Toluu

GOOD Magazine

FinSeptember 2

A mile or two off the coast of Cape Cod, just east of Wellfleet, Massachusetts, Ted Ligenza shoves a hand across the ignition switch of the Reina Marie, and his 31-foot boat sputters into silence and drifts to a stop. It is not yet dawn on a cold day in January. A five-foot swell lifts and lowers the boat in the semi-darkness while Ligenza stands at the wheel staring intently at his sonar. When he spots a flicker of color on the screen, he crams the rest of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into his mouth and ducks into the hold. The Reina Marie, pilotless, begins to drift westward, pushed by the waves and the wind.

Ligenza, 54, is a square-built man, broad everywhere aroundan impression only heightened by several layers of thick flannel underneath the billowing orange overalls he wears on his boat. He moves nimbly, pulling tackle out of boxes, returning to the helm every few moments to check the sonar. On his third or fourth pass by the wheel, a dark look flashes across his face. The flicker on the screen is gone. This isnt good, he says. There should be fish here.

On the radio navigation system, a pair of numbers is blinkingtwo coordinates that mark a spot on the ocean where cod, drawn by geography or temperature or instinct, have been known to converge. Ligenza, a commercial fisherman for 35 years, lives by such numbers. They create a kind of map of the sea, a catalogue of possible fishing sites. Beside the wheel of the Reina Marie, a tattered noteb

Prescription for UpheavalAugust 27

The apogee of protest rock might well have come on May 15, 1970. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young recorded Ohio in a Los Angeles record studioa song that Neil Young had penned in feverish reaction to the Kent State killings 11 days earlier. In searing terms, the song called a generation to account for the actions of its government: Tin soldiers and Nixon coming. / Were finally on our own. / This summer I hear the drumming, / Four dead in Ohio.

In these new tumultuous times, we have plenty to get worked up about (the Florida recount, Katrina, Abu Ghraib, to name a few), but you would be hard-pressed to find such overt social commentary addressed by todays of-the-moment rock bands, at least in any memorable way. Even Rolling Stone admitted not long ago that some of the new political rock is couched in ambiguitybut isnt a lack of ambiguity required for a clear message of protest?

Maybe weve just been looking for protest in all the wrong places. Maybe the interesting music revolt isnt happening on the FM dial anymore. Case in point: Ted Leo, lead singer and guitarist of Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, and a fixture of the alternative rock scene. His sound is a tightly woven texture of punk and pop, with hard-charging songs of an unambiguously political sort. I see my songs as vignettes or snapshots about the human condition at a moment of reflection, or crisis, or triumph, says Leo, 37.

“Youve got people creating amazing

Tricking People into Doing the Right ThingAugust 27

Anyone who has studied psychology knows just how puzzling human behavior can be. Busy people are trying to cope in a complex world, and this means they simply cannot afford to think deeply about every choice they have to make. The bottom line is that people are, shall we say, nudge-able. With subtle hints, you can convince them to do things they otherwise might not be able to do for themselves. And we think private and public institutions ought to offer carefully planned nudgesdesigning choices that are less heavy-handed and more effective than mandates and bans.

Here are a few possibilities:

Quit smoking without a patch. Committed Action to Reduce and End Smoking is a savings program offered by the Green Bank of Caraga in Mindanao, Philippines. A would-be nonsmoker opens an account with a minimum balance of one dollar. For six months, the client deposits the amount of money she would otherwise spend on cigarettes into the account. After six months, the client takes a urine test to confirm that she has not smoked recently. If she passes the test, she gets her money back. If she fails the test, the account is closed and the money is donated to a charity. MITs Poverty Action Lab found that opening up an account makes those who want to quit 53 percent more likely to achieve their goal. No other antismoking tactic, not even the nicotine patch, appears to be so successful.

Stop compulsive gambling. Over the past decade, several states, including Il

Anne Trubek on Why We Shouldn’t Still Be Learning Catcher in the RyeAugust 13

Why is The Catcher in the Rye still a rite of high school English? Sure, J.D. Salingers novel was edgy and controversial when teachers first put it on their syllabi. But that was 50 years ago. Today, Salingers novel lacks the currency or shock value it once had, and has lost some of its critical cachet. But it is still ubiquitously taught even though many newer novels of adolescence are available.

To this day, The Catcher in the Rye remains one of the most referred-to books on back-cover blurbs. Melissa Banks The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing is, as a coming of age story one of the best since Catcher in the Rye; Douglas Couplands Generation X is a modern-day Catcher in the Rye; David Sedariss Barrel Fever is a caustic mix of J. D. Salinger and John Waters. Indeed, there are many tales of adolescent angst out there, and they all, it seems, need a wink to Salinger to claim a place in this genre. But Salingers novel no longer deserves the top spot in contemporary coming-of-age literature, even if most would still agree that it firmly occupies the X spot in the X meets Y publishing pitch (Its Catcher in the Rye meets Blood Diamonds; Its Catcher in the Rye for gay teenagers).

High school teachers got on the Catcher bandwagon in the early 1960s, in an effort to update their hoary reading lists. When it was first assigned, Catchers purpose in the curriculum was to offer students a contemporary, cool alternative to, say, something lengthy and dense like D