Smithsonian Magazine: November 2003
Features
Tumult and Transition in "Little America"
Americans created Liberia as a homeland for freed slaves. But a quarter century of civil war over festering ethnic animosities has renewed questions about the U.S. role in the African nation
By Alan Huffman
Seeing Sylvia Plath
A new movie rekindles curiosity about the poet's life, love and suicide at age 30
By Robert F. Howe
Celestial Sightseeing
From Triton's active geysers to the Sun's seething flares, newly enhanced images from U.S. and foreign space probes depict the solar system as never before
By Michael Benson
Dream Weavers
In the Mexican village of Teotitlán, gifted artisans create a future from bright hand-loomed rugs
By Bruce Selcraig
Saving Atchafalaya
A more than 70-year effort to "control" America's largest river basin swamp is threatening the Cajun culture that thrives on it
By T. Edward Nickens
Meet Phillip Glass
From opera halls to neighborhood movie theaters, Philip Glass attracts an enormous audience many of whom have never listened to classical music
By Harry Sumrall
Departments
Indelible Images
Magic Moments
A new book and a Paris arts center pay homage to photography's elusive 95-year-old grand master.
By Sarah Boxer
Phenomena & Curiosities
Ouch!
A new finding that fish feel pain has set off a tortured debate about the ethics of angling.
By Michael Parfit
The Object at Hand
Antique Road Show
Before the Interstates passed the highway by, America got its kicks on Route 66
By Owen Edwards
Points of Interest
Tribal Talk
Immersion schools try to revive and preserve Native American languages
By Michelle Nijhuis
People File
Crash Junkie
Flight instructor Craig Fuller scales mountains, combs deserts and trudges through wilderness to track down old airplane wrecks
By Reed Karaim
Presence of Mind
The Pledge's Creator
What would the minister who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance make of the legal challenge to it?
By Jeffrey Owen Jones
From the Secretary
New Hall on the Mall
A dazzling exhibition space celebrates mammalian diversity through re-creations of habitats on four continents
By Lawrence M. Small
The Last Page
Hooked on Aging
Our writer tries to just say no to getting older.
By Richard Liebmann-Smith
