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Congress seems uninterested. During his confirmation hearings to be CIA director last March, most senators genuflected to Petraeus. Only a few dared ask whether as CIA director he might shade his Afghanistan reporting to hide his failures. When he assured them he wouldn't, they smiled gratefully. "Senators ... merely urged the war's commander to recite once more the reasons why we're fighting there," observed Slate. "None of them asked a single tough question."

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Congress, the mass media and public are overlooking evidence that the current U.S. "counter-terror strategy" of global assassination by drones and special operations commandoes, isn't working.  No small part of the problem is the lack of critical thinking about former Gen. David Petraeus, perhaps the most important architect of this strategy, and now the director of the CIA.

This week's assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen and Muslim cleric, alleged to have orchestrated attacks on Americans, will no doubt be touted as another victory for Petraeus.

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The media is particularly critical to democracy at a time like today, when one party and ideology controls the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Without a media critical of government, America democracy simply ceases to exist -- as occurred when the Bush administration took this nation to war in Iraq by distorting the information it had about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

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Schiffer, a wiry, intense, energetic 54-year-old, has three children and is the author of "First Love/Remembrances" and "How to Be a Family: The Operating Manual." He has worked as a midwife and a natural foods vendor. The idea for "How to Be the Best Lover" came to him in 2000, when he noticed his then 13-year-old son displaying clear signs of sexual awareness and development. On a camping trip, his son refused to go swimming and Schiffer writes, "At some point I realized that any movement might have given away the big hard-on" bulging from his son's lap. "Around this time," adds Schiffer, "porn sites started mysteriously appearing on my computer," he says.

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This follows the tempest stirred up by conservative groups earlier this year over a photo of Kerry and Jane Fonda at a Vietnam antiwar rally. Though they did attend the same event, the photo -- which showed them in close proximity -- was doctored. And in truth, Kerry and "Hanoi Jane," as the right wing demonized the antiwar movie star, had almost nothing to do with each other during the war.

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The contrasting TV sound bites by Kerry and George W. Bush on same-sex marriage illustrate, almost painfully, why the challenger will need to dramatically improve his connection with voters on emotional issues if he is to win in November. On Feb. 24, the day he came out for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, Bush was portrayed with the usual TV set lighting in a beautiful room at the White House, speaking calmly and with decorum about his support for a constitutional amendment stipulating that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. Kerry, in an AP videotape shown on AOL, was caught between campaign appearances; he was grim and uncomfortable, and spoke irritably:

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Medication and quick fixes are insufficient, Firestone says, because they help people avoid emotions and merely provide symptomatic relief. We can only reach our fullest potential for happiness, he argues, by learning to face and tolerate painful feelings, and doing so requires in-depth, time-consuming psychological work.

Salon spoke with Firestone recently at his office in Santa Barbara about his new book, "Creating a Life of Meaning and Compassion: The Wisdom of Psychotherapy," the prohibitive costs of long-term mental health care, the lifelong value of uncovering emotional trauma, and the reasons even healthy people can benefit from therapy.

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Secretary Rumsfeld explained that his resignation was prompted by a promise to his grandson, who had just watched the movie "Liar, Liar," that he would stop lying for an entire day. "My grandson said that if Jim Carrey, an actor in a movie, could tell the truth for a whole day that I should be able to do so as secretary of defense in real life. He had tears in his eyes, and looked at me so earnestly that I agreed to his request without thinking through the consequences.

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Siegel's new book, "Parenting From the Inside Out" (co-authored with Mary Hartzell), provides information about the latest research in brain development, but also gives clear, concrete examples of how parents can apply these findings to their own lives.

Salon caught up with Siegel at his Santa Monica, Calif., home, down the street from his office near UCLA, where he is an associate clinical professor at the Center for Culture, Brain, and Development.

Why do you call your book "Parenting From the Inside Out"?

It was a phrase that emerged from an interpersonal neurobiology approach, but it basically just means that if you start from the inside, your outward behavior will follow. As parents, understanding ourselves and how the brain works can help us to repair communication and reestablish our relationship with our children.

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The book revolves around a group of beings from another planet who are sent to save Earth, known for its "aggressiveness and irrationality." They must save our beleaguered planet because they have learned what we have not: that everything is interconnected. They must save us to save themselves. During the "briefing," the beings are told about their mission, and then memories of their own home are erased from their consciousness -- because remembering the sane place they came from while living on Earth would drive them mad.

The following is what might occur if the Briefer from Lessing's novel were compelled to explain our planet's current crisis to one of the beings who has volunteered to help save it. The discussion begins after the being has spent several hours watching the war on satellite television. The innocent, sad-eyed extraterrestrial creature is filled with queries about this troubled place called Earth, so we will call him the Questioner.

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"Secrets" describes, as no book has before, exactly how American leaders deceived the public about a war plan that they knew could not win in Vietnam -- even as they sent increasing numbers of soldiers to fight and die there. As the U.S. prepares for a war against Iraq whose outcome no one can foresee, many will ask if we're doomed to repeat this history of deception. Few people are more qualified to explore this question than Ellsberg, who risked prison in 1971 by leaking the Pentagon Papers, 7,000 pages of top-secret memoranda by Vietnam policymakers, to the New York Times.

