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CONTRIBUTORS BUTTON ariel levy (“thanksgiving in mongolia,” p. 26) has been writing for the magazine since 2008. patrick radden keefe (“Buzzkill,” p. 40) is a staff writer and a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. george packer (comment, p. 21) has published eight books, including “The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America,” a 2013 National Book Award finalist. dan winters (portfolio, p. 62) is an award-winning photographer whose new book, “Road to Seeing,” will be published in December. JOHN COLAPINTO (“hot grease,” p. 32), a staff writer, is the author of “As Nature Made Him” and “About the Author.” His next novel, “An Upright Man,” is due out in 2014. TIMER LIGHT peter hessler (“The buried,” p. 52) lives in Cairo. “Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West” is his most recent book. moises saman (photograph, p. 52), an associate member of Magnum Photos, is working on a book about post-revolution Egypt. His work is included in exhibits at the Brooklyn Museum and at the Harry Ransom Center, in Austin, Texas. jeffrey eugenides (fiction, p. 68), the author of, most recently, “The Marriage Plot,” a novel, is working on a collection of stories. lawrence joseph (poem, p. 70) has published five books of poetry, the most STOPPER recent of which is “Into It.” adrian tomine (cover) is a cartoonist and an illustrator. His latest book, “New York Drawings,” comprises ten years of his work for The New Yorker. thE NEW YORKER digitAL Now you can preserve red wine at the WWW.NEWYORKER.COM DIGITal EditiON touch of a button—and no need for a vacuum pump. Simply insert a Wine Preserver Stopper into the top of the FICTION CARTOONS AUDIO PORTFOLIO Podcast: Louise A daily drawing by Jeffrey Eugenides Photographs of bottle you want to preserve. Then Erdrich reads a Paul Noth, plus the reads his new story. New York City, by place the Rabbit Electric Wine story by Joyce Caption Contest. Dan Winters. 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THE MAIL A JUST PROFESSION continue into perpetuity unless “some- thing is done.” James B. Stewart, in his analysis of the Eric Laursen demise of the law firm Dewey & Le- 1Buckland, Mass. Boeuf, attributes the firm’s downfall, in part, to a culture that lacked coöper- IN THE CLASSIFIEDS ation and mutual respect (“The Col- lapse,” October 14th). I got to know As a former BBC journalist and the au- some of the principals of the LeBoeuf thor of a book on the assassination of firm in the nineteen-seventies, and John F. Kennedy, I found Adam Gopnik’s the change in attitude toward the essay on the conspiracy theories sur- practice of law since then, from a pro- rounding the event riveting (A Critic at fession emphasizing integrity and Large, November 4th). A respectable seeking societal justice to a business poll earlier this year indicated that nearly seeking profits, is the key to under- sixty per cent of Americans believe that standing its debasement. The publi- there was a conspiracy. The sillier stories cation of legal-income statistics led aside, it’s easy to see why many Ameri- partners to consider themselves free cans believe that. The first investigation, agents rather than bound by profes- the Warren Commission, fingered a lone sional ideals. An emphasis on materi- assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. The sec- alism flooded law schools with stu- ond, by the House Select Committee on dents whose objective was financial Assassinations, ended with a probable gain. If this type of environment con- conspiracy finding. As recently as 2006, tinues, we may see additional firm a study published in the Journal of Foren- failures. sic Sciences found that calculations “con- Sigmund R. Balka siderably weaken support for the single- 1Forest Hills, N.Y. bullet theory.” The authors are scientists, not “buffs,” as Gopnik calls the doubters. POPULATION CONTROL In 2007, Robert Blakey, the former chief counsel for the House Select Committee Elizabeth Kolbert, in her review of on Assassinations, and I interviewed a Alan Weisman’s “Countdown: Our witness who provided potentially credi- Last, Best Hope for a Future on ble identification of a man other than Earth?” mischaracterizes two ele- Oswald who admitted before his death ments that contribute to overpopula- that he participated in the assassination. tion and strain on social-welfare sys- Finally, thousands of relevant records, in- tems (“Head Count,” October 21st). cluding 1,171 C.I.A. documents classified First, she reiterates the idea that Social on the ground of national security, re- Security “operates on much the same main withheld. The law requires that all principles as a Ponzi scheme.” There Kennedy-assassination-related records are arguments that Social Security’s in- be released by 2017, unless the President vestment strategy is quite clear: that rules otherwise. If Oswald was a leftist the U.S. economy will generate suffi- loner who killed the President, and if that cient wage growth to keep payroll was all there was to it, why continue to taxes at the level needed to support the conceal documents? program. Hence, it is just as likely that Anthony Summers wage stagnation, not declining birth Cappoquin, County Waterford rates or longer life expectancy, has Ireland been the principal problem facing So- t cial Security. Second, Kolbert fails to Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail note that, historically, birth-rate trends to [email protected]. Letters and Web change dramatically and not always comments may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium. We regret predictably. Kolbert perpetuates the that owing to the volume of correspondence one-sided view that current trends will we cannot reply to every letter or return letters.