Newsweek articles from May 2009

Newsweek archives from May 2009

The Sage of Steam.(Books)(The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt)(Book review)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Louisa Thomas Cornelius Vanderbilt, the first modern mogul, was a ruthless visionary. Cornelius Vanderbilt saw the trouble coming. By 1873, the 79-year-old "Commodore," as he was called, was no stranger to risk: calculated...

A Tragedy That Won't Fade Away.(Science and Technology; TECHNOLOGY)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Jessica Bennett When grisly images of their daughter's death went viral on the Internet, the Catsouras family decided to fight back. This is a story about a photo--an image so horrific we can't print it in NEWSWEEK. The picture...

Let's Make A Deal.(Business; THE MONEY CULTURE)(mergers and acquisitions during economic crisis)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Daniel Gross A spike in mergers is a good thing. But the latest deals are defensive plays and are focused in a handful of industries. In late April, large mergers and acquisitions--friendly, hostile, cash, stock-- blossomed...

A Call to Arms in the Epilepsy Fight.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
May 4, 2009... 'The Mystery of Epilepsy': Readers hailed our April 20 cover story on epilepsy, a devastating, and often misunderstood, disorder. A teenager confessed to feeling "now more understood and most importantly, more normal." While others related...

The Editor's Desk.(counter-terrorism measures undertaken by United States government)(Column)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Jon Meacham The question is not as the extremes on either side would have it. Today, eight years after the attacks of September 11 and three months into a new presidential administration, should the country in some way look back to...

Unsilent Barack.(Columnist; THE LAST WORD)(Barack Obama)(Column)
May 4, 2009... Byline: George F. Will The trajectory of his presidency may have been determined by what he did in his first 100 days. A 19th-century historian called the Middle Ages "a thousand years without a bath." That oversimplified somewhat, but...

Medvedev's Moscow Spring.(International; RUSSIA)(Dmitry Medvedev )
May 4, 2009... Byline: Owen Matthews and Anna Nemtsova Putin's successor as president seemed like a smooth-talking yes man. That's changing now. In the year since he was sworn in as Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev has displayed great prowess at...

A Break in the Fence.(International)(Berlin Wall)(Excerpt)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Michael Meyer Twenty years ago this week, a bold move began the process that would bring down the Berlin Wall. Erich Honecker could not have guessed he was presiding at his last real May Day. It was May 1, 1989, and the aging...

The Secret Of His Success.(International; WORLD VIEW)(Barack Obama )
May 4, 2009... Byline: Fareed Zakaria What Obama has been able to accomplish in his first 100 days is enough to make any president envious. No other American president in modern memory has faced a learning curve as steep as the one Barack Obama has...

A Pulitzer for One of Our Own.(; IN RECOGNITION)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Ann McDaniel, Managing Director, NEWSWEEK I met Jon Meacham in 1994 and foolishly resisted when my colleagues urged me to hire him as a NEWSWEEK writer. Thankfully, I caved, but months later when it was suggested that he take over...

Jazz Standards That Aren't.(Entertainment; MUSIC)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Seth Colter Walls If Ellington went indie, he'd sound something like Darcy James Argue. In high-school jazz bands there's always a group of players who yawn at the song list. Even when the music isn't that old, it sounds that...

We're All Trekkies Now.(Entertainment; SUMMER MOVIE PREVIEW)(Cover story)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Steve Daly 'Star Trek' is way cool. How'd that happen? Because the geeks have inherited the earth, and the White House. On a February weekend in 1974, when I was 11 years old, I went to the happiest wake I've ever attended. It...

Vulcans Never, Ever Smile.(Entertainment; MOVIES)(history and popularity of Star Trek television programs and movies)(Essay)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Leonard Mlodinow A former 'Trek' writer spills some secrets, including the one about how the franchise survived for so long. It was one of those Hollywood parties where if you are a normal-looking person you feel ugly. I'd been...

As American as Apple Pie.(My Turn)(American Muslims)(Column)
May 4, 2009... Did Obama's trip to Turkey help Muslims here at home? It depends on how you view my headscarf. Last month, as I was watching the news coverage of President Obama's visit to Turkey, I thought back to an awkward experience I had as an...

