The Brooklyn Rail

Thanksgiving

By Jason Flores-Williams

I’m eating tofurkey and creamy yams while watching charred and dismembered Iraqis on TV. “We’re a sick country,” I say. “We gorge like pigs while we destroy other people.” Everyone puts down their forks in solidarity.

LETTER FROM BALUCHISTAN
A Call to Resistance: The Khan of Kalat Gathers the Tribes

By Annie Nocenti

Khan of Kalat Suleiman’s country is rich in resources that everyone wants to take and he doesn’t have the power to stop them. “We sit on a mountain of gold,” he says, “and the devil sits on us.”

The Brooklyn Rail’s Person of the Year, 2006

By Theodore Hamm

Satan played a starring role on the world political stage during 2006. His presence was felt from the Persian Gulf to the banks of the Mississippi. Other than the devil’s handiwork, how else to explain why Iraq became hell on earth, and New Orleans remained in tatters?

¡Mi Comandante Es Mi Presidente!: Daniel Ortega Comes Back to Power

The night after election day, I laid awake listening to fireworks cracking in the distance. The results were almost a week from official. It didn’t matter in the barrio where I stayed in El Viejo. On the dusty causeways, or under the rusted metal roofs, the victor was already known.

In Conversation

Hugo Chavez and Latin American Populism: STEVE STEIN with NIKOLAS KOZLOFF

Nikolas Kozloff, author of Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the U.S. (St. Martin's Press, 2006), recently sat down with Steve Stein, a leading expert on Peruvian history and author of Populism in Peru (1982), a classic in the field.

Benito Juárez and New York City

By Vicente Quirarte

Benito Juárez was never in New York, but while he was alive he knew how to make his presence felt in the city, always in defense of the cause he was called upon to defend.

Hospitality Row

By Heather Rogers

There is no other way of getting to the secluded Sagamore except by car, and you can’t be on the island without checking in and getting a paper to place onto the dashboard that says your presence has been paid for. In such tony environs one hardly expects to come across a crew of visitors who are in charge of waste handling in towns across the country—garbage men.

Victor and Me

By Doug Cordell

I truly liked Victor, thought he was the real deal—an edge character, for sure, but a seeker, which is a rare things these days. There were, however, increasingly unsettling aspects of living with him.