The Ideas List 2012
From banning gasoline and hiring introverts to abolishing the secret ballot and befriending Islamists, our collection of modest proposals. Plus an online-only report on big ideas in politics, culture, business, tech, and more.
The biggest ideas of 2012, why women still can't have it all, Caitlin Flanagan on JFK's affairs, new fiction by Elmore Leonard, and more
From banning gasoline and hiring introverts to abolishing the secret ballot and befriending Islamists, our collection of modest proposals. Plus an online-only report on big ideas in politics, culture, business, tech, and more.
It’s time to stop fooling ourselves: the mothers who have made it to the top of their profession are superhuman, rich, or self-employed. Here’s what has to change for the rest of us.
Chris Christie and Bruce Springsteen—a tale of politics, rock and roll, and unrequited love
Larry Smarr is charting his every bodily function in minute detail—and may have found the future of health care.
He saw deputies in their serious hats coming through the restaurant from the kitchen, four white guys who looked like they meant business.
Outside Olympic Park, the most cutthroat, reckless, competitive race of 2012 is already under way.
Who will carry the flame for Britain?
How a 40-mile trip to Lagos took 12 hours
Irate chefs, frenzied gourmands, and the rise of animal rights in California
Destroying paintings in order to save them
A close encounter with the sport’s most authentic madman
Its old war scars healed, the West African coast beckons surfers of all varieties.
New technology lets a skydiver fall from 120,000 feet. Could it also save astronauts’ lives?
Farming is in the midst of a startling renaissance—one that holds lessons for America’s economic future.
How a new 14-DVD box set turned a lifelong skeptic on to the music of the Grateful Dead
Revising Spain's Escorial, plus the history of a maligned American food
Mrs. Kennedy’s JFK problem—and ours
Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell returns; the history of Maurice Sendak’s medium; a better parking lot; and more
Responses and reverberations
When to lie to kids, and other advice