The New Yorker - July 7 and 14, 2008

COMMENT
Obama’s Iraq Problem
Last year’s rhetoric meets this year’s facts.
by George Packer

THE TALK OF THE TOWN

Thousand Words Dept.: By a Nose
A Rockland County mom draws Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
by Ben McGrath

Back Pages Dept.: The Chill
The wild man behind “Wild Thing.”
by Nick Paumgarten

Annals of Naught: Nothing Doing
A Yankees team to remember.
by Roger Angell

THE FINANCIAL PAGE
Oily Speculations
The blame game and the price of oil.
by James Surowiecki

ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS
Romeo, Romeo
The ballet gets a happy ending.
by Joan Acocella

SHOUTS & MURMURS
My Airline
by David Owen

A CRITIC AT LARGE
The Back of the World
The genius of G. K. Chesterton.
by Adam Gopnik

ANNALS OF NATIONAL SECURITY
Preparing the Battlefield
The Administration’s secret Iran campaign.
by Seymour M. Hersh

A REPORTER AT LARGE
The Island in the Wind
A small ecological triumph.
by Elizabeth Kolbert

Slide Show: Photographs of the Danish island of Samsø.

FICTION
Thirteen Hundred Rats
by T. Coraghessan Boyle

POEMS

“After Love”
by Jack Gilbert

“Songs of a Season”
by Maureen N. McLane

A CRITIC ABROAD

China’s burgeoning music scene.
by Alex Ross

BOOKS

Stanley Plumly’s “Posthumous Keats.”
by Adam Kirsch

Briefly Noted: “The Garden of Last Days”; “Breath”; “Kafka Comes to America”; “Collections of Nothing”

THE THEATRE
“Palace of the End,” “Arias with a Twist,” “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind.”
by Hilton Als

THE CURRENT CINEMA

“Hancock,” “Tell No One.”
by David Denby

Sonic Youth and the Feelies go outdoors.
by Sasha Frere-Jones

Alan Cumming plays a young god.
by Hilton Als

The holy wonder of “Vertigo.”
by Richard Brody

TABLES FOR TWO
Ago
by Lauren Collins