Originally published in Indy Week. I’VE COVERED NATIONAL POLICTICAL PARTY conventions since 1980. I know how amped-up the rhetoric can get on both sides. But I have never heard so much fear of an incumbent as I’ve witnessed during this week’s Republican National Convention. “Every election we hear that this is the most important election in […]
RNC Day 2: ‘All the laws we have today came from Judeo-Christian views’
Originally published in Indy Week. FORTY YEARS AGO, WHEN SHE WAS A TEENAGER, Miriam Aikens had an abortion. Then she had another. “I was young,” she says. “I was uninformed.” She was raised a devout Christian, and still “in the church” when she terminated the two unwanted pregnancies. Describing the aftermath, she mostly avoids the […]
RNC Day 1: Red Meat at the Tea Party
Originally published in Indy Week. VOLUNTEERS WEARING PLASTIC RAIN PONCHOS steered drivers into the sprawling parking lot of River Ministries International, a campus on the outskirts of Tampa that includes an evangelical church, a worship school, and a “Holy Ghost training center.” There were food trucks and merchandise tables, including one man selling “Anybody but Obama” […]
Rebuilding America’s Schools
The average public school in this country is more than 40 years old—and showing its age. Roofs leak, walls are ridden with termites and lead paint, and rooms are chronically overcrowded. Parade looks at two communities that rebuilt their schools—and the lessons they can teach all of us. Originally published in Parade. JUST A FEW […]
Town and Country
On North Carolina’s Amendment One, the fault line was not racial—it was urban-rural. Originally published in The American Prospect. IN THE WEEK SINCE NORTH CAROLINA VOTERS adopted a constitutional amendment banning recognition of any “domestic legal union” other than heterosexual marriage, a consensus has formed among journalists about African-American complicity. According to this narrative, black voters let […]
The Morning After Amendment 1: Your World. And Mine.
Originally published in Indy Week. Reprinted in 27 Views of Durham (Eno Press). IF YOU DIDN’T PEEK AT THE NUMBERS ON THE TV INSIDE—where Amendment 1, North Carolina’s marriage amendment, was racking up a 22-point margin of victory—you might have imagined the scene outside Fullsteam brewery in Durham was a celebration Tuesday night. The air […]
The Death and Life of Detroit
Neighborhood groups are bringing the blighted city back, one block at a time. Will City Hall stand in their way? Originally published in The American Prospect. A SHIVERING KNOT OF COLLEGE STUDENTS stands outside Motor City Java House as John George unlocks the front door. It’s 15 degrees in Detroit on a February morning, and […]
The Art of Sand Castles
They call themselves sand sculptors—artists who build massive structures on the beach for fun and profit, only to watch their work disappear overnight. Originally published in Coastal Living. THE LATE 1990S CLOBBERED KIRK RADEMAKER. He was in his mid-40s, a trained carpenter with an fine-art degree, stuck in a stressful job: project manager for a large […]
Wealth for Everyone
Immigrants in Durham, N.C. had become easy targets for robbers. The community’s response: start its own wildly successful credit union. Originally published by One Nation Indivisible. NOT LONG AFTER HE ARRIVED in Durham, North Carolina in 1996, Marcelino Varela learned a lesson that would prove valuable in his adopted city: Always be ready to sprint. He […]
The Organic Food Paradox
As consumers increasingly demand organic produce, and as massive industrial farms rise to meet their needs, will it spell the end of the family-run, lovingly tended, earth-friendly farm? Originally published in The Saturday Evening Post. THE TERRAIN SWOOPS AND RISES AS I DRIVE up North Carolina Route 86 toward the rural crossroads of Cedar Grove. […]
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