“My mother had a bachelor cousin a good deal younger than her, who used to visit us on the farm every summer.”

Why the Bush Administration is worried about leaving Iraq.

Plus: Hendrik Hertzberg comments on the battle in Congress over the war.

David Robertson, the new music director of the St. Louis Symphony.

Enter, vote, and check results of The New Yorker’s Cartoon Caption Contest.

This week in the magazine, Margaret Talbot writes about Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, the first case to test whether it is constitutional for public-school classes to present the argument of intelligent design. Here, with Daniel Cappello, Talbot discusses the case and the issue.

PLUS: From 1925, a report on the Scopes monkey trial, by Marquis James.

Juliet Barker’s new biography, “Wordsworth: A Life,” looks at the poet and his reputation.

A club for wearers of corduroy.

John Lahr on Noah Haidle; Louis Menand on political predictions.