The May Cover (image) Will America Grow Up Before It Grows Old? We all know that the aging of the Baby Boom generation will have a profound impact on Social Security and Medicare. Not fully recognized, the author argues, is just how devastating the impact will be. Indeed, he writes, the present entitlement regime simply cannot be sustained. We are heading for a major crisis for which our society is unprepared, and only drastic changes made now can enable us to avert the crisis humanely. by Peter G. Peterson The Nitrous Oxide Philosopher William James was an ardent believer in the value of religious experience--of which he himself remained for the most part emotionally incapable. The exceptional moments came when he experimented with drugs. These episodes open a window onto James's thinking--and onto our own world. by Dmitri Tymoczko

Reports Notes & Comment: Backlogs of History On a national scale as in our personal lives, a vexing question remains unresolved: How much stuff should we save? by Cullen Murphy Foreign Affairs: Blowback In a perverse twist, the "freedom fighters" trained by the United States in Afghanistan in the 1980s have turned out to be the fount of international terrorism in the 1990s. by Mary Anne Weaver Personal File: Someplace Like Home Inside a house made famous by Edward Hopper. by Paul Bochner Politics: The Protean President Bill Clinton was elected as a Democrat. Will he be re-elected as a Republican? by Thomas Byrne Edsall Fiction & Poetry I Don't Talk Service No More A short story by Charles Portis Vasectomy A poem by Thom Ward More Marriages A poetry anthology by James Reiss, Erin Belieu, Donald Hall, Stanley Plumly, and Debra Pennington Browse and search The Atlantic's online archive. The seahorse symbol indicates that an article is supplemented with additional Atlantic material, such as related articles, audio, or special online sidebars.		Arts & Leisure Travel: In Tune With Ireland Wexford's opera festival. by Geoffrey Wheatcroft Music: Finished Symphonies Muzio Clementi was once more famous than Mozart. His under-known music deserves attention. by William H. Youngren Books The Idea of Disorder at Key West The fiction of south Florida, from Hemingway on. by Phyllis Rose What Election '96 Should Be About Fat and Mean: The Corporate Squeeze of Working Americans and the Myth of Managerial "Downsizing," by David M. Gordon by Jack Beatty Brief Reviews by Phoebe-Lou Adams Other Departments 77 North Washington Street Contributors Letters (Send a letter to the editor.) The May Almanac Word Court by Barbara Wallraff Note: some material from the print magazine is not available online, at the request of the authors.
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