| March/April 2007

Bill McKibben (“Reversal of Fortune“) is the author of The End of Nature and nine other books about the environment. Deep Economy, from which this piece is drawn, will be published in March by Times Books. The accompanying photo essay by Brian Ulrich explores our relationship with consumer culture.

Bill Donahue (“Hail Mary“) has written for publications ranging from The Atlantic to Outside. He comes from a long line of Catholics, including a monsignor, a monk, and a Catholic teacher who once wrote to JFK to scold him for leaving church early.

Samantha M. Shapiro (“Are You There, George? It’s Me, Ava“) has written for the New York Times Magazine, Slate, Wired, and Haaretz. Before reporting this story in Alabama, she had never been addressed as “ma’am.”

Dennis Cass (“Brain Teasers“) is the author of Head Case: How I Almost Lost My Mind Trying to Understand My Brain (HarperCollins), due out in March.

David Case (“Thrown to the Assassins“) has reported from around the world for Rolling Stone, Men’s Journal, and National Geographic Adventure. He says the suffering of Iraqis has been a blind spot for U.S. media. “Their role has been reduced to the daily body count.”

Bill McKibben

Bill Donahue

Samantha M. Shapiro

Daffodil Altan

Owen Smith

Eric Klinenberg

Daffodil Altan had fun trading stories with this issue’s Hellraiser because she was reminded of her Guatemalan mother’s work as a housekeeper and nanny. She is an editor at New America Media in San Francisco.

Owen Smith (P.S.) has created 17 New Yorker covers and is illustrating his third children’s book. His album-cover illustrations for Aimee Mann won a Grammy in 2006. Currently he’s creating murals, mosaics, and relief sculpture for a San Francisco hospital.

Eric Klinenberg (“Breaking the News“) is an associate professor of sociology at New York University and a Chicago native who grew up with Tribune Co. properties such as wgn, the Chicago Tribune, and the Cubs. His book Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America’s Media was published in January. In the same package, Political Animal blogger Kevin Drum weighs in on the blogosphere’s dependence on old-school journalism, and Sridhar Pappu debriefs former Los Angeles Times editor Dean Baquet.

Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank (“The Iraq Effect“) are research fellows at the Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law; Bergen is cnn‘s terrorism analyst.

Giles Slade (“iWaste“) is the author of Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America.