May 2004
In This Issue
Howell Raines, “My Times”; William Langewiesche, “A Sea Story”; Paul Maslin, “The Front-Runner's Fall”; Scott Stossel, “Knifed”; Christopher Hitchens, “Poor Old Willie”; Joshua Green, “Funny Business”; Ryan Lizza, “Kerry's Consigliere”; Corby Kummer, “Going With the Grain”; fiction by Aryn Kyle; and much more.
Articles
Gender-Neutral
Sunny Side Up?
Rethinking our political fixation on the bright side of life
Funny Business
When you're running for President, humor is no laughing matter
Poor Old Willie
The life of W. Somerset Maugham was a good deal more "exquisite, dramatic, torrid, and tragic"—especially in his splendid Mediterranean exile—than any of his works
How Do I Look?
Body armor is a must in some lines of work, and it gives "fashion plate" a whole new meaning
Going With The Grain
True wild rice, for the past twenty years nearly impossible to find, is slowly being nurtured back to market
Foaling Season
We could dress Sheila Altman in my sister's clothes and sell her my sister's horse, but what could she understand about the way things worked?
A Sea Story
One of the worst maritime disasters in European history took place a decade ago. It remains very much in the public eye. On a stormy night on the Baltic Sea, more than 850 people lost their lives when a luxurious ferry sank below the waves. From a mass of material, including official and unofficial reports and survivor testimony, our correspondent has distilled an account of the Estonia's last moments—part of his continuing coverage for the magazine of anarchy on the high seas
Letters to the editor
Kerry’s Consigliere
For the legendary strategist Bob Shrum, a lifetime in Democratic politics comes down to John Kerry and a final shot at the White House
Hoosiers
The lost world of Booth Tarkington
The Front-Runner’s Fall
The Dean implosion up close, from the vantage point of the candidate's pollster
Fat Target
It's starting to look like 1536 all over again
New & Noteworthy
What to read this month
Primary Sources
Your gay neighbors (and their children); what's really behind France's headscarf ban; why people don't tell lies over e-mail; the illusion of order in suburban schools; the scientific secret of sex appeal
Air Pollution
FCC fines for indecency and obscenity
My Times
A year after the Jayson Blair scandal, the deposed executive editor of The New York Times answers his critics, acknowledges his mistakes, deconstructs the events that ended his tumultuous tenure, and provides a no-holds-barred assessment of what he sees as a great newspaper in crisis
Neat Structure, Grand Notions
“Martini-Age Victorian”
The novelist John P. Marquand was a brilliant satirist with a "dictaphonic ear" for dialogue
“Knifed”
In 1968 the Kennedy family essentially blackballed a brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, who was very close to being chosen as Hubert Humphrey's running mate. In doing so, they may have accidentally thrown the election to Richard Nixon
Hitler’s “Amerikabomber”
The idea of flying planes into skyscrapers didn't originate with al-Qaeda