Rebranding Hate in the Age of Obama.(Nation)(Barack Obama)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Eve Conant With an African-American president and the economy in bad shape, extremist groups are trying to enter the mainstream--and they're having some success. It's not about hate, it's about love. Love of white people....

Where Everybody Knows Your Name.(Nation; THE PRESIDENT)(Barack Obama's visit at Europe)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Holly Bailey Barack Obama has always appreciated a little anonymity. Now he's learning how to live without it. Barack Obama wanted to escape. It was an uncharacteristically sunny day in London, warm and not a cloud in the sky,...

Scoring Obama's First 100 Days.(Nation; BETWEEN THE LINES)(United States President Barack Obama)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Jonathan Alter With all that the president has done, he's in league, so far, with FDR and LBJ. But early success is just that. How successful were President Obama's first 100 days? Let's go to the videotape--and the newsreel....

Last of the True Believers?(Nation; POLITICS)(Mark Sanford)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Andrew Romano By risking his popularity now, Mark Sanford may be quite popular in 2012. There's a cool rain falling on the South Carolina State House, but it's nothing compared to the storm inside. The date is April 2, 44 days...

'We Could Have Done This the Right Way'.(Nation; TERROR)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Michael Isikoff How Ali Soufan, an FBI agent, got Abu Zubaydah to talk without torture. The arguments at the CIA safe house were loud and intense in the spring of 2002. Inside, a high-value terror suspect, Abu Zubaydah, was...

Of All the Cowgirls He's Loved Before.(Newsmakers)(Matthew McConaughey)(Interview)
May 4, 2009... Matthew McConaughey has wooed Kate Hudson, Penelope Cruz (in real life, too) and Jennifer Lopez in movies. In "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," he's after Jennifer Garner. He spoke with Nicki Gostin: In this movie you play a player. A guy...

Perspectives.(Perspectives)
May 4, 2009... "It won't surprise you that I don't consider him a particularly reliable source of information." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on Dick Cheney's claim that Bush-era interrogation tactics produced valuable intelligence "Despite the...

The Turf War Over Cyberwar.(Periscope; DEFENSE)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Mark Hosenball The computer wizards at the National Security Agency's tightly guarded headquarters in Fort Meade, Md., think they know better than anyone justahow vulnerable America is to a massive cyberattack. It's their job to...

Will He Run On Empty?(Periscope; POLITICS)(Roland Burris)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Holly Bailey If embattled Illinois Sen. Roland Burris hopes to hold onto his seat in the 2010 election, he's off to a rocky start. According to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission, Burris raised just $845 from...

My Talent? Alienating People Who Agree With Me.(Periscope; THE DIGNITY INDEX)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... A weekly mathematical survey of dubious behavior that measures, on a scale of 1 to 100, just how low a person can go. After a huge outcry, Apple, the seemingly infallible iPhone maker, yanks an app called "Baby Shaker," a game (of sorts) in...

Andre Dubus III.(Periscope; A LIFE IN BOOKS)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... A National Book Award finalist for his 1999 novel "House of Sand and Fog," Dubus is the author most recently of "The Garden of Last Days," a gripping tale of terrorists in Florida. His picks: MY FIVE MOST ESSENTIAL BOOKS 1. "The...

Now? Way Less Than Zero.(Periscope; FAST CHAT)(Bret Easton Ellis)(Interview)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Eliza Gray "The Informers," a new movie based on novelist Bret Easton Ellis's 1994 story collection, takes us back to the dawn of the '80s: Wayfarer sunglasses, neon blazers, Betamax. Ellis ("Less Than Zero") co-wrote the script,...

A Kitchen Confidential.(Periscope; WORTH YOUR TIME)(Bittersweet: Lessons from My Mother's Kitchen)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Andrew Romano No experience is as universal as the loss of a loved one, which makes the memoir of grief an unusual, and often unappealing, literary genre. We know, of course, why the bereaved author has put pen to paper; he needs...

Torture Memo Edition.(Periscope; CONVENTIONAL WISDOM WATCH)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... President Obama hoped to end the debate about the torture memos. Instead he just fueled it. Obama SIDEWAYS: Ends epic hundred-day dash with a tortured torture compromise. Neither side's buying. CIA SIDEWAYS: Nice visit from the big...

