Cover Story: Water for Profit
By Jon R. Luoma
Corporate-managed waterworks were supposed to save money and improve services. But as Atlanta and other cities around the world are finding out, water and profits don’t always mix.

South Africa’s Driest Season
By Jon Jeter
South Africa’s attempt to privatize has led to clean drinking water for those who can afford it, and cholera for those who cannot.

Jailhouse Talk
By Laura Fraser
Part whistle-blower, part social worker, radio host Ray Hill is a gay ex-con whose Prison Show keeps the incarcerated (and their families) together.

The Land of the Setting Sun
Photo Essay By Peter Granser
Text by Bill Donahue
Who ain’t gonna play Sun City? Not these residents of the nation’s first seniors-only community.

Lie Detector Roulette
By Brendan I. Koerner
Polygraphs are barred from courts and private workplaces. So why are the careers of cops and federal employees being permanently derailed by dubious science?

The New Range Wars
By Verlyn Klinkenborg
Coalbed methane fever has hit. Can Wyoming’s Powder River Basin survive?

Editor’s Note
Masthead
Contributors
Backtalk

OUTFRONT
Where there’s smoke, there’s pork; NIH loyalty oaths; leave no child unrecruited; Ollie’s high seas follies

EXHIBIT
Balls-out doggies; higher power bars; in the pink

POWER PLAYS
A Confederacy of Cronies
By George Packer
In the Bush boardroom, democracy is not a bottom-line value.

THE SLANT
Operation Constant Vigilance
By Ian Frazier
Unpatriotic reader, beware.

THE COMMONS
Home Field Advantage
By Sue Halpern
In Green Bay, the cheeseheads own the team.

NOTEBOOK
Hard-Core Philanthropist
By Jay Cheshes
The NGO days and boogie nights of a porn philanthropist.

EXPOSURE
Tough Love
Pit bulls and junkies. Don’t worry, it’s a good thing.

MEDIA JONES
Hunger in the Heartland; Aimee Mann on the economics of being oh-so-indie; any book club that would have you…; plus more book, music, and film reviews

P.S.
Ask your doctor about…
Cartoon by David Fullarton