The entire strategy of the corporate front group is to push its “model” legislation in as many states as possible at once, feeding its member legislators—mostly Republicans, but some Democrats as well--ready-made bills that were written (for a fee) with the input of the country's biggest corporations.

After the controversy around Florida's “Stand Your Ground” law and the shooting of Trayvon Martin, ALEC said it was backing off such bills to focus on “business-friendly” legislation, but its business-friendly work does plenty of damage too. ALEC pushes deregulation, union-busting, privatization, and tax loopholes for big businesses, allowing corporations like AT&T, Koch Industries, and Verizon to essentially write the laws that regulate them.

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Behram Noor, a Pakistani journalist, went to the hospital and took a picture of Fatima shortly before her death, then went back to the scene of the explosions looking for evidence that might show who was responsible for the attack. In the rubble, he found a mechanism from a U.S.-made Hellfire missile, and gave it to Reprieve, a British organization opposed to capital punishment, which shared photographs of the material with Salon. Stafford Smith alluded to the missile fragments in an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times last fall. They have also been displayed in England.

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"I repudiate the effort by that PAC to promote an ad strategy of the nature they've described," he said.

Not long after that, Donald Trump used an interview to restate his long, long ago-debunked claim that Obama was born in Kenya.

“That’s what he told the literary agent,” he told The Daily Beast. “That’s the way life works… He didn’t know he was running for president, so he told the truth. The literary agent wrote down what he said… He said he was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia… Now they’re saying it was a mistake. Just like his Kenyan grandmother said he was born in Kenya, and she pointed down the road to the hospital, and after people started screaming at her she said, ‘Oh, I mean Hawaii.’ Give me a break.”

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We want to capture the spirit of risk and exploration that permeated Salon back in those “wild west” days of the mid-1990s. Salon Studio will feature original and curated videos ranging from political satire to musical performances to explorations of sexuality. Some of the productions will be highly polished, some of them will be raw and gritty—but we don’t want any of it to be predictable.

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My mother is on a ventilator. She is 94 years old. The decision to put her on it was not mine, but my older sister's. I find it grotesque.

My sister seems to believe that some cure will be found for what is essentially old age. We just need to find the right doctor. She thinks we must leave no medical procedure untried.

It would be unsafe for my mother to return home without around-the-clock help, and even with it, I cannot envision much quality of life for her.

My sister believes she is doing what my mother wants, but my mother is unconscious.

The doctors keep telling us that my mother's organs are failing; they need machines to keep her "alive."

I am worried that my sister is freaking out, is terrified of losing our mother and is not dealing with the situation rationally.

How can I keep her from losing her sanity?

Thank you for considering my question.

Trying to Stay Calm

Dear Trying to Stay Calm,

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The concept that humanity has a violent and evil core is widespread; it is one of the oldest and most resilient myths about human nature. From historical and philosophical beliefs to current popular and scientific beliefs, the view that a savage and aggressive beast is a central part of our nature permeates public and academic perceptions. Given this view, it is a common assumption that if you strip away the veneer of civilization, the restraints of society and culture, you reveal the primeval state of humanity characterized by aggression and violence.

While there are many reasons for the resilience of this myth, the most powerful one is the simple fact that humans today can and do engage in extreme levels of violence and aggression. If you read the newspaper, visit online news sites or turn on the television, you are guaranteed to come across some evidence of humans behaving violently toward other humans. While many animals aggressively hunt, capture, and eat prey, it is relatively rare for most animals to engage in intense, lethal aggression with members of their own species.

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That night Springsteen rambled, more than usual. Before the postindustrial triptych of “Independence Day,” “Factory” and “Jackson Cage” midway through the first set, he began a long monologue, although not about his father, whom he frequently talked about before “Factory.” Instead, Springsteen used this opportunity to talk about his love of pop music, about what it had meant to him growing up. Spontaneously, falteringly, he offered the most coherent argument he would ever make for the essential unity of the two distinct compositional strains that had flowed into "The River," its idealistic and pessimistic “hearts”:

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My 5-year-old son, Alekos, sits on the balcony of our apartment. Visible from there are pine trees and details of other people’s lives, audible are the sounds of morning, the birds above and voices below. Evenings, Alekos lies on the divan on the balcony in his pajamas, watching the moon. He is obsessed with it, and his father made him a playlist of all the Greek songs that mention it. When he was smaller he’d stare at the moon until he fell asleep.

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But then, after everything, she couldn’t help but start up again. At first it was just a single cigarette per day, or two. Then it became a few, and within months she was back to full-throttle. Over the past couple of years, she’s tried to quit a few times, but not seriously. She anticipates — she accepts — failure. Because she doesn’t want to quit, not really. She wants instead to try, and fail.

Isabel picks up the manuscript with both hands, flips it over, and uses her thumbs to align the pages. She takes a deep breath, lets out a long sigh.

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It's a dreaded sentence. When it's spoken by an anxious child from the back seat, it's enough to make stressed-out parents wish they'd never taken a family vacation in the first place. And even if it's delivered as a sing-songy punch line, from an impatient partner or spouse on a long road trip, it's an irritating eye-roller of a joke.

So this Memorial Day weekend -- the unofficial start of the summer vacation season, and therefore the summer fiction season -- we asked two novelists to reclaim the sentence in a new and adult context. For our latest fiction project, there was only one simple rule: Each story had to include the line "Are we there yet?" in a fresh and surprising way.

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The Republican incumbent has led by a margin in the mid-single digits for the past few weeks, though Democrats insist their internal polls are closer. Tom Barrett, the Democratic candidate, turned in an aggressive and generally well-received performance in a Friday debate, the first of two head-to-head showdowns, and is now playing up the ongoing federal inquiry into Walker’s fundraising practices from his days as a county executive. The possibility of a late charge by Barrett can’t be dismissed, but he enters the campaign’s final days as a decided underdog.

Not surprisingly, this has Republicans pointing to the state as a ripe November target for Mitt Romney. There’s plenty of logic to this. The recall effort has been the story in Wisconsin for a year now, and the partisan and ideological lines are clearly drawn. So, given this polarized, high-interest climate, if the numbers end up breaking the GOP’s way on June 5, how could it not be some kind of harbinger for the fall?

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As Lane said about Don watching Megan singing “Zou Bisou Bisou” in the season premiere, I think I saw SCDP’s soul leave its body last night, not just once but twice: when all the partners except Don agreed that Joan should prostitute herself for the firm, and when Peggy left. Which seems like a smart move, given how women who work at the agency are now being sold off to the highest and most disgusting bidder.

Being underappreciated has been Peggy’s theme song for years, but not having experienced work – much less success -- anywhere else, she’s been afraid to leave. Now, as former boss and mentor Freddy Rumsen puts it, she’s reached the point where she has to decide whether she’s ambitious or just complaining. “If this was about work and not about feeling, you’d make a move,” he argues, bringing up the central conflict of the episode, in which people make moves based on work – and the success and money it brings -- rather than on good old human feeling, either for themselves or for each other.

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