Mitt Romney, Debater
The presidential debates this year may well determine the election's outcome. Here's how they might unfold.
September 2012
In This Issue
James Fallows on Romney's debating strengths and weaknesses, Ta-Nehisi Coates on Obama and race, Hanna Rosin on college girls and sex, new fiction by Emma Donoghue, and more
Features
Boys on the Side
The hookup culture has been viewed as toxic to women. Actually, it is an engine of female progress, driven by women themselves.
Fear of a Black President
For the past four years, Barack Obama has avoided nearly all mention of race—revealing the false promise and double standard of integration.
Fiction: Onward
"Love happens, like age or weather. It's not hard to do, only to endure, sometimes."
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Ross D. Franklin/AP The Myth of the Latino Vote
Why do Democrats expect Mexican Americans in Arizona to line up behind a Puerto Rican guy from Harlem?
Can EuroVegas Save Spain?
Sheldon Adelson goes scavenging in the euro zone.
Charles Ommanney/Getty Foxy Ladies
Why one network applies so much makeup
Toddler Man
Harvey Karp’s quixotic crusade to teach adults how to talk to 2-year-olds
Talk Like an Iranian
As the author learned in Tehran, yes sometimes means no.
Marc Piscotty/Reuters Why Wildfires Defy Prediction
Due to climate and landscape changes, computer models don't work like they once did.
Graham Roumieu Does Tequila Make Us Crazy?
Researchers say no, but drinkers say yes.
Corbis My Atomic Holiday
Way out in the desert, at the Nevada Test Site, a certain sort of traveler can confront strange traces of catastrophe (and tomfoolery).
Columns
The Cheapest Generation
Why Millennials aren’t buying cars or houses, and what that means for the economy
20th Century Fox/Everett/Rex USA TV's Angriest Man
With his latest reality show, Chef Gordon Ramsay extends his patented froth from the kitchen to the hotel business at large.
Books
Nick Higgins Sex Lives of Novelists
Writing about writers; an atrocity ignored; the most influential book in English
Deborah Feingold/Corbis The Odd Wonder of Pauline Kael
The great critic showed us how to talk about popular art and fall in love with movies.
Alex Harris Cover to Cover
The unlikely exoticism of Mobile, Alabama; false hopes for American schools; and more
Editor's Note
The Conversation
The Conversation
Responses and reverberations
Gallery
Poetry
What's Your Problem?
What's Your Problem?
How to saw off a limb, and other advice
