if one were looking for the single most despicable magazine in america, one would do well to start with more, "the magazine for women over forty." it has only one concern - appearance - and tries to do for the middle-aged woman what, say, seventeen does for the teenager: induce total self-loathing. after that, it teaches you how to enhance your self-esteem. they are the most lookist and weight-conscious magazine in the world: they literally will not write about or photograph a woman who's even slightly overweight, however compelling her story or personality or accomplishment. what you get is a parade of surgery/photoshop cases, titled, impossibly, "this is what 40 looks like." they obviously hate what forty in fact looks like, as every single item is about how to look twenty. one of my favorite shots in this issue is cover girl sharon stone, who appears in a ball gown, with sycophants literally holding her hems. the caption? "just another day at the offices of planet hope, sharon and kelly stone's charity for needy children and their families." that's about as outward-looking as the magazine ever gets: it's not about anything but a kind of self-transformation that howls your inadequacy and ugliness, then markets products to cure you: namely, cosmetics and hormones. it does it all in this tone that is half therapist, half blithering idiot. at the top of this month's cover: "antiaging beauty: neck creams you can believe in." if you are the target audience for this magazine, you better believe in neck creams, cause you sure as hell don't believe in anything else.