August 1991
In This Issue
Explore the August 1991 print edition below. Or to discover more writing from the pages of The Atlantic, browse the full archive.
Articles
Waiting for the Weekend
A whole two days off from work, in which we can do what we please, has only recently become a near-universal right. What we choose to do looks increasingly like work, and idleness has acquired a bad name. Herein, a history of leisure.
The Blue Mountain
The Hunt
Victor Higgins
The Way of the Trout
The Puzzler
Word Watch
Here are a few of the words being tracked by the editors of The American Heritage Dictionary, published by Houghton Mifflin. A new word that exhibits sustained use may eventually make its way into the dictionary. The information below represents the first stage of research, not the final product.
The August Almanac
Notes: Military Efficiency
Reflections on the one government institution that adheres to the notion of a common good
South Africa: Odium Africanum
Why it’s hard for Americans to see apartheid whole, and without the distorting shadow cast by our racial history
745 Boylston Street
Contributors
Grace
Her husband’s parents had come from India to visit the newlyweds, and now they wouldn’t leave
Healthy Competition
The debate over who will pay for health care in America has recently become more heated than ever before. The only points on which doctors, insurers, and employers agree are that costs are running beyond control and that the current system is unworkable and inequitable. Americans will almost certainly have to become more aware of what their health care costs and pay a higher share themselves. Most of the proposals being discussed fall into two categories, each of which is addressed in several proposals now before Congress: establishing a national-health-insurance program ; and enlarging the current system, requiring employers to provide insurance to currently uninsured workers and the government to provide insurance to the poor unemployed. A third, less often discussed approach—creating competition by enabling Americans to shop for their own policies—is the one described in this article
Irises
The Ufo Experience
Every year at the University of Wyoming a conference is held for people who believe that they have been through episodes involving UFOs—in particular, abduction by extraterrestrials. Our correspondent, who is a noted psychiatrist, attended that conference, and found most of its participants to be more down-to-earth than he would have expected. Still. . .
Falls
New Worlds, Old Wildernesses
Peter Sculthorpe and the ecology of music
Raymond Carver: Our Stephen Crane
Reflections on the life and art of an American storyteller
