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The U.S. objective in Iraq is not to strike against terrorism and a rogue regime. It's not even to secure the smooth flow of oil from the region, Roger Trilling writes in The Village Voice. Based on a report by the Institute for National Strategic Studies, the true objective in removing Saddam Hussein from power is that a more friendly government in Iraq "would drastically reduce the requirement for U.S. military forces to deal with the problems that remained." The report argues for a less visible U.S. military presence, while remaking the region in our own political image.

San Antonio Current's David Wallis goes inside Storm Mountain Training Center, the "Andover" of private sniper schools. In the rural 208-acre compound military sniper program washouts and other wannabe killers can learn the same long-range shooting techniques the Beltway snipers used. "In a country where the right to bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution, where the National Rifle Association intimidates legislators into voting against common-sense gun control laws designed to keep children from accidentally shooting other children, learning to kill with long-range rifles is considered not only a useful skill for law enforcement officers but a legitimate leisure time activity," Wallis writes.

Camille Dodero interviews a flu-stricken Joan Didion in a Boston hotel room and mines the author's opus for the structural framework of the writer's life. She's struck by the dissonance between Didion's literary stature and her "miniature" real person. "Barely five feet tall, she doesn’t even fill a chair ... she looks like she could slip between the seat cushions at any moment," Dodero writes. And the legendary writer giggles, girlishly.

Breaking down the whys and wherefores behind the Bay Area's breast cancer rates, among the highest in the world, is a fearsome feat. For North Bay Bohemian writer Allie Gottlieb, it's personal -- she's got all the Bay Area risk factors -- her mother died at 48 of the disease, she's white, educated and affluent. No one knows why breast cancer rates are higher among such women. And treatment? "I think it's a crapshoot whether you make it or not," one expert tells Gottlieb.