New Balance of Power in the Old Middle East A new military pact between Israel and Turkey may reinforce U.S. interests throughout the Mideast, a region to which America has tied its foreign-policy star and to which its industry is IV'd for its petroleum lifeblood. Let's Use Our Military Wisely Deciding when, where, and how to intervene with military force presents a truly perplexing set of questions. In a post--Cold War world, with no overriding threat to serve as the focus for American national strategy, it is even more difficul... How the GI Bill 'Saved' America It began in September 1946 when 1.013 million young veterans of World War II took seats--48.7 percent of them--in the nation's colleges and universities. The American dream was coming true for millions. Dream Lover In a turn-of-the-century tale of obsession and self-indulgence, Steven Millhauser looks at the price that is paid when a quintessential capitalist's dreams come true. The Supreme Court and Congressional Redistricting Districts designed explicitly to produce black majorities have produced much public discussion. One side argues that it is desirable to have more black-majority districts. The other argues that black opinion will have more weight when the w... The Trade Deficit's Silver Lining The U.S. trade deficit is not the bane it is often portrayed to be, for it assures American consumers of cheaper, higher-quality goods. Possible October Surprises No matter what the polls now show, every election is subject to a possible late-breaking surge that turns the race inside out. It could be a gaffe, a strategic miscalculation, a scandal, or something that really matters, like an internation... An Acadian Legacy French settlers, called Acadians, first came to Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley in the early 1600s. They were expelled from the region in 1755 by the British. The Acadians left behind a system of dikes for irrigation, cultivated and fertile ... Capital Designs A Washington commission's ambitious new proposal to expand the Monumental Core has become a rallying point for advocates and critics alike. The Emerging Choice Option in Education School-voucher and charter-school initiatives are sprouting up all across America. Bright Stars in the U.S. Education Firmament Success stories in the U.S. school system seem to spring from a stress on high academic standards for students. India: Democratic, Diverse, Divided To most inhabitants of the occidental world, India represents an enigma. It is a remote, exotic land, filled with incomprehensible complexities of culture, tradition, politics, and religion. Many have undoubtedly heard it described as the w... A Catalyst for Change The Hunger Project is unleashing the power of India's poor by bringing people together to solve problems. The Reincarnation of Mahatma Gandhi The multidimensional Gandhi left a complex legacy for India, for the American civil rights movement, and for control of human appetites and aspirations. India's Celluloid Hall of Mirrors The world's largest film industry churns out wildly popular music and dance extravaganzas that have roots deep in Indian culture, but a number of films reflect more complex realities. Traditional Medicine for a Modern Age Ayurveda, a medical system that originated in ancient India, is enjoying a resurgence of interest in both East and West. Ancient Jewel From early Greece to the modern civil rights movement, Indian thought and philosophy has had a wide-ranging influence on Western culture. Indo-Anglian Writing Today Whether or not an emerging group of writers represent a literary "school," English is the language is which they naturally express the complex Indian experience--and command a national audience. Economic Reform: Here to Stay Liberalization has created world-class market opportunities across many sectors in India. One Party No More The battered Congress Party has given way to a mix of provincial factions called the United Front. More Aggressive Countermeasures Needed According to public opinion surveys, few Americans are accustomed to worrying about terrorist attacks. In a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center just a year after the Oklahoma City bombing, three-quarters of those questioned said they ... Terrorism Strikes the U.S.After the crash UNITED STATES--The explosion of a Paris-bound TWA jumbo jet minutes after taking off from Kennedy Airport has stunned the nation and raised the anxiety level of virtually all those who use the airlines. ... Some investigators think the most... Ambassadors of Hope An hour and a half southwest of Managua, Nicaragua, a bus leaves the highway and slows to a stop next to a rutted dirt road. Seventeen Americans, many wearing hospital scrubs, descend and haul out trunks and boxes of medicine. These they lo... Wolfville Discovered An hour's drive from halifax lies the sleepy town of wolfville, a gem in the annapolis valley. Martin Dressler Rudolf Arling was thirty-four years old, fair-haired and big-boned, with a short trim blond beard and piercing gray eyes. He agreed to listen seriously to Martin's ideas, which by this time were abundant and precise, and to apply them whene... A Song of Lamentation Graham Swift's moving eulogy for a vanishing generation is a choir of voices. The Disappearance of Adulthood To Robert Bly, we have become a nation of adolescents who never grow up. Citizen Welles Two new biographies look at the life and work of film's great genius and fabulist. The Biggest Question of All Journalist and historian Paul Johnson writes a moving personal account of questions of faith and morality at the end of the twentieth century.