SCOTUS Edition.(Periscope; A CW LOOK AT THE SUPREME COURT)(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... It's always busiest for the high court before the summer recess. Let the speculation about new vacancies begin! Court TV DOWN: Airing oral arguments on the Web? Judges say they're not ready for their close-up. Strip search...

How To Save Earth: Love It Or Leave It.(Periscope; PAGE TURNER)(James William Gibson's "A Reenchanted World")(Brief article)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Daniel Stone The German sociologist max Weber once wrote that centuries of industrialization and secularization had influenced widespread "disenchantment" with nature--a view of earth and its wildlife as inert objects for the...

Is That a Bible in Your Pocket?(Periscope; BELIEF WATCH)(religious mobile phone applications)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Lisa Miller Like so many Christians, Kevin McNeese carries his bible to church on Sundays. He "pops it open," he says, and follows along as the pastor reads that week's chapter and verse from the pulpit. For fun, McNeese reads...

Adventures In Good And Evil.(Society; ESSAY)(Essay)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Sharon Begley What makes some of us saints and some of us sinners? The evolutionary roots of morality. It isn't surprising that the best-known experiments in psychology (apart from Pavlov's salivating dogs) are those Stanley...

Good Cop/Bad Cop Goes Green.(Society; ON SCIENCE)(environmentalism)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Sharon Begley The Greenpeace that the public knows has never met an environmental villain that it didn't want to make really, really miserable. So in the group's ongoing campaign to get Kimberly-Clark to stop using wood fiber from...

The Principal And The Paddle.(Society)(corporal punishment)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Eric Adelson One South Carolina educator used corporal punishment to turn around his struggling elementary school. Why he's so conflicted about it. The wooden paddle on principal David Nixon's desk is two feet long, with a...

Have We Softened Up on Torture?(Society; THE VERDICT)(Column)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Dahlia Lithwick In April 2004, the world learned that American soldiers in Iraq had abused prisoners at the Abu Ghraib Prison. Images first revealed on CBS and in The New Yorker showed hooded prisoners standing on a box with wires...

After The Plant Closed Down.(Society; ESSAY)(Personal account)
May 4, 2009... Byline: Steve Tuttle How one family survived the sudden economic collapse of their hometown. In 1968, when I was an 8-year-old boy, my family had a really, really bad day. My dad, my grandfather and other male relatives from both...

A Catholic-School Veteran Tells All.(Society; FIRST PERSON)(corporal punishment in schools)
May 4, 2009... Byline: David Noonan What kids really learn when teachers resort to violence. Every once in a while I run into someone who, like me, attended Catholic school in the '50s and '60s. These encounters usually follow a pattern. We establish...

Stepping Aside.(Columnist; THE LAST WORD)(Column)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Anna Quindlen Three big binders bring a message from a new generation about the future of the news business. The last bit of evidence arrived in the form of three binders of news clippings. Because all the submissions for the...

The Goodbye Swirl.(Entertainment; ARCHITECTURE)(Frank Lloyd Wright's Larkin Building)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Cathleen Mcguigan The Guggenheim was Wright's last great building. What happened to the first? The Larkin Company of Buffalo, N.Y., made soap. but more than suds, the company helped invent modern marketing. In the late 19th...

Mum, Pup and Christo.(Entertainment; BOOKS)(Losing Mum and Pup)(Book review)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Jon Meacham The son of Pat and Bill Buckley may not have always been happy, but he was never bored. His wife was dead, and his own health was failing. In the summer of 2008, William F. Buckley Jr. was in his Stamford, Conn.,...

Charlie's Company.(Entertainment; BOOKS)(Sunnyside)(Book review)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Malcolm Jones Chaplin stars in the novel 'Sunnyside.' So does Rin Tin Tin. Sometimes fiction is stranger than truth. It is hard to argue with author Randall Jarrell's wry definition of a novel as "a prose narrative of some...

The Bling Is The Thing.(Entertainment; BOOKS)(Clancy Martin)(Interview)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Louisa Thomas If you ever bought overpriced jewelry from Clancy Martin, he's sorry. If you buy his novel, you won't be. Clancy Martin knows a lot about lying. He comes by it honestly--he's now an associate professor of...

