For the last several years, the Rail’s Player-of-the-Year award has gone to the most dramatic actor on the year’s political stage. For reasons dubiously heroic, and at times heroically dubious, the honorees have included the late John Murtha and Hugo Chávez, and the very much alive Sarah Palin and Joe Biden.

What radical ideas were in circulation during Bill de Blasio's Sandinista days?

Why John Liu's poll numbers are a sucker's bet.

Why 1199 is backing Ken Thompson’s bid to unseat Joe Hynes

Many Sunset Park residents see Carlos Menchaca, councilperson Sara González’s current challenger, as new blood.

Anthony Weiner surely has many warped inclinations, but in my view his most peculiar fetish does not involve sex at all.

There may be only one “true progressive” in the mayor's race, but there’s also only one real populist.

KnightSec’s leader may face more jail time than the Steubenville rapists his hacking helped expose.

From a very early age, my sister was a whirlwind of energy and achievement.

The current contest for city council in Fort Greene-Clinton Hill-Prospect Heights is shaping up as a track meet, with several well-known locals stepping up to the starting block.

This issue marks the dawn of a new era in our coverage of books.

Even as opposition to one of his staple policies grows, so too does Ray Kelly’s approval rating.

Volumes of horse race punditry notwithstanding, the 2012 presidential campaign seemed like anything but a day at the track. Instead it felt more like we were waiting at the 18th hole in a golf tournament that kept getting rain delayed.

Volumes of horse race punditry notwithstanding, the 2012 presidential campaign seemed like anything but a day at the track.

The Chicago teachers’ strike illustrated the depth of the Democrats’ commitment to education “reform,” which by any measure is designed to undermine the power of teachers’ unions.

It was a hot afternoon in July when I first felt the sting. As I approached my destination on the D train, the conductor announced the stop’s new name, “Atlantic Ave.-Barclays Center.”

I just picked up a great “new” book about the old Brooklyn. And better yet, I found it in the lobby of my apartment building.

“Political irrelevance is more effective than political relevance,” says Abbie.

Frank Murphy’s dissent in the Supreme Court’s 1944 Korematsu case seems mighty timely today.

According to Sean Barry of VOCAL-NY, the “fear of police contact is a major problem” for those trying to mobilize the city’s poor to attend political protests.

The Rail’s Player of the Year Award annually goes to the most surprisingly influential performer on the political stage. This year's candidates include a testy lawman, a horny congressman, and Swing State actuaries.

The Rail’s Player of the Year Award annually goes to the most surprisingly influential performer on the political stage. This year's candidates include a testy lawman, a horny congressman, and Swing State actuaries.

A=arraign; arrears; arrests
Many came to Occupy Wall Street because they are in arrears, only to be arrested, some even arraigned.

(11-15-11) The argument that it’s the Occupy Wall Street protesters who are the ones violating the First Amendment is a truly novel claim—perhaps even a prize-winning work of legal fiction.

More than a few observers sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street protests have criticized the movement for a lacking a traditional organizational structure and a clear agenda. But not doing so may be precisely the gathering’s most salient message.

As fall comes, and the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 goes, it’s worth considering what’s changed in the past decade.

As fall comes, and the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 goes, it’s worth considering what’s changed in the past decade.

Christian Parenti is a contributing editor of the Rail and the Nation and a visiting scholar at the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics at the CUNY Graduate Center. His latest book, Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence (Nation Books) is based on more than six years of research and travel to war zones, slums, and failed states across the world.

A tale involving a moral panic, government corruption, and burning diapers.

One way to look at Gil Scott-Heron’s passing in late May is that we were lucky to have him around for 62 years. An even better way to understand him is through his own words. In our November 2007 issue, we were fortunate to run Don Geesling’s conversation with the poet and musician.

In late March, the legendary federal judge Jack Weinstein issued an opinion notable for both its legal and intellectual range.

