The Case Against High-School Sports
What if we spent the money, time, and energy we devote to Friday-night football games on boosting academic performance?
October 2013
In This Issue
The case against high-school sports, the trouble with homework, the new terrorist training ground, how the NFL fleeces taxpayers, James Bond's inner life, and more
Features
How the NFL Fleeces Taxpayers
Public subsidies, tax breaks, and exorbitant salaries—it's time to stop enriching the league, and the feudal lords who own its teams.
The Boom Towns and Ghost Towns of the New Economy
How the recession changed our economic geography
The New Terrorist Training Ground
While America focuses on threats from the Middle East and South Asia, Mali has become a jihadist haven.
My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me
What happens when a father takes on his 13-year-old daughter's nightly workload
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Walter Green Losing Is the New Winning
How we came to fetishize failure
Nishant Choksi 'Arab Spring' Goes Back to 1975?
Five contemporary terms that are older than you might think
John Cuneo The Devil’s Daughter
What does the rise of Marine Le Pen's right-wing nationalist politics say about France?
Sportvision Why It’s Never Been More Fun to Watch Sports
A discussion with Hank Adams, the CEO of Sportvision, the company that created the glowing hockey puck and football's yellow line
Mikey Burton No. 1 in Wine and Porn! The Idiocy of State Rankings
Comparing totally dissimilar populations can yield remarkably little insight.
origamicondoms.com This Is a Condom
Durable, foldable, and actually fun
Emiliano Ponzi Wall Street Gets Back Into Real Estate
The fast-money crowd enters the rental business.
Cristiana Couceiro Violence Is Contagious
What goes around really does come around.
Volodymyr Baleha/Shutterstock Problem: My Mother Is Annoying
Our advice columnist to the rescue
JFK: Willi Gutberlet/Picture-Alliance/DPA/AP; Obama: Charles Dharpak, Pool/AP Not a Berliner Anymore: Trashing the JFK Legend in Germany
... while Obama's popularity takes a hit there, too
Snap2Art/Shutterstock Why Professors Should Be Like Preachers
... or coaches or therapists. The primary importance of motivating students in post-secondary education.
The Culture File
Kevin Christy The Inner Life of James Bond
The publication of William Boyd’s new 007 novel, Solo, occasions a reexamination of the superspy’s character—or telling lack thereof.
Javier Jaén The Thomas Pynchon Novel for the Edward Snowden Era
A review of the new novel Bleeding Edge
Mickey Duzyj Malcolm Gladwell: Guru of the Underdogs
His latest gospel of success further romanticizes the Davids of the world and underrates the Goliaths.
Associated Press; Corbis; Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis Why We're Still Struggling to Make Sense of Modernism
We may like to think of ourselves as postmodern, but the modernists upended conventions—in art and in life—in ways that have challenged us ever since.
Reid Wilson How Three Weeks in New Zealand Changed My Relationship With Food
A journey from table to farm
Jhumpa Lahiri Cover to Cover
New fiction from Jhumpa Lahiri, and the joy of singing with others
Departments
The Conversation
Responses and reverberations
Graham Roumieu The Big Question
What was the greatest speech, historical or fictional, ever given?