Time For A Trade-In.(Business; TECHTONIC SHIFTS)(hybrid vehicles)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Daniel Lyons Prius-style hybrids may become the first victims of the disruptive technology shift that's hitting the auto industry. To most of us, Toyota's snazzy Prius hybrid still seems like the cutting edge of cool, the...

Watching Us Save, One Cart At A Time.(Business)(Wal-Mart)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Daniel Mcginn Wal-Mart has a unique vantage point for tracking the recession. How it's playing in the grocery aisles. It's 9:20 a.m. inside a Wal-Mart supercenter just north of Denver, and three-dozen employees are gathered in...

Reinventing Newsweek.(; STRATEGIES)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Kathleen Deveny We'll aim to be more provocative, but not partisan, in essays from America's best writers and thinkers. There is a type of NEWSWEEK story that I used to love. In the 12 years that I have been an editor here, we...

Walking the Cyberbeat.(; TECHNOLOGY)(cleaning up Facebook)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Nick Summers To make Facebook advertiser-friendly, its 'porn cops' delete risque content and enforce decorum. It's just before lunchtime in the sunny, high-tech headquarters of Facebook in Palo Alto, Calif., and Simon Axten is...

A Profile of an Ex-Governor in Exile.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
May 18, 2009... ' "How Could I?" The Confessions of Eliot Spitzer': Readers were, by turns, surprised and dismayed that our April 27 cover story provided the disgraced ex-governor of New York a platform on which to come clean. "Why resurrect a man who earned...

The Editor's Desk.(The Editor's Desk)(Editorial)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Jon Meacham It may have been the most productive coffee date in NEWSWEEK history. Almost a decade ago, after the death of Meg Greenfield, Rick Smith, the magazine's longtime editor in chief, reached out to one of the great voices...

Prisoners of the White House.(International; POLITICS)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Evan Thomas Smart decisions don't grow in a vacuum. The most successful presidents recognize the fact and encourage debate--and even rivalry--between their advisers. They do their best to consider the options fully. All the same,...

The Dilemma of Dissent.(International; ESSAY)(Essay)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Richard N. Haass You try to make the best of an executive decision you think is wrong. But there's a limit. A former Bush aide looks back. In early July 2002 I went to see Condoleezza Rice, President George W. Bush's National...

Two Bushes, Two Iraq Wars.(International; BOOK EXCERPT)(Excerpt)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Richard N. Haass An insider's view from an advisor who served in both administrations. It was the evening of August 1, 1990 in Washington, and halfway around the world, Iraqi forces, encountering little in the way of...

Captors of the Liberated Zone.(International)(Essay)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Sudip Mazumdar A personal visit to a part of India where Mao-spouting armed rebels are the law. Late one night recently, my phone rang. It was my sister, and her voice was trembling. A member of India's nominally Maoist...

Change We Can't Believe In.(International; WORLD VIEW)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Fareed Zakaria Pakistan's military has lost every conventional war. It's far better at guerrilla wars. Finally, we are told, the Pakistani military has gotten serious about the threat that militants pose to its country. The...

And the Cat Came Back.(Entertainment; MUSIC)(Cat Stevens)(Biography)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Lorraine Ali Yusuf Islam ditched music, fame and his name: Cat Stevens. Now he's emerging from his moon shadow. The man formerly known as Cat Stevens is standing on the side of a dirt road in Southern California's Mojave...

Do We Need To Go There Again?(My Turn)(Short story)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Ron Bel Bruno; Bel Bruno is working on a book about relationships and urban life at the dawn of the Internet age. Because of Dad's Alzheimer's, I had to come out of the closet twice. We got it right the second time. "Hey there....

A public plan will reduce costs and improve access.(Nation; POLICY)
May 18, 2009... I have baseball on my mind: It is spring, the teams are on the field, the season has begun. It seems to me that winning the health-care debate is a lot like the Chicago Cubs' winning the World Series--it hasn't happened in forever, and some...

The answer is unleashing markets--not government.(Nation; POLICY)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Mitt Romney; Romney is a former governor of Massachusetts. I hear loud and clear from people in my state, and from across the country, what they want to see in health care. They want it to cost less, have the highest quality and see...

