Spring 2009

Articles

The Terminator Comes to Wall Street

How computer modeling worsened the financial crisis and what we ought to do about it

by Joseph Fuller

Purpose-Driven Life

Evolution does not rob life of meaning, but creates meaning. It also makes possible our own capacity for creativity.

by Brian Boyd

Second Chances, Social Forgiveness, and the Internet

We need the means, both technological and legal, to replace measures once woven into the fabric of communities

by Amitai Etzioni

The Potency of Breathless

At 50, Godard’s film still asks how something this bad can be so good

by Paula Marantz Cohen

The Man Who Shot the Man Who Shot Lincoln

The hatter Boston Corbett was celebrated as a hero for killing John Wilkes Booth. Fame and fortune did not follow, but madness did.

by Ernest B. Furgurson

Visions and Revisions

Writing On Writing Well and keeping it up-to-date for 35 years

by William Zinsser

Dawn of a Literary Friendship

In 1969 the writer Robert Phelps first wrote to the novelist James Salter. Here are the letters that forged a bond of two decades.

by John McIntyre

The Dowser Dilemma

How a town in Vermont found water it desperately needed and an explanation that was harder to swallow

by Kate Daloz