In late March, the legendary federal judge Jack Weinstein issued an opinion notable for both its legal and intellectual range.

One longs for the day when local sports execs at least spoke of their “civic responsibilities.”

Donald Trump’s recent claim that “I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks” has rightly earned him much ridicule, mostly for his anachronistic, and condescending, choice of terms. Yet few critics seem to be asking whether the statement itself is true.

Two new books about Harlem make the writer wonder where Brooklyn "is."

American politics has been a Grand Guignol stage in 2010. A horror show full of headless bodies, witches, and Mama Grizzlies ended with a shellacking, making one long for the sober docu-drama of a year ago.

Other than their iconic status in the world of letters and notes, Mark Twain and John Coltrane seem entirely remote from one another.

Other than their iconic status in the world of letters and notes, Mark Twain and John Coltrane seem entirely remote from one another. One was a writer and the other a saxophonist.

It was in the spring of 2001 when Williamsburg-bred basketball legend Red Auerbach first asked “What the hell is the Brooklyn Rail?” Not long afterward, that very same question was posed to the two of us by a current Brooklyn figurehead, who followed it by saying, “You’re the guys who want to live here; we’re the ones who couldn’t leave.”

I must confess, I don’t remember the exact moment when I named the Brooklyn Rail. It was 1998, and Ted and I were on the L train back to Brooklyn.

Dogmatic chronologists may debate whether the first decade of the 21st century C.E.
actually ended last December. But this month clearly marks the end of the initial 10 years in the first century A.B.R. (Anno Brooklyn Rail).

You might not remember me, and if you did, you’d probably rather forget me. Most days, I’d rather forget myself. Problem is, I can’t.

Starting in our June 2010 issue, Williams Cole and I began to republish nonfiction pieces from our archives, as part of a “Best of a Decade” celebration. Originally, we planned to create a contest out of these selections, and I even managed to persuade five estimable friends of the Rail to sign on as judges.

The Rail's extra-special 10th anniversary issue will be out by 10/7. Please join us in celebrating at one (or more) of our upcoming events.

There is no reason why instead of an Islamic cultural center, the former Burlington Coat Factory at 45-51 Park Place could not become an interfaith cultural center.

There is no reason why instead of an Islamic cultural center, the former Burlington Coat Factory at 45-51 Park Place could not become an interfaith cultural center.

With slightly less fanfare than the Constitutional Convention of 1789, the city’s Charter Review Commission has been debating the present and future structure of city government.

This October marks 10 years in print for The Brooklyn Rail.

In announcing his bid for governor in late May, Andrew Cuomo put forth a comprehensive plan for reforming Albany.

For at least the next few issues, my column no longer will appear on this page. Instead, an expanded version of it will be found in the Local section.

Kevin Powell vs. Ed Towns, Round Three; Nora Sayre's New York

Reading a book called The History of White People on the subway is a disorienting experience. Each time I look up, I encounter a spectrum of skin colors, from pasty winter white to deep African black—with numerous shades in between.

Tariq Ali will deliver a talk, “Obama’s War,” at the School of Visual Arts on Monday, April 19, as part of the London Review of  Books’ 30^th anniversary celebration.  Ali’s Night of the Golden Butterfly, the final novel in his critically acclaimed Islam Quintet, comes out this month from Verso.

In his photo book The Brooklyn Navy Yard (powerHouse, 2010), John Bartelstone takes us on a voyage into a world that—despite its proximity to downtown Brooklyn—seems a strange and distant land, where great industrial beasts once roamed.

The Iraq War turns seven this month, and some folks seem really eager to blow out
the candles on the birthday cake.

Just in case we forgot, during the State of the Union address President Obama reminded his audience three times that as Americans, we are nothing if not a “decent” people.

Over the past two decades, Brooklyn’s artistic renaissance spawned the borough’s neighborhood reformation.

