War of Words Tom Wolfe paints a florid and darkly conspiratorial picture of a decade-old discussion in linguistics, in which my colleagues and I are assigned the role of bad…

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Blame Game Joy Gordon perpetuates a number of untruths regarding the United States’ policy toward Cuba [“El Bloqueo,” Report, July]. Gordon writes that the U.S. embargo has affected Cubans’ access…

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Viral Content Considering requests for compassionate use of experimental drugs remains one of the hardest, most complex tasks that any health-care company faces, as Helen Ouyang writes [“Hashtag Prescription,” Essay,…

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Trumped Up Elisabeth Zerofsky attributes Marine Le Pen’s recent successes [“Front Runner,” Letter from France, May] to the current political vacuum in France — and rightly so. A populist demagogue such…

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Adverse Effects Andrew Cockburn’s analysis of the “election-industrial complex” [“Down the Tube,” Letter from Washington, April] argues, correctly, that the rise of super PACs has created a class of consultants…

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Overhead Costs Jay Kirk’s “Killer Bunny in the Sky” [Letter from Massachusetts, March] was amusing, but the impact that hunters have on wildlife isn’t. Hunters use high-powered weaponry, tree blinds,…

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Corn Bred Richard Manning’s critiques of Iowa politics [“The Trouble with Iowa,” Report, February] are all too familiar to those of us who live in the state, and many of…

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Editor’s Note This month we are introducing three changes to the regular format of Harper’s Magazine. In the Readings section, the usual found documents and fine art are accompanied by…

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Suspicious Activity It is a physician’s responsibility to give patients information about strategies that will help prevent adverse outcomes. As a doctor who focuses on high-risk pregnancies, I often ask…

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The Secret History Randall Kennedy’s claim that respectability politics has “improved the racial situation dramatically” [“Lifting as We Climb,” Essay, October], overstates the centrality of that phenomenon to black freedom…

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Harper’s v. Harper It is a tradition among Canadian pundits to travel abroad bearing tales — possibly because it is easier to convince a foreign audience that the current government, regardless…

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Poison Pen As a toxicologist and someone who cares deeply about the environment, I was disappointed to read Andrew Cockburn’s “Weed Whackers” [Letter from Washington, September]. At Monsanto, we know…

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Taking the City by Storm In her article about reform in New Orleans following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Rebecca Solnit could have mentioned that Barack Obama’s policies have only…

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The Caring Economy Trudy Lieberman [“Wrong Prescription?” Report, July] leads readers on a winding tour of what is wrong with the Affordable Care Act before acknowledging that the legislation has…

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Maybe We Can’t The query in the title of David Bromwich’s meditation on Barack Obama’s presidency [“What Went Wrong?,” Essay, June] cannot be satisfactorily explored without reckoning with the many…

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Solitary Confinement While reading Fenton Johnson’s essay [“Going It Alone,” Folio, April], I found myself thinking of Arthur Schopenhauer, a notorious misanthrope who, in solitude, developed one of the most…

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A Tale of Two Citis Despite several requests from Citi’s public-affairs department, Andrew Cockburn and the editors of Harper’s refused to discuss Mr. Cockburn’s article [“Saving the Whale, Again,” Letter…

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Port Authority Annie Murphy’s “The Day of the Sea” [Letter from La Paz, February] neglects to mention the Treaty of Peace and Friendship signed by Bolivia and Chile in 1904.…

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Thieves of Grass Christopher Ketcham’s “The Great Republican Land Heist” [Letter from Nevada, February] exposes a side of the West that few people ever see: the ecological devastation caused by…

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Eastbound and Down The world is far more complicated than Andrew Cockburn would lead us to believe. In “Game On” [Letter from Washington, January], Cockburn tells us about NATO’s irresponsible…

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Discipline and Publish Kenneth E. Hartman’s memoir about serving life without the possibility of parole [“Christmas in Pris­on,” December] is the most cogent and accurate depiction of life in the…

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It’s the Dynasty, Stupid Doug Henwood nailed the rightward political drift and military hawkishness that define Hillary Clinton [“Stop Hillary!” Essay, November], but I cannot resist adding something Clinton said…

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A Bird Too Big to Fail The PBS described by Eugenia Williamson (“PBS Self-Destructs,” Essay, October) bears little resemblance to the enterprise I am proud to serve as chief programming…

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Then It’s Settled As someone who has been to Gaza, Israel, and the West Bank eight times as a human rights observer and peace activist, I was struck by Khalil…

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Disputation Car Kevin Baker’s article on American rail travel [“21st Century Limited,” Folio, July] covered much of the same territory I did in my recent book, Train. But Baker came…

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The Curiosity Gene As Maud Newton vividly describes [“America’s Ancestry Craze,” Criticism, June], the search for one’s genealogical roots can become so consuming that it feels like a sickness. My…

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Coach Thyself I found it funny and appropriate that many life-coaching programs discussed by Genevieve Smith were founded by salesmen and accountants [“50,000 Life Coaches Can’t Be Wrong,” Report, May].…

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