For stutterers, speaking is not just a physical handicap but also crippling psychological problem. Now gaining popularity is a radical—and controversial—notion: that stutterers are better off learning to accept their impediment rather than striving to overcome it. Originally published in Psychology Today. HEAD BOBBING, FACE GRIMACING, Vicki Schutter stood before a microphone in a Cleveland hotel and […]
A Carolina Democratic Dream
Tar Heel archconservative Lauch Faircloth finds himself in a tough race against a personable Democrat who’s got a populist approach and money, too. Originally published in The Nation. JOHN EDWARDS KNOWS HE’S WALKING INTO THE LION’S DEN. It’s the Thursday before Labor Day, and the Democratic US Senate candidate is about to address the Rotary Club of […]
‘Virtual disenfranchisement’
Originally published in The Nation. CONGRESSMAN MEL WATT DOES A GOOD JOB of representing his constituents. A soft-spoken attorney and one of Congress’s left-most members, Watt hails from one of the more ideologically homogeneous districts in the country: the 12th District of North Carolina. Since he was first elected in 1992, the district has been a skinny […]
Mixed Blessings
The lives of two men in neighboring Southern cities illustrate the news—good and bad—from the World AIDS Conference in Geneva. The good news is that mortality from AIDS complications continues to drop and that many people on combination therapy are healthier than they have been in years. The bad news is that the advances in […]
Rethinking the Race Beat
Newsrooms are searching for new ways to cover racial and ethnic minorities. Do you need to be a specialist to do it right? Originally published in Columbia Journalism Review. GIVEN ATLANTA’S PLACE in modern American history, it made sense for its hometown newspaper, the Journal-Constitution, to assign a reporter to cover civil rights full-time. Until recently, that job […]
Art and States’ Rights
Originally published in The Nation. OF ALL THE FAN LETTERS OUT NORTH Contemporary Art House has ever received, the most surprising has come from a former adversary. Shannon McDade, a member of the Alaska State Council on the Arts, had visited the theater to see June Bride, a one-woman show by Sara Felder about an old-fashioned lesbian Jewish […]
Embraced in Spain
The author, stuttering in Spanish with a group of 20-year-old street kids. An all-time favorite.
Southern Discomfort
Gays in Charlotte, N.C., strive for community cohesion as they struggle to get back on track after a virulent 1997. Originally published in The Advocate. CHARLOTTE, N.C., PRIDES ITSELF on being the best of the New South. The nation’s second-largest banking center, it’s a booming city of 60-story skyscrapers, historic neighborhoods, and suburbs that stretch to the […]
Left Behind in Sandtown
The Enterprise Foundation led a $60 million effort to repair a broken Baltimore neighborhood. All it fixed was the buildings. Originally published in City Limits. THERE WASN’T AN EMPTY PARKING SPACE for blocks around Gilmor Elementary School the night Mayor Kurt Schmoke visited Baltimore’s Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood last June. Braving the summer rain, 400 people packed the auditorium […]
Spiritual Union: A Case Study
How a community of Guatemalan immigrant poultry workers triumphed in one of the fiercest anti-labor corners of the nation. Originally published in The Nation. Morganton, North Carolina THE CHOIR LOFT SWELTERS. It’s 5 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, and all the heat from a summer day in the North Carolina foothills seems to have refracted through the stained-glass […]
