Express
Subprime Crimes From Wall Street to Brooklyn and Beyond
By Nicholas JahrIt starts with someone like Milagros Munoz. She has lived in East New York for nearly all of her 46 years.
The Slave Auctions and the End of the Kung-Fu Judge
By Christopher KetchamOn Feb. 6, the Brooklyn Supreme Court announced that it would soon begin auctioning off the storied Slave Theaters I & II in Bedford Stuyvesant, where black activists in New York once gathered to speak and protest.
DeKalb Makes the News
By Lydia StrykI was born and raised in DeKalb, Illinois, home of barbed wire and some of the richest soil in the whole world.
Campaign Notebook
By Theodore HammAs February turns to March, Barack Obama and John McCain stand as the two frontrunners in the 2008 presidential campaign. On matters of age, race, and many policy issues, the two figures are vastly different.
War Made Easy Deferring to Media Criticism
By Williams ColeCan media criticism again form the basis of a “movement”? I remember meetings of the now-defunct “New York City Free Media Alliance,” or feeling the fleeting buzz at big media conferences like the “Media and Democracy Congress” that were held at places like the Great Hall at Cooper Union in the 1990s.
Internet Conspirancy Films and the Spirit of the Times
By Owen RobertsIt’s telling that Dylan Avery started writing his popular 9/11 conspiracy film, Loose Change, as a novel, but instead turned it into a documentary.
Listening to History, Ned Sublette's New Orleans
By Alan LockwoodA tough read can be the result of thorny words, tedious rationale, off-putting content.
A Blueprint for Democratic Revivalism
By Vincent RossmeierEven taking into consideration Pastor Mike Huckabee’s quixotic run for the presidency, the 2008 presidential campaign has been noticeably devoid of discussions about religion and so-called moral values. For many Americans (and especially many New Yorkers), the change has been a welcome one.
Inside the GOP Playbook
By James ArnettHow to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative, chronicles Allen Raymond’s decade-long career with the GOP, a path that leads him from the mires of local New Jersey politics to the heights of the 2000 Forbes presidential campaign, and eventually to a stint in federal prison due to his involvement with a phone-jamming operation during the 2002 elections.
Exposing the Slums
By Gavin BrowningOf the many questions raised by Bonnie Yochelson and Daniel Czitrom’s Rediscovering Jacob Riis, the foremost may be why reconsider him at all? The original purveyor of the harsh truth of the camera eye, a mainstay in the annals of American photography, population health and housing reform histories, and the namesake of major public works throughout the five boroughs, surely Riis’ life and work is well-trodden ground. Yet the impulse to revisit this figure now may stretch beyond the subject matter, to wider shifts in global demographics.
Stan Brakhage with Pip Chodorov
In February 2003, I had the opportunity to transcribe the audio recordings that Pip Chodorov had taped for his film, A Visit to Stan Brakhage, a brief, 15-minute portrait film of the great American avant-garde filmmaker, commissioned for French television. The interview was to be Brakhage’s last.