In his new book Common Ground in a Liquid City: Essays in Defense of an Urban Future (AK Press, 2010), radical urbanist Matt Hern critiques his home city of Vancouver, paying particular attention to the contradictions in how the city presents itself to the world.

Our heart is with the people of Haiti. Here is a list of a few relief organizations.

If 2008 was the year of the Western gunslinger showdowns—Hillary vs. Obama, Obama vs. McCain, McCain vs. Palin—the past twelve months have been most notable for never-ending docudramas.

Rudy Wurlitzer’s early 70s novels Flats and Quake have just been reissued by Two Dollar Radio. They came out at the same time that Wurlitzer wrote the screenplays for Monte Hellman’s cult classic Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) and Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973).

In early October, after eleven years, two months and a handful of days in the same apartment, I moved out of Williamsburg. Perhaps you missed this somewhat-less-than-momentous news, but in my world, it was the stuff of banner headlines.

My mailbox is suddenly empty. Familiar public figures no longer bother to call.

“Today the real problem is the future.” —Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago, sometime between 1955 and 1976.

"I will be far more aggressive in every aspect" of the Comptroller's office than Bill Thompson, says Liu. "For one, because of my financial sector training, I’ll be able to hit the ground running. And number two, I’m just a very excitable person."

If separated from the rest of New York City, our beloved borough of Brooklyn would be the fourth largest city in the United States. 

Jo Anne Simon is one of seven candidates running for office in the 33rd City Council District, which runs from Greenpoint-Williamsburg along the Brooklyn waterfront through DUMBO and Brooklyn Heights, then spans Boerum Hill through northern Park Slope.

Rather than “run the risk” of repeating myself, I have opted for certainty. Four years ago I wrote the following about the city’s last mayoral campaign—and alas, history is repeating itself, too.

Open Book producer and host Ina Howard-Parker tours the streets of her neighborhood with many leading writers who have also called Fort Greene home.

It’s an early Saturday evening in mid April and SoHo is full of people doing their usual SoHo things: carrying shopping bags; stumbling around in heels; chatting over expensive fare.

I went down to Rio in mid-March with no agenda other than to soak up some sun and sand and to experience that great city for the first time.

Amidst the rightful popular outrage against the continued handouts to Wall Street, one man has stood defiant—the mayor of New York City.

On two rather significant issues, the war in Iraq and the financial bailout, President Obama is listening to the wrong advice.

A new era has begun, in earnest. Our president will no longer fiddle while the fires burn. Both science and the Constitution will be respected. And the looting of the federal coffers won’t be sanctioned—or at least one hopes.

Two thousand eight was a rather momentous year, not least for the startling cast of characters on its political stage. The starring role was played by a certain senator from Illinois, but his entrance into the spotlight really began in 2004. Launched in 2005, the Rail’s Person of the Year award has gone to the political figure who provided the most surprising drama of the year.

Harlem in the early 1940s was a place in flux. Though the Renaissance had ended a decade or so earlier, the cultural scene was still quite vibrant, with legendary jazz musicians, dancers, and entertainers of all sorts performing regularly in its many nightclubs.

What a difference a day makes. Tuesday, November 4, 2008 brought the election of the nation’s first African-American president, a milestone by any standard.

The meteoric rise of Barack Obama is already the stuff of mythology.

September was one helluva ride. It came in with a hurricane that blew the president and vice president off the RNC stage.

September was one helluva ride. It came in with a hurricane that blew the president and vice president off the RNC stage. In their place stepped a hockey mom who knows how to field-dress a moose.

"You always have this weird thing in the back of your head when you start sculpting something; you want it to flow at least as well as this thing you've read," says TVOTR's Tunde Adebimpe.

It has been a summer of striking contrasts. Banks collapsing, inflation skyrocketing, and New Orleans threatened again—yet record audiences for the glittering spectacles in Beijing and Denver.

For most of us who grew up in the 20th century, two things seemed certain never to happen in our lifetime: a black person getting elected president of the U.S., or the Cubs winning the World Series.

