Click here for “No Ways Tired,” Southern Exposure, Summer 1996. Opens as a PDF.
No, Jesse, No
Is Senator Helms Gay Public Enemy No. 1? Originally published in Out. IT’S EARLY ON A TUESDAY afternoon, and a pack of reporters has clustered on the second floor of the U.S. Capitol building. With the Balkan conflict reaching a critical juncture, the national media are looking for some punchy sound bites from the top Republican senators […]
Statesmanship vs. Helmsmanship
How the senator from North Carolina holds the world hostage Originally published in The Nation. NOT TOO LONG AGO, JESSE FRIEDMAN, the deputy director of the American Institute for Free Labor Development, and several Nicaraguan union leaders came up with an idea to help low-income workers in that country: a home-improvement loan fund, from which union members […]
Statehouses Drop the Other Shoe
Originally published in The Nation. WHEN THE REPUBLICANS TOOK OVER the North Carolina Statehouse last January, Frances Cummings seemed a fitting choice to head the subcommittee on public education. As president of the North Carolina Association of Educators, she had lobbied for higher teacher pay and better funding for rural schools. She also spoke from experience: For […]
Bad Chemistry
Visions and fissions at the North Carolina School of Science and Math Originally published in Indy Week. WHEN THE N.C. SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS opened its doors in 1980, it was more than a high school for hotshots. It was considered a bold experiment, an affirmation of North Carolina’s commitment to high-tech education. Here was […]
The Marines Face a New Fight
Meet a few good men—some of whom are gay. Originally published in The Boston Globe and Indy Week. JACKSONVILLE, N.C.—I WALK UP to the bar at the Lucky Lady Night Club and order a Bud Light. Immediately, the woman on the next stool drops her hand, landing it square on my thigh. Early 40s, Filipina, nearly […]
Highway Robbery
In 1992, The Independent Weekly (now Indy Week) and the Institute for Southern Studies collaborated on an investigative series called “Highway Robbery,” which examined how campaign contributions influenced North Carolina’s $1.6 billion transportation budget. The series spawned a grassroots reform movement and won two major awards: The Green Eyeshade (the South’s top journalism prize, from the Society for Professional Journalists) and […]
Harvey & Jesse Go A-Courtin’
The voters who will swing the nation’s hottest Senate race speak out. Published in Indy Week. IF HARVEY GANTT WERE TO INVENT THE TYPE of voter he needs to tip him over victory’s edge this November, he might come up with someone just like Stella Nolley. Thirty-nine, Republican, and living in Cary, she considers Jesse […]
Why Helms is Still at the Helm
N.C. politics illustrate an important national moral: Republicans don’t have to address the social and economic concerns of ordinary people in order to win elections. Democrats do. Originally published in the Washington Monthly. FIVE YEARS AGO, IN THE AFTERMATH of the biggest GOP sweep North Carolina had ever seen, a group of stunned Democratic Party leaders paid […]
Faerie Culture
Originally published in Southern Exposure. For a PDF of the pages, click here. THE NEW EMPRESS OF SHORT MOUNTAIN wore royal purple to the coronation: a billowing ankle-length dress made from yards and yards and yards of polyester. On his head he wore a wig of rainbow-colored shredded tinfoil; on his feet, brown sandals. (“I […]