Our Tacit Approval Of Torture.(Nation; THE BIG IDEA)(Viewpoint essay)
May 18, 2009... We need to come to terms with not just who did what, but our collective complicity with their decisions. The use of torture on suspected terrorists after 9/11 has already earned a place in American history's hall of shame, alongside the...

The Slippery Side Of 60.(Nation; LIVING POLITICS)(Viewpoint essay)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Howard Fineman Nice guy though he is, Sen. Ben Nelson is like the Platte River in his home state of Nebraska: broad and slow-moving. He is an insurance lawyer by trade--small-town, soft-spoken. But in the Senate last week he was...

Hugh Needs His Beauty Sleep.(Newsmakers; Q&A)(Hugh Jackman)(Interview)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Nicki Gostin The critics might have their claws out for "Wolverine," but Hugh Jackman's are sharper. You're very buff in this movie. When was the last time you had carbs--2002? Probably this morning. The worst thing about...

Perspectives.(Perspectives)(quotations)(Quotation)
May 18, 2009... "I don't want to run auto companies. I don't want to run banks. I've got two wars I've got to run already. I've got more than enough to do." President Obama, attempting to allay fears about the federal government exercising significant and...

Fresh Questions About the CIA's Interrogation Tapes.(Periscope; JUSTICE)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball When president Obama decided to release the Bush-era Justice Department's interrogation memos last month, he tried to calm an anxious CIA by publicly declaring that operatives who "reasonably"...

Nonfighters Pick a Fight.(Periscope; ISRAEL)(draft resisters)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Kevin Peraino and Joanna Chen Israel's hawkish new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been in office for only a little more than a month, yet some Israeli doves say they're already seeing signs of new hardline security measures....

Next Time, Einstein, How About a Heads-Up?(Periscope; THE DIGNITY INDEX)(public opinion)(Brief article)
May 18, 2009... A weekly mathematical survey of dubious behavior that measures, on a scale of 1 to 100, just how low a person can go. Weighing in on swine flu, VP Joe Biden returns to his role as a one-man foot-and-mouth pandemic, urges people to avoid...

The Straw That Still Stirs.(Periscope; FAST CHAT)(baseball player Darryl Strawberry)(Interview)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Matthew Philips In 1983, Darryl Strawberry was New York's rookie sensation--a tall, skinny, 21-year-old slugger with the sweetest swing since Ted Williams. But a blossoming career soon shriveled in a haze of substance abuse. In...

Swine Flu Edition.(Periscope; CONVENTIONAL WISDOM WATCH)(current events)(Brief article)
May 18, 2009... With town-hall meeting, news conference, surprise visit to press room, BHO is everywhere at once. As usual. Obama UP: Hundred-day "Hallmark holiday" hype is history. But this guy doesn't get hangovers. Specter SIDEWAYS: With nudge...

Hundred Days Edition.(Periscope; A CW LOOK AT OBAMA'S DEBUT)(Brief article)
May 18, 2009... Last year Hillary Clinton and John McCain said Barack Obama was all talk, no action. More like all talk, all action. Confidence UP: In gloomy times, BHO has made 70 percent more optimistic. Not too shabby for a rookie. Economy...

Oh, Grads, the Places You'll Go!(Periscope; SPEECHES)
May 18, 2009... When commencement addresses are bad, they're really bad: tedious, disposable swamps of words aimed at a tuned-out, hungover audience in sweaty polyester robes. But when they're great, they stick for a lifetime. As graduation season begins,...

In Sickness and in Health.(Periscope; APPLES AND ORANGES)(swine flu and SARS)(Brief article)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Matthew Philips History repeats itself, but not without wrinkles. We pick apart the connections: The Comparison With the world in a panic over swine flu, it's starting to feel like 2003, when SARS was the raging contagion...

Pardon My French: You Suck At This.(translator Douglas Hofstadter on translating literary works to English)(Brief article)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Tony Dokoupil In the literary world, translators are low in the pecking order. Titans like Milan Kundera and Isaac Bashevis Singer have branded them traitors for betraying the beauty of the original text, so most keep their heads...

