A country up for grabs
Myanmar’s military toppled the civilian government. Now the country’s diverse population is banding together in protest
The problem
• Spending on healthcare in the United States has grown from 7.2 percent of GDP in 1970 to 12.3 percent in 1990 and 16.2 percent in 2007...
Group thinking
Could consumer-run healthcare provide an alternative to government-run options?
Healthy debate
A major legislative overhaul of U.S.
Voices
Janie B. Cheaney
Tragically famous
Who's the most famous man in the world?" my son asked me some time back. The president of the United States, I thought. But no, it was someone my son had recently brushed against while working at ...
Mindy Belz
The uphill climb
Off Jeb Stuart Highway a rail bed runs through the Virginia highlands. Follow the highway east and you'll eventually end nearly at the lip of the old Civil War hero's grave. Follow the rail bed an...
Andrée Seu Peterson
High-cost failure
Driving up through the Adirondacks of North Country, New York, three years ago to the Clinton County Correctional Facility for a visit, I had no idea of the story that lay behind the town tucked i...
Marvin Olasky
An hour, sir, please?
At WORLD we criticize Barack Obama a lot but look for opportunities to compliment him. He is the president of all of us, and Romans 13 (plus other chapters of the Bible) adjure us: "The authoritie...
Joel Belz
Millennial moments
It took a little research-taking into account the week in 1993 when a record snowstorm forced us to cancel an entire issue and double up the next week. But a diligent count says that yes, this is ...
The Editors
Mailbag
More than numbers Humongous hurrahs for the exposition on the state of American Christianity ("Is Christianity in the U.S. doomed?" June 20)! Thank you for the hope you stirred in those of ...
Culture
Music
Age defiance
When Flannery O'Connor wrote that "conviction without experience makes for harshness," she was referring to the tendency of naïve if sincere believers to proselytize with something less than grace...
Books
Behold Paul
Michael F. Bird's Introducing Paul (IVP, 2008) does that splendidly. A Scottish lecturer in New Testament, Bird has a knack of vividly putting in current context the radical nature of some New Tes...
Notable CDs
Notable CDs
The psychedelic aural haze through which Animal Collective's singing fights to be heard not only renders many of their lyrics unintelligible but also makes them seem beside the point. They're not....
Notable Books
Notable books
The charming Rosie Flo soft-cover coloring books are filled with dresses and costumes according to a theme. In Rosie Flo's Holiday the theme is travel and the dresses come from all over the world:...
Movies & TV
Trick & treat
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is without question a good movie. With real chemistry between the characters, laugh-out-loud scenes of teen-wizard angst, and spectacular cinematography, it ...
Movies & TV
Up from rubble
People came from all over Afghanistan to compete in Kabul's competition show Afghan Star, but it looks like the apocalypse made it there first. In Havana Marking's striking documentary of the same...
Movies & TV
Sick and sicker
Though Brüno, guerrilla comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's follow-up to his phenomenally successful 2006 debut, Borat, topped the July 10-12 box office, it is also making news for one of the steepest sa...
Movies & TV
Summer roundup
Public Enemies (rated R for violence and language) tells the Depression-era story of John Dillinger. The film tries to make the bank robber a sort of anti-hero, but director Michael Mann can't esc...
Music
Relaxed but serious
Wilco, which like Son Volt had its origins in the alternative country-rock band Uncle Tupelo, has been releasing albums since 1995. It won't be challenging the longevity of Aerosmith (36 years) or...
Dispatches
Quotables
Quotables
"We can't pretend anymore that SSNs can be kept secret." Peter Swire, chief counselor for privacy during the Clinton administration, on a study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University ...
The Buzz
The Buzz
Going her way Senate Republicans, keenly aware they cannot stop confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, fought in televised hearings to air wider grievances with the Obama ad...
Quick Takes
Quick Takes
Makeshift weapon Without mace, pepper spray, or even a gun, a Chicagoland cabbie got resourceful when a passenger tried to rob him. Elgin, Ill., police say a knife-wielding perpetrator trie...