Editor’s Note

Deborah Chasman and Joshua Cohen

State of the Nation

What Happened in Massachusetts

Stephen Ansolabehere
and Charles Stewart III

Essays

Right by Others

On the theory and practice of justice
Vivian Gornick

Africa Calling

Can mobile phones make a miracle?
Jenny C. Aker and Isaac M. Mbiti

Remembering Haiti

Lessons from the field
Sidney W. Mintz

Dead Dogs

Breed bans, euthanasia, and preemptive justice
Colin Dayan
The Case of Carter:
a Web-only exchange.

Misunderstanding Darwin

Natural selection’s secular critics get it wrong
Ned Block and Philip Kitcher
Debating What Darwin Got Wrong:
a Web-only exchange.

Past Forward

New books on post-communist Eastern Europe
Paul Hockenos

Obama’s Chicago Tactics

It took an efficient political machine to win the presidency, but top-down governing isn’t working in Washington
Michael Gecan—Web only

The Obligation to Prosecute

Why we must prosecute the Bush administration officials who sanctioned torture
Elaine Scarry—Web only

Are You Being Served?

How programs like Google Docs rob users of their freedom
Richard M. Stallman—Web only

New Fiction Forum

Seven Little Stories about Sex

Eric Freeze

On Film

Sins of the Father

Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon
Alan A. Stone

On Poetry

Body of Work

Thom Gunn’s Selected Poems and Joshua Weiner’s At the Barriers
Tess Taylor

Know-How

H. L. Hix’s Incident Light
Troy Jollimore

Restless

Carl Phillips’s Speak Low
Katie Peterson

Microreviews

Lytton Smith
James Shea
Sophie Robinson
Jason Shinder
Andrew Zawacki

Poems

Poet’s Sampler: Rasheeda Plenty

Introduced by A. Van Jordan

Letter to a City Under Siege

Carolyn Forché

Hills, South Truro, 1930

Ernest Farrés (translated by Lawrence Venuti)

After Ecstasy and
Scenes from the Arguments

Stephen Dunn

Scenes of Negotiation

Adrienne Rich

four poems from Thread

Michael Palmer

Banking

Cara Benson

Dawning

Jorie Graham

Life During Wartime and Myth

Major Jackson

Wear a Red Hat, I Will Too

Christopher DeWeese

Dying in the Development

D. A. Powell

Ax the al— to

Stacy Kidd

This Time in Wartime

CJ Evans