Editor's Letter
Editor's Letter: Our shrinking brains 
As if life weren’t complicated enough, now we have to get our heads around this: The human brain has been shrinking.
Editor's Letter: Bailouts and a level playing field
It’s actually quite fitting that the Yankees are, at this miserable juncture in history, once again baseball’s champions.
Editor's Letter: Basketball then and now
I should probably mention here—nonchalantly—that I once played ball on the actual White House court. The rim-and-backboard was a rusted, net-less shambles, slumped atop a listing aluminum pole.
Editor's Letter: The democratic impulse
Marathon season is upon us, and once again elite runners are at odds with the growing number of average running Joes who enter the contest and straggle toward the finish line.
Editor's Letter: A margin for error
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's admission that it keeps two train schedules for its commuter lines—one for the public and one for train crews—is the most cheering news I’ve heard in ages.
Editor's Letter: Collision insurance: A knife vs. a kiss
There are 8 million people in New York City, and sometimes they bump in into each other, as Sirmone McCaulla and Christopher Gutierrez did on the sidewalk.
Editor's Letter: The Outrage Game
It seems that a day doesn’t go by without some offended party demanding an apology for some arguably outrageous slur.
Editor's Letter: Barack Obama, war president?
Americans would very much like to be done with the “war on terror,” but “turning the page” is a lot easier in political rhetoric than it is in reality.
Editor's Letter: Bob Dole sends his regrets
Political gamesmanship and health reform
Editor's Letter: A modest proposal
For ending the nation's bitter bickering over health care, abortion, affirmative action, religion in the public square, taxation, torture, and the proper role of government
Editor's Letter: The health-care debate
Knowledge, politics, and health-care legislation
Editor's Letter: Rewarding bad behavior
The definitive account of the Danish cartoons; Clinton and Kim Jong Il; Killing grandma with death panels
Editor's Letter: Reform, hostility, and public debate
The Constitutional Convention in 1787 was marked by some vicious squabbling. More than a few of the men who met to revise the Articles of Confederation thought the presidency should be a lifetime appointment, preferably hereditary.
Editor's Letter: Beer as a socal signifier
Tell me what kind of beer a man drinks, and I’ll tell you who he is.
Editor's Letter: The rise of the robot
Japanese researchers have unveiled robots that can hit and pitch a baseball with remarkable acumen. And in Menlo Park, a group of experts in artificial intelligence met recently to discuss the need for setting some guidelines.
Editor's Letter: The great American vacation
The great American vacation is slipping away. It is increasingly reduced to a couple of days tacked on to a long weekend.
Editor's Letter: Cutting greenhouse gas emissions
In spite of their pledges and promises, the world’s industrialized nations are unlikely to take serious action to cut carbon emissions.
Editor's Letter: California and New York at the edge
In California and New York, the public interest has been sacrificed to petty, entrenched partisanship.
Editor's Letter: Neda Agha-Soltan
Helen of Troy had a face that launched a thousand ships. In death, Neda’s face, too, has acquired force, though the extent, and consequences, of its political power are not yet clear.
Editor's Letter: Rationing health care
Health-care rationing sounds cold and heartless, except when you consider that the only real alternative to rationing is unlimited medical treatment—including a refusal to “lose” the battle with death even when death is near.
