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Congratulations to The Nation’s new puzzlemeisters, elected by Nation puzzle-solvers to don the mantle of the late Frank W. Lewis, our cryptic-crossword constructor of six decades.

The Nation

The Shame of John Paul II: How the Sex Abuse Scandal Stained His Papacy

The pope failed to take decisive action in response to clear evidence of a criminal underground in the priesthood.

Jason Berry

Why Was New Orleans’s Charity Hospital Allowed to Die?

Seeking government funds for a massive $1.2 billion new complex, powerful forces blocked Charity’s reopening after Hurricane Katrina.

Roberta Brandes Gratz

Islam’s Nonviolent Tradition

History is replete with peaceful role models like the “Frontier Gandhi” of colonial India.

Michael Shank

Talking With W.S. Merwin

The Poet Laureate Consultant to the Library of Congress talks about spontaneous demonstrations, his hope for poetry, and why he doesn’t read criticism anymore.

Jordan Davis

The Age of Deleveraging

If Obama continues to refuse to intervene in the economy, Americans are in for a painful decade.

William Greider

Dark Days for Syria

The Syrian president is is facing unprecedented pressure rooted in grievances over government repression, corruption, a weak economy and lack of civil liberties. He cannot hunker down and wait for the storm to pass.

Mohamad Bazzi

Noted.

John Nichols on Paul Ryan, Barry Schwabsky on Ai Weiwei and George Zornick on a budget cut for the EPA

Various Contributors

Tony Kushner’s Intelligent Homosexuals

Without turning into sentimental left-wing pageantry, Kushner’s new play illuminates radicalism and makes art of sectarian dreams and failures.

Margaret Spillane

The Bitter Tea of Greg Mortenson

How did he dupe us all? Americans love to be inspired by simple solutions to complicated problems—especially when the solutions are cheap and the problems are far away.

Katha Pollitt

For Birthers, Obama’s Not Black Enough

As a black man, Obama’s confident knowledge of his lineage is precisely the thing that makes his American identity dubious.

Melissa Harris-Perry

Al-Assad

Calvin Trillin

Tony Kushner’s Intelligent Homosexuals

Without turning into sentimental left-wing pageantry, Kushner’s new play illuminates radicalism and makes art of sectarian dreams and failures.

Margaret Spillane

Islam’s Nonviolent Tradition

History is replete with peaceful role models like the “Frontier Gandhi” of colonial India.

Michael Shank

Talking With W.S. Merwin

The Poet Laureate Consultant to the Library of Congress talks about spontaneous demonstrations, his hope for poetry, and why he doesn’t read criticism anymore.

Jordan Davis

Same Old New Atheism: On Sam Harris

Scientists, Sam Harris writes, are the saints of circumspection. If that’s true, then with his writing on religion and morality Harris breaks the mold.

Jackson Lears

Shelf Life

Elizabeth Bishop’s Poems and Prose; James Gleick’s The Information.

John Palattella

Do They Dream? Spelunking With Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams; Joe Wright’s Hanna; Andreas Lust’s The Robber; Daniel and Diego Vega’s Octubre.

Stuart Klawans

Letters

Our Readers

Puzzle No. 1630

From the May 1, 1976, issue.

Frank W. Lewis