The other day I ventured out into the sun-drenched city of Beirut, where I saw cafes and restaurants packed with young people spending money. At a stainless steel table, buff men ate olives. Nearby, two young women in gold shirts talked over a stack of books. One title: Elite Management Training. Down the block, a gleaming red Ferrari rolled by and a transvestite teetered on heels. Osama bin Laden had just been killed. READ MORE

There is a prominent grid square on our cultural map that I've learned not to see or talk about. I don’t look at the New York skyline, and I avoid the news for the three days around each anniversary of 9/11. My brother, Aaron Jacobs, was killed in the World Trade Center that day, along with thousands of others. In my daily interactions since then, I have had a terrific wife, world travels and cute kids at the ready to absorb the friendly need of others to situate me in a history. But while I no longer feel as I did in the first year—that I must be marked in some visible way by the loss that was grinding me up inside—I still steer away from casual mentions of Aaron in daily life. I don't talk about him on Facebook, for example; my memories of him, my ongoing sense of his absence, don't belong in that stream of grinning kid photos and funny videos. READ MORE

It's hard to keep track of bin Laden's wives, so we're in need of a womens' magazine to get with them all and ask them about their taste in shoes. Let's see! READ MORE