The AIDS Exception: Privacy vs. Public Health We don't routinely test people for AIDS or HIV when they're admitted to hospitals -- or when they're pregnant. We don't routinely insist that the sex or needle-sharing partners of infected people be sought out and notified. If there were once persuasive reasons for not doing these things, the author writes, there aren't any longer. by Chandler Burr
Web-Only: Privacy vs. Public Health? Join Chandler Burr and a panel of experts and activists for an interactive roundtable discussion. Do We Consume Too Much? From a strictly materialistic point of view, the author argues, the common idea that increasing consumption will lead to depletion and scarcity is mistaken: "It is simply wrong to believe that nature sets physical limits to economic growth." But there is more to it than that. by Mark Sagoff

 

Reports Notes & Comment: The Positive Negative A connoisseur savors his favorite American speech anomaly. by Ian Frazier Philosophy: The Wittgenstein Controversy The 30,000 pages of manuscript that Ludwig Wittgenstein left behind have prompted more feuding than philosophizing. by Evelyn Toynton Society: Slow Death in the Great Plains No longer just leaving America's heartland, people aren't even being born there. by Harlow A. Hyde Americana: Late Edition The author remembers a printing press, and one story it never told -- its own. by John Fleischman Fiction & Poetry The Fragging A short story by Larry Heinemann An Explanation A poem by Brendan Galvin Tagging the Stealer A poem by Greg Delanty Unanswered Prayers A poetry anthology by Cathy Smith Bowers, Reginald Gibbons, Brooks Haxton, Patricia Hooper, Mark Jarman, and David J. Rothman Browse previous issues of The Atlantic Monthly.		Arts & Leisure Travel: Transylvania Today This corner of the Balkans offers an entry point into a "twilight zone of European history" where even modernity is somewhat medieval. by Jeffrey Tayler Music: The Man From Heaven Burt Bacharach has improbably become a figure of cult adulation among the young. by Francis Davis Books The Life of Job in Exurbia American Pastoral, by Philip Roth by Ralph Lombreglia How Powerful Is Advertising? Breaking Up America: Advertisers and the New Media World, by Joseph Turow by Randall Rothenberg Brief Reviews by Phoebe-Lou Adams Other Departments 77 North Washington Street Contributors Letters (Send a letter to the editor.) The June Almanac The Puzzler by Emily Cox & Henry Rathvon Word Improvisation by J. E. Lighter The seahorse symbol indicates that an article is supplemented with additional Atlantic material, such as related articles, audio, or special online sidebars.
All material copyright © 1997 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved.