The New York Times Magazine

From a certain perspective, there is something thrilling about the recent face-off between Attorney General John Ashcroft and the librarians. The American Library Association and many of its members, indignant about a provision of the U.S.A. Patriot Act that could oblige them to cooperate with federal agents by turning over the records of what some library patrons have checked out, have managed to unleash the most rigorous re-examination of the entire Patriot Act since its passage in October 2001. It… more

The Extreme skate park in downtown Louisville, Ky., sits between a loop of interstate highway and the headquarters of a grain company whose sign reads "Producer Feeds -- Since 1869." The park looks a little like a homemade Hot Wheels track, something a resourceful toy-deprived child might make out of flour-and-water paste. It has every feature a skateboarder could want, though. The city of Louisville, which opened the park a little more than a year ago, is hoping to attract… more

Most people will never take an I.Q. test, and if they do, it probably won't have a big impact on them. Generally speaking, I.Q. tests do not carry much weight anymore. Not with vague charges of cultural bias still clinging to them. Not at a time when multiple intelligences -- that happy, inclusive vision in which nearly everybody is good at something -- are on the ascendancy. If you do take a Stanford-Binet or a Wechsler, and you score in… more

Why, exactly, was it front-page news (and Starbucks-line conversational fodder) that playing "first-person shooter" video games enhances visual skills? Maybe it had that tang of the counterintuitive that makes certain stories from academia attractive far beyond it: Hey, violent video games can be good for you! Maybe it was a consolation prize for parents whose kids can't get enough of games like "Grand Theft Auto 3," "Rogue Spear" and "Medal of Honor," where the object is to terminate with extreme… more

In a way, it is no surprise that more women than men oppose the war with Iraq. The gender gap on issues of war and military spending has been obvious at least since pollsters first thought to measure such a thing. On the eve of the gulf war in 1991, 67 percent of American men favored an attack on Iraq, for example, compared with 45 percent of women. On the eve of this war, two-thirds of American men supported it,… more

One of the central tenets of modern medicine is that the earlier your doctor can catch a disease, the better. This has proved a brilliant strategy for several conditions. Detecting high blood pressure, for example, and treating it can cut a patient's risk of stroke by a third and the chances of heart disease by 20 percent. Identifying patients with the first signs of diabetes and controlling their blood sugar can help significantly reduce the chances of cardiovascular disease, kidney… more

Whenever TV takes over a new place, you remember how few places there are where it is not. The back seats of taxicabs used to be a place where TV was not -- where you could, if you wished, let your mind drift or becalm itself. Supermarkets were another -- shopping alone, you could glide through their fish-tank fluorescence in your own little world. And the back seats of family vehicles were another. Anything could go on there -- sibling… more

If we are about to go to war, then ours is a curious sort of home front. It's not just that the public attitude toward war with Iraq is ambivalent, though that's part of it, certainly. There is a reason we think of "home front" as a World War II concept and not a Vietnam one. "Home front" suggests the appearance, at least, of unified, even monolithic opinion. Support for this war is soft and shifting -- it depends a… more

Most Americans would undoubtedly agree that the best way to avoid dying from cancer -- apart from not getting it in the first place -- is by catching tumors as early as possible. That has been the thinking behind more than half a century of cancer treatment, and it's the basis for such screening technologies as mammography, spiral CT scanning (used to detect lung cancer) and the P.S.A., or prostate specific antigen test, all of which are aimed at detecting… more

"It's 10 p.m. -- do you know where your children are?" was a line from a public-service ad of the 1970's that soon became a cliche and then a kind of joke. It reminded you, in spite of itself, that parents did not, and could not always, know where their children were or what they were doing, especially if those children were teenagers. And since that fact did not inspire the sort of dread it does now -- rather more… more