Archive
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
July Assorted
July 7th, 2010
Last month I wrote a few pieces for The Washington Independent on Tea Party politics, found here, here, and here.
In The New York Observer, I explored a new development on the city’s political fringe and a curious case of “Manhattan of the Mind.”
In book news, I have an adapted excerpt of Common Nonsense in the July/August issue of Mother Jones. I will be discussing the book at the D.C. Border’s at 18th and L on Thursday, July 8, at 6:30. If you haven’t yet ordered your copy, you can do so here, and find out why The American Prospect calls it “A superb book…[that] shows how Beck’s blackboard schemes are fiction and part of what Zaitchik calls ‘the oceanic audacity of his self-serving ignorance.’”
Hiatus Officially Over
April 12th, 2010
It’s been a while since I posted here, mostly because I had little to post. Happily, that’s changing. So here’s shakes: I have a piece up at AlterNet on the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. I also have newish pieces on tax scams, the student loan industry, Roland Emmerich, America’s occult past, psychedelic psychotherapy, Van Jones, and why David Brooks should stop writing about hippies and the New Left. The Adbusters article mentioned below is now online. On July 5, I’ll be reading from Common Nonsense at the Half King in Chelsea.
On Hiatus
August 11th, 2009
A couple of you have noticed that I haven’t posted anything here in a while and written to ask if I was okay. I thought I’d post a quick explanation for the lack of activity and preempt any more kind expressions of concern. I’m taking an extended break from freelancing to work on a book project, and will return to posting articles and reviews sometime later in the autumn. Meantime, things will be pretty silent. One piece I have in the pipe is a feature in the forthcoming Nov/Dec issue of Adbusters, which I encourage everyone to buy. It’s about James Lovelock, father of Gaia theory. I’ve also been doing a little blogging at a great new current-affairs site, The Faster Times, with a focus on far-right political movements around the world.
That’s all for Summer 2009. Hope everyone is well.
Peru Dispatches
April 24th, 2009
These are Ashaninka Indians from the remote village of Tenkarini in the Peruvian Amazon Basin, roughly midway between the eastern ridge of the Andes and Brazil. The woman on the left is Noemi, the village shamen, who led an Ayahuasca ceremony in which I participated and wrote about for Killing the Buddha. My New Republic piece about the local threat posed by illegal loggers and, increasingly, oil and gas development, can be found here. Many thanks to the Cool Earth Foundation and Tropicana for sponsoring my trip.
Tea Parties & Astro Turf
April 21st, 2009
I was recently on Grit TV with Laura Flanders discussing the Tea Party I attended in Morristown, New Jersey, as well as the Alternet article I wrote with my old Moscow colleagues Mark Ames and Yasha Levine. There was another Tea Party later that night in downtown Manhattan, but I didn’t have it in me to attend another one of these things, which are part GOP convention floor, part Minutemen rally.
Ireland Dispatch
April 10th, 2009
I have a new piece up at The Nation concerning a land-use conflict in remote northwest Ireland. Royal Dutch Shell wants to build a raw-gas pipeline and refinery. The small coastal community effected wants Shell to process the gas offshore. The elements and dynamics of the story are familiar enough, but the tenacity with which the locals have been fighting this one for a decade is truly inspiring. The activists have suffered prison, police beatings, and constant electronic surveillance since they began their resistance in 2000. They are some of the toughest bastards you will ever meet, in the best possible way.
Photo by Andrew Beardsworth.
Twitter Nation
March 24th, 2009
My Alternet essay on Twitter has been reprinted as a cover story in the Sacramento News & Review and the Santa Cruz Good Times. You can click here to see me discuss the article and roundhouse kick three Twitter defenders on French TV. If for some reason you want to read two huffy-puffy critical responses to the article, you can click here and here.
Change Comes to the Pentagon
March 21st, 2009
I have a new piece up at Alternet that looks at the likelihood of defense contracting reform under the Obama administration. A lot of people are cautiously optimistic, but as one of my sources says: “Efforts to fix this flawed, complex system go back four decades with very little success. I wouldn’t get too excited.”
Back to the Commune?
March 6th, 2009
I have a short piece up at Alternet today that looks at growing interest in group-living among recently bust baby boomers. From taking in roommates to buying houses with friends to full-on hippie farm villages, alternatives to maintaining big empty suburban homes are looking better than ever to those nearing retirement. These homes were never all that good an idea in the first place, but now they are just not tenable for millions who have lost most of their wealth in the last year.
Civil Rights Award
March 1st, 2009
Last week I was awarded the Marty Biegel Civil Rights Award by the Union of Medical Marijuana Patients, for a series of articles on drug policy published in High Times and at Alternet.org. It was an honor that I was very happy to see become somewhat obsolete a few days later, when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he would no longer allow federal agents to raid state-approved medical marijuana facilities, a long-standing practice that was a focus of the stories.