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"Standing in front of a blown-up photo of a tiny, purple, one-seat European car, Senator Trent Lott, the Republican leader, asserted, 'I don't want Americans to have to drive this car.'" -- "Senate Rejects Plan to Stiffen Auto Mileage Standards," New York Times, March 13, 2002

"President Bush distanced himself today from a report by his administration concluding that humans were to blame for far-reaching effects of global warming on the environment. 'I read the report put out by the bureaucracy,' he said." -- "President Distances Himself From Global Warming Report," New York Times, June 4, 2002

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"The attack of bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited."
-- Article 25, The Hague Convention, 1907

Henry Kissinger was a lightning rod for Vietnam War opponents from 1969 to 1975, when he served as national security advisor and secretary of state to Presidents Nixon and Ford. A quarter century after Kissinger left public service, the United States is still picking at the scars of Vietnam and grappling with the global resentments sparked by his realpolitik policies. And yet, despite a whiff of ignominy that still clings to him, Kissinger has grown jowly and prosperous off his connections and consulting services, and is feted in the most exclusive salons of Manhattan and Washington. His guttural pronouncements can be heard whenever there's a global crisis that needs explanation.

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Al Gore, "Earth in the Balance"

Dear Vice President Gore,

Although you are still committed to winning this election, the time may come sooner than you wish to concede. If so, concession could be a blessing in disguise, if you follow it with a campaign to take the White House in 2004 with a popular mandate for the environmentalism you once espoused, but abandoned in this election.

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The passion swirling around the drug issue was the major surprise of the three-day Shadow Convention. The first day was devoted to reducing poverty, the third to campaign finance reform. But it was second day, devoted to calling for an end to the drug war, that created the most excitement.

Politicians like Jesse Jackson, Reps. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. and Maxine Waters, D-Calif., plus California Republican Rep. Tom Campbell spoke to a packed and emotional audience about the costs of the war in human terms.

But Maher may well be the nation's most visible proponent for ending the drug war. He makes his case primarily on libertarian grounds, arguing that government has no right to regulate what goes on "inside people's heads." But this libertarian also feels strongly that parents should actively restrict their children's ability to use drugs, even to the point of permitting mandatory drug-testing in the schools.

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Hart spoke to the Shadow Convention on Los Angeles this week about how the new New Democrats lost their bearings. He told Salon that, despite some reservations, he's supporting Al Gore and says, "The Democratic Party is not beyond redemption.

You were seen as the original New Democrat in 1984. What were you about, and how did it differ from the Clinton-Gore version of "New Democrats"?

Our goal was to move the party forward without compromising its principles. These guys have gained power, but I'm not sure they maintained the principles.

What I had in mind was to expand the party beyond a shrinking New Deal base of basically organized labor, some minorities and old traditional Democrats. It wasn't to abandon those people, by any means. But it was somehow to appeal to young people and independent voters. I believed that there was an emerging new economy. We sought to capture people who understood that the economy of America was shifting away from processing raw materials into manufactured goods, and towards information technologies, communications and so forth.

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Throughout Vidal's long career as a novelist and essayist, he has been a social critic and periodic activist. He made a mostly symbolic run for one of California's U.S. Senate seats in 1982, but since then has stayed out of electoral politics. On Monday he addressed the Shadow Convention, and Salon caught up with him to discuss this summer's two-party drama.

Though related to Vice President Al Gore on his mother's side, Vidal says he'll vote for Ralph Nader, and tells Salon why.

You're related to Al Gore?

Actually, he's related to me.

How?

Well, he's a cousin, a blood cousin. And I have actually never met him, although members of the family have tried to arrange meetings and I've talked to his people. But as I repeatedly say, although I am probably resigned to Nader, in the long run Gore is thicker than Nader.

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Wilson's belief that the hope of humanity lies in traditional religionists adopting more science and environmentalists appealing more to humankind's spiritual impulses comes at a crucial moment for the environmental movement. The hard truth is that the condition of the environment is far worse on Earth Day 2000 than it was on the first Earth Day in 1970.

But it is Wilson's willingness to venture into public policy and to apply the insights of science to a wide variety of human affairs that has brought him the most public attention. He has played a seminal role in alerting policymakers and the public to the crisis of declining biodiversity. Arguing that humanity is living through the greatest mass extinction of plant and animal species in 65 million years, he has done perhaps more than any other single person to spur action to preserve biodiversity around the planet.

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And yet.

Divorce is a growth industry, in which the weapons spouses use against each other -- restraining orders, allegations of abuse -- have become more varied and more extreme. Quick fixes fail to produce lifelong happiness, and the stats show not a dent for our earnest efforts at "active listening."

So why, exactly, do people continue to get married, to invest in the fantasy of happily ever after? Is it the pastel spell cast by the special wedding edition of "Martha Stewart Living"? An abiding belief in Tom and Nicole, nifty, go-go role models for the perfect marriage?

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