! But can I get a discount on my subscription now?