America the Brand

BIG TOBACCO RIDES EAST
by Robert Dreyfuss
As American cigarette manufacturers make headway in Vietnam, cancer rates rise, and the government’s regulatory measures go up in smoke.

THE WORLD GETS IN TOUCH WITH ITS INNER AMERICAN
by G. Pascal Zachary
Globalization was supposed to have give-and-take. But free market capitalism and high-tech communications have, for better or worse, turned the world on to just one culture — ours.

ATTENTION DEFICIT
by Deborah Blum
The war on child abuse has an abandoned front: neglect. New research is illuminating the harm done by indifferent parents and may change the priorities of childcare advocates.

SPIELBERG’S OTHER LOST WORLD
by Mark Hertsgaard
Progress, or shortsighted urban planning? Developers in Los Angeles are eagerly razing one of the city’s last open spaces. Steven Spielberg’s new studio will likely find a home there, but at what ecological cost?

WIDE ANGLE
photographs by Paul Fusco and Alex Tehrani
More than a decade after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, we encounter images of hope and despair.

WAITS AND MEASURES
by Jason Zengerle
The straightforward logic of the metric system still escapes most Americans. And that’s why, from an office park in Maryland, the men of the United States Metric Program continue their brave, lonely fight for metrication.

Departments

EDITORS’ NOTE Gingrich, Tocqueville, and the American ethos

BACKTALK Amway speaks out; Outback takes us to task

OUTFRONT

Chopper Troubles
History, Deleted
Dead in the Water
Updates
Job Corps Lottery
February Hellraiser

EXHIBIT
Handle with Care
Cause Celeb
Conduit for Sale
What if You Took Viagra and Nobody Came?
Excess Utility: Money Where Your Mouth Is
Fifteen Pages of Fame

POWER PLAYS
by William Saletan
Invisible money for highly visible campaigns

YOUR AD HERE
by G. Beato
Focus, dammit, focus!

THE VISIBLE HAND
by Tom Dowe
Losing our confidence in consumer confidence

WELL BEING
by Laura Fraser
RU 486 — 11 years of waiting may end soon

MEDIA JONES Top five noble failures; Kathleen Hanna grrrits her teeth; music and book reviews

OVERMATTER
The secret message hidden inside this issue of Mother Jones

THE FUTURE OF…
…Interventions
Cartoon by Ross MacDonald