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TIME.com This Week NOV. 12-NOV. 18

3 minute read
TIME

TALK TO US ONLINE

Each week TIME writers and editors chat about the news and answer your questions on AOL. This week talk about the spirit of the country, the Middle East, and what happened to the Yankees. Go to AOL, Keyword: Live.

–NANCY GIBBS, the author of more than 100 cover stories, including this week’s, says she tried to imagine what the conversations would be like around American Thanksgiving tables this year and how people say the world has changed. Chat with her on Monday at 8 p.m. E.T.

–TONY KARON is a senior editor and columnist here at TIME.com and supervises all our online international coverage. He’s been churning out insightful stories since 9/11, but he was already writing extensively about Osama bin Laden long before that. Chat with him on Tuesday at 8 p.m. E.T.

–ANITA HAMILTON usually writes about the latest websites and tech gadgets, but for the past few months she’s been looking into the year’s best inventions, from state-of-the-art artificial hearts to a potato-mashing machine. See the results of her research in this week’s magazine and chat with her on Wednesday at 8 pm. E.T.

–BILL SAPORITO is a TIME editor at large, which means that he has multifarious areas of expertise, including business, sports (he’s been writing about the Yankees) and, more recently, nuclear terrorism. Talk to Bill about baseball’s problems or other sports on Thursday at 8 p.m. E.T.

PHOTO ESSAY

–Caught Between East and West John Stanmeyer is a recovering fashion photographer who a decade ago turned his lens to documenting the world’s ills. His multimedia photo essay on Pakistan, “A Country Divided,” which is on our TIME Asia site at time.com/divided reveals a nation nervously poised between Islam and the West and reeling from the overflow of the war in neighboring Afghanistan.

DIARY

DOWN AND OUT AT THE FRONT “This is the sort of place where epidemics are hatched,” writes Moscow bureau chief Paul Quinn-Judge in his diary of the past six weeks in Northern Alliance-held Afghanistan, and he’s not kidding. The style is Hunter Thompson-with-dysentery as Quinn-Judge comments on the poor sanitation, the bribe-hungry border guards and the recalcitrant military commanders. Quinn-Judge kept a daily dairy of his experiences reporting from the front lines of the war, a place where patience was of the essence because waiting is the main job of war correspondents in Afghanistan. Read excerpts of his diary at time.com/quinn-judge or download the complete diary as a PDF file.

POSTCARD

FUN IN TEHRAN Azadeh Moaveni is TIME’s indefatigable Tehran correspondent, covering a society in the throes of profound and painful changes. As a young American-educated Iranian, she has a unique perspective on the efforts of Iran’s restless youth to cast off the shackles of conservative authority. Read her lively account of the quest for fun in Tehran at time.com/tehran

WEB LORE

PATRIOT GAMES Would you trade a Colin Powell for a Donald Rumsfeld, or a Dick Cheney for CIA director George Tenet? We’re not talking about a Cabinet reshuffle here, but Topps’ new 90-card Enduring Freedom set. The company describes the cards as a kid-friendly guide to the 9/11 attacks and the new war on terrorism. There are also plenty of cards showing F-16s, aircraft carriers and paratroopers. To get a card checklist and read about Topps’ involovement in previous conflicts, go to topps.com/enduringfreedom.html

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