My Brother's Goalkeeper.(Periscope; WORTH YOUR TIME)(Movie review)(Brief article)
May 18, 2009... Byline: David Ansen The renaissance in Mexican movies is a fraternal affair. The movement's biggest stars--Alfonso Cuaron ("Y Tu Mama Tambien"), Guillermo del Toro ("Pan's Labyrinth") and Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu ("Amores Perros")--are...

Richard Ford.(book list)(Brief article)
May 18, 2009... "Independence Day," the second book in Ford's Frank Bascombe trilogy, won the Pulitzer Prize and PEN/ Faulker Award. His picks: MY FIVE MOST ESSENTIAL BOOKS 1. "Essays" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. A plain-spoken, cunning tour of...

That's One Classy Mom.(public opinion on first lady Michelle Obama and her being a mother)(Brief article)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Katie Connolly Michelle Obama likes to call herself the "mom in chief." Images abound of the first lady frolicking on the White House swing set with Malia and Sasha. Basically, you'd have to be living under a rock not to know that...

2012: A Y2K for the New Age.(end of the world according to Mayan culture)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Lisa Miller 'Around -- 2012, a large chapter of human history will be coming to an end, and a new phase of human growth will commence.' Scholars rarely love popularizers, and nowhere is this enmity more evident than in the...

The Bias Against Oil and Gas.(President Barack Obama's energy policy on green energy)(Viewpoint essay)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Robert J. Samuelson Expanding any fossil-fuel production offends many Americans. But policies placating this prejudice aren't in our national interest. Considering the brutal recession and the widespread warnings of a feeble...

Michelle Hits Her Stride.(First Lady Michelle Obama on racial diversity and her unveiling on the bronze bust of abolitionist Sojourner Truth)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Allison Samuels The first lady's diverse approach to diversity. There have been plenty of un-veiling ceremonies for new statues at the U.S. Capitol. But when Michelle Obama peeled the cover off the bronze bust of abolitionist...

Why I Froze My Eggs.(egg cryopreservation)
May 18, 2009... I had just turned 35 when I started thinking about freezing my eggs. I'd always thought I'd have a husband and a kid or two by 35--that's the ominous year when doctors start stamping women's med- ical charts with the words "advanced maternal...

The Path of a Pandemic.(H1N1 influenza virus pandemic)(Cover story)
May 18, 2009... How one virus spread from pigs and birds to humans around the globe. And why microbes like the H1N1 flu have become a growing threat. Around Tanksgiving 2005 a teenage boy helped his brother-in-law butcher 31 pigs at a local Wisconsin...

File Under 'Hodgepodge'.(health policy for a national system of electronic medical records)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Jerry Adler We need a national system of electronic medical records. If you're like most Americans, you like to take responsibility for your own health, even the aspects of it that you find boring, incomprehensible or just...

Listening to Madness.(Society)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Alissa Quart Why some mentally ill patients are rejecting their medication and making the case for 'mad pride.' We don't want to be normal," Will Hall tells me. The 43-year-old has been diagnosed as schizophrenic, and doctors...

Huston Smith's Wonderful Life.(Society; RELIGION)(Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine, an Autobiography)(Book review)
May 18, 2009... Byline: Lisa Miller The author of 'The World's Religions' looks back on 90 years of prayer, yoga and dropping acid. Huston Smith is doing publicity for his 14th book, though at nearly 90 he IS debilitated by osteoporosis and can't get...

The First 1,000 Days.(Politics)(President Barack Obama's first 100 days in office)(Column)
May 25, 2009... Bloomberg reflects on Obama Franklin Delano Roosevelt is probably enjoying a good laugh at our continuing fascination with a president's first 100 days, perhaps the most meaningless yardstick in all of government. Many of the legislative...

Hard Target.(International)(Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army)
May 25, 2009... Byline: Scott Johnson The hunt for Africa's last warlord Shortly after dawn last Dec. 14, four Ugandan Mi-24 helicopters banked low over the thick forest canopy of Congo's Garamba National Park. A dense fog had rolled in overnight, and...

Idol Chatter.(Arts and Entertainment)(former American Idol contestants)(Interview)
May 25, 2009... When we host one of our NEWSWEEK Roundtables (say, for the Oscars or the Emmys), we do it in person, and with the doors locked so the stars can't escape (just kidding). We tried that for our first American Idol Roundtable, but unlike George...