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"The Nanny Diaries" was a satirical look into the Upper West Side of Manhattan. There’s nothing funny about Rosa Coronado’s life. Carol Mithers tells Rosa's story, from a small village in Guatemala to a mansion in 90210, and how she has managed to keep going, day after day, through constant pressures on and off the job — from a family back home; a troubled, dependent mother; an abusive husband; a needy son; and bosses who seem to feel that she disappears when she leaves their houses at the end of the day.

"Blindness. Deafness. Amnesia. Paralysis. Vomiting. Hallucinations. Impotence. Stuttering. Uncontrollable twitching. Inability to taste, smell, or urinate. Funny walks. These are just some of the crushing psychosomatic symptoms that have afflicted soldiers during the era of modern warfare, from the trenches of World War I to the Kuwait desert in 1991," Joy Press writes in The Village Voice. What will be the psychological fallout of this war?

Missoula Independent's Andy Smetanka goes down under to explore the lure of "health mines," where multitudes go to breathe radioactive radon -- for their health. Health mine habitues claim cures for everything from lupus to tennis elbow from exposure to this "noble gas," which the EPA has labeled second only to cigarette smoke as a leading cause of lung cancer. “People will try anything,” Pat Lewis, owner of the Free Enterprise health mine tells Smetanka, “and when you have your health, it’s hard to relate to those who don’t.”

Anna Ditkoff goes to the back bar of the Hippo Club, awash with taffeta and sequins as contestants in the Miss Gay Maryland pageant grimly apply makeup and breasts. "It's worth everything to be crowned Miss Maryland," one contestant tells her. The 19-year-old Maryland pageant is considered one of the toughest and most prestigious on the road to Miss Gay America, in New Orleans this year.