And those aren’t progressive and left-wing enough for you, try The Baffler.
Washington Monthly and Columbia Journalism Review are also ok alternatives, though I wonder if CJR has been starting to get a little more rightwards lately. I was lucky to get weekly handmedown NYs from mum (subscriber since late '40s), and then when she passed, have been getting NY handmedowns from my brother.
Any periodicals mentioned here with a less political bent?
Meh, the New Yorker qualifies.
Is there any other magazine that still runs regular comics?
Playboy used to, of course, but I don’t think they do in their online incarnation. I think American Scientist still does. After that I draw a blank.
I agree, most New Yorker cartoons are so sophisticated it isn’t funny.
Which makes it ironic that I have a New Yorker cartoons desk calendar this year. But at least I understand the cartoons, and some of them are even funny.
(Cartoon of kid with wings standing right next to a TV, looking at. Caption: “Icarus! Not so close!” Would anyone not a Boomer get that one?)
I auto pay as little as possible. only my car note and my Direct TV, in fact. Auto pay can be very convenient, but it can also be the Siren call to inattentiveness and even laziness. Habitual auto paying can not only nickel and dime one to death, one can also end up not wanting half the stuff you are paying for. It also encourages me to balance my check book and check it against my bank.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but magazines seem like they are half ads and half things you can find out on the Internet for free. I’m surprised they even still exist.
Is the TV drawn as a console piece of furniture, a free-standing CRT, or a modern flat-screen?
But yeah, that caution seemed to have died a slow death about the same time our own youthfulness did.
I’d have to agree that the quality of the magazine has generally fallen, and the cartoons are not what they used to be in perhaps happier times. Many are just simply not funny.
But going back to happier times, not that every cartoon needs to be about dogs, but here’s a classic from 1956:
And then there’s this all-time classic from about 20 years ago:
And you gotta love this one!
This. So it’s definitely the province of the Boomer
I came here to suggest this site. VERY comprehensive!
…
What does being born between 1946 and 1962 have to do with knowing about Greek mythology?
The point is our Moms warned us to not sit too close to the TV lest it wreck our eyes with evil radiation. Modern kids watching modern flat screens don’t get those warnings from their parents = our now-grown kids.
The Icarus with wings part is just adding some Classics snobbery to a straight up inter-generational misunderstanding joke. A joke that works for Boomers who remember the warnings but doesn’t work for folks below about age 35 who don’t.
Oh, ok. Thanks for the explanation. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Boomer (born 1948). I guess I never got that warning.
Did your parents let you swallow watermelon seeds or let you swim after eating? Is it too late to inform Child Services?
I bet she even … gasp … rode in the back of a pickup truck.
Hehe. We kids worried that swallowing watermelon seeds could make you pregnant. Or at least look pregnant. Were boys told not to swallow watermelon seeds? 
I didn’t swim. I was an overlooked child, even (paradoxically) being an only child. Not a lot of rules or directives. I had to figure out stuff for myself.
Never knew anyone with a pickup. Didn’t move to Texas until high school. Anyway, in the 1960s everybody and their dog didn’t have a pickup. When I got married the first time my husband’s father gave us a pickup for a wedding present. Yeah, plenty of back-of-pickup activity then. Going to the drive-in and backing into the spot with ice chest, blankets, and lawn chairs! But I was in my 20s by then.
The mag stopped running comics after the great Sidney Harris died. Just as they stopped running the engineering column after the great Henry Petroski died.
I leave the metaphor to the reader.
Merely a reference point.
Did I miss something?
Reports of Harris’ demise appear to be exaggerated. The first link below is copyright this year by Harris.
Blame my memory, which is rapidly approaching the state of our democracy.
I def don’t remember any cartoons in the mag recently, regardless.
Now I’ll go downstairs and open an issue and find it festooned with cartoons.
I googled and found $60 per year, Print + online, plus a bonus 20 issues of the print.
It is one of the first 'zines I grab in a waiting room, great cartoons and some articles.
Myself, I only subscribe to Consumer Reports, and sometimes Car & Drive when they beg me and offer me a unbeatable deal- last time it was $7 for a year.
IMHO Consumer reports is worth it.
Cite?
Annual Digital + Print
$80 $60 / year
Add 26 issues of the print magazine for just $20 more.