School of Shock

Electric shocks. Withholding food. Social isolation. Why are we paying for autistic, mentally retarded, and emotionally troubled kids to be treated like enemy combatants?

: The cult that launched the tough-love teen industry.


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DEPARTMENTS

Editors’ Note
Masthead
Contributors
Backtalk

OUTFRONT
Al Franken—laughing all the way to the Senate?; the cia‘s funny money; Jack Bauer, class of 2010; take the M16; Bush’s Peter Principle; predicting the odds of winning in Iraq; whom does food aid really aid?; our 14th annual student activism highlights.

EXHIBIT
House of Cards

Signing up a new credit card customer: $58. Buying off Congress: $8.5 million. Keeping Americans in hock for life: Priceless.

WITNESS
Breathless in Brooklyn


An Exxon Valdez-sized oil spill grows in Brooklyn.

PRACTICAL VALUES
Hard to Break


What’s the latest everyday product we should be freaked out about? Just one word: plastics.

MEDIA JONES
Ted Genoways on Beowulf, cable news, and other great works of fiction; down and out with former Fugee Pras Michel; video games that try to win you over; plus more book (The Argument, Nobodies, Beyond the Green Zone), film, and music reviews.

P.S.
The George W. Bush Presidential Library