SAME-SEX MARRIAGE? Camille Williams' article in Currents in Modern Thought this month deals with the controversy surrounding same-sex marriages. Should this concept be controversial? Is there something sacrosanct about the monogamous, heterosexual form of mar... Picasso: The Soul Masked Amajor exhibition contends that Picasso transformed portraiture into a kind of visual autobiography. But he made the portrayal of people both more and less than it had been before. Are Two Heads Better than One? With many museum directors quitting because of burnout, adopting a system of dual leadership--in which one person takes on fund-raising while the other deals with art--offers hope. C.C. Wang Born in 1907 in Su-chou, China, C.C. Wang is among the few artists alive who was raised within old China's classical scholarly traditions. The son of an ancient literati family, Wang grew up to become one of the world's foremost collectors ... Vienna Dark and Light An effervescent Arabella and an unaccountably aseptic Lulu present opposite views of Vienna's days of fading glory--seen through the eyes of the modern-day fin-de-si¸cle. Windows to Star Birth Spectacular images obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope are providing unsurpassed views of the embryonic stages of stellar objects. New Tricks from the Greener Gas Carbon dioxide, in a paradoxical form that is partly like a liquid and partly like a gas, holds great promise for applications ranging from cleaning clothes to curing concrete. Rodents That Kiss and Bark The prairie dog, a sociable mammal that lives in its own towns, persists in the American West despite the threat of civilization. Science in the Face of Religion and Mysticism The proliferation of books on the extrarational implications of the scientific worldview reminds us that a major challenge of the 21st century will be to find a healthy balance between no-nonsense science and enlightened religion. Beloved Gutter of Stowey Sometime in mid-October 1796, shortly before his twenty-fourth birthday, Samuel Taylor Coleridge decided to move to the English West Country village of Nether Stowey, nestled at the northeastern edge of the Quantock hills in Somerset. It wa... When Looks Can Kill Eyes have always had the power to beguile. Yet, in the United States and other westernized countries, this ability to "fascinate" is trivialized--a clichˇ of romance novels and pop music. Small wonder our once-virulent tradition of the "bal... Western Gateway Every morning, 84-year-old Joel Overholser walks the three and a half blocks from the retirement home where he now resides to his office at the Museum of the Northern Great Plains in Fort Benton, Montana. Formerly the editor of the town's o... Mas, Mas, Mas You hear Washington, D.C.'s Caribbean Carnival long before you see it. The pavement seems to pulsate as a wall of sound assaults the ear. Hip-hop and calypso pump forth from amplifiers stacked on forty-foot flatbed trucks that creep along G... Professional responsibility Professional responsibility I take to be a composite of virtues. It is a moral requirement coextensive with the authority and power conferred by office. I can't think of a moral virtue that a responsible professional ought not to have, but ... REDEFINING MARRIAGE Twenty years ago, in an essay titled "Sex in the Year 2000," David Mace--a university professor and founding member of Sexuality Education and Information Council of the United States (SEICUS), an activist nongovernmental splinter group fro... King of the Mound Though atlanta braves' ace pitcher greg maddux is king of the hill, home is his castle. Same-sex marriage and the ends of desire Gay and lesbian activists, representing perhaps 3 percent of the population, OTHER