The Week's Best Reads

This Is Penn State
L. Jon Wetheim & David Epstein, Sports Illustrated
Had Sandusky not been so brazen, had he simply restricted himself to the football facilities, there is little to suggest he would have been caught. For Sandusky—if not for the boys—Penn State football was a safe haven.

The Two-Year Window
Jonathan Cohn, The New Republic
The new science of babies and brains—and how it could revolutionize the fight against poverty.

The Ally From Hell
Jeffrey Goldberg & Marc Ambinder, The Atlantic
Pakistan lies to us, sponsors militants who attack American troops, and may have knowingly harbored Osama bin Laden. With a friend like this, who needs enemies?

Teaching Good Sex
Laurie Abraham, New York Times Magazine
Introducing pleasure to the peril of sex education.

It Does Take a Village
Melvin Konner, New York Review of Books
Can the strong human tendency to help mothers care for children produce the species-wide level of cooperation that we now need to survive?

The Resentment Machine
Freddie deBoer, The New Inquiry
How upward-oriented young strivers use the Internet to express their class anxiety.