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?
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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.
FEATURES
Hillary’s Prayer
Is Hillary pandering to the religious right—or truly committed to her faith? Wrong question.
Sea Change
As climate change melts the permafrost, Arctic villages slip into the sea, taking a way of life with them.
Gay by Choice?
How the new science of homosexuality could turn the equal rights movement upside down.
Mr. Clean
Ever since Rick Ness was accused of poisoning thousands of Indonesian villagers, he’s been spending a million a month to convince the world that he’s innocent. And once you meet him, you’ll want to believe him.
Cover Photograph By Charlie Nucci
Illustration By Michael Williams