"Hip-hop values include making something out of nothing, winning on your own terms. That's why I'm running for Congress," says Powell.

One month after Fahrenheit 9/11 made its opening splash, Michael Moore became a controversial presence at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. It was here where he finally got to climb in the ring with Bill O’Reilly.

Our political culture is broken—not on the margins but fundamentally—and the vapid, trashy political press plays a big role in that," says Salon.com's Green Greenwald, author of Great American Hypocrites.

On the last Friday morning in April, upon hearing the verdict in the Sean Bell case, I had the worst of all possible reactions. Instead of outrage, I felt utter resignation. I even found myself saying things like, “the cops could shoot unarmed people 500 times and they still would not get convicted.”

Widely viewed on YouTube and much discussed across the political media, Barack Obama’s mid-March speech about the need for a national discussion of race indeed emanated from a historic place.

For the better part of a year now, the primary focus of city politics has been on whether the mayor would run for president.

As 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.

As recently as a few months ago, a prediction of a Rudy vs. Hillary showdown seemed likely to come through. Now, I must borrow a favorite phrase from McCain and say: My friends, I can't tell you how glad I am that I was wrong.

Few, if any, of the tributes capture the full spectrum of King’s message at the time of his assassination.

It’s safe to say that 2007 wasn’t a banner year. No matter how many awards Al Gore received, the climate still got worse. Two trillion dollars later, Afghanistan and Iraq remained in shambles. The endless slog otherwise known as the U.S. presidential campaign didn’t exactly produce Lincolnesque debate.

Some may consider New Orleans after Katrina to be a tragedy—full of sorrow, fatally flawed by its geography, and now lacking any good options in terms of what to do next. However, after going there this past month, I would simply call it a national disgrace.

It’s not easy to talk baseball with Yankee fans. All one hears about is the hallowed history. So many championships, so many legends, even a Broadway musical. Well, congratulations. Some of my best friends are Yankee fans.

A family-values Republican senator from Louisiana shows up on the client list of a DC madam. A month later, the Bush administration’s architect of doom, Karl Rove, bows out of the White House, in the process issuing Dr. No-like battle plans for the 2008 election.

In the 1960s Tom Hayden was a founder of the Students for a Democratic Society, a member of the Chicago Eight, and a leading figure in the movement against the Vietnam War. His latest book, Ending the War in Iraq, was published in June by Akashic Books.

I’m not trying to be the guy who gets heavy on you at the bbq, but at the very, very least, revivifying local discussion of the war is way, way overdue.

Democrat Tony Avella, a City Councilman representing Northeast Queens, is running for mayor in 2009.

Now seems like the right time to imagine a better New York City. Everybody’s doing it. Bloomberg has his PlaNYC. It’s time for Rail readers to create their own blueprint, too.

Odd as it may sound, I’ve lately found myself feeling rather nostalgic for San Quentin. That sensation is even more peculiar when I remind myself that etymologically, nostalgia means homesickness.

From Blacksburg to Baghdad, April was indeed the cruelest month. After buying a Glock 19 and a Walther 22 in nearby Roanoke, Cho Seung-Hui went on a senseless rampage at Virginia Tech. Less than 48 hours later, 183 people died when car bombs exploded in a crowded Baghdad market.

The recent revelations that the NYPD had spied on everyone from grannies to indie rockers across the country prior to the RNC are surprising only because of the operation’s scope.

In The Business of Books (2000), André Schiffrin memorably recalled the heyday of intellectual publishing in the U.S. Schiffrin had directed Pantheon from the early 1960s through 1990, when it was closed by Random House. Pantheon had helped a wide range of authors, including Chomsky and Foucault, reach a large commercial audience. In 1990, Schiffrin launched the New Press. In his new memoir, A Political Education: Coming of Age in Paris and New York (Melville House Publishing), Schiffrin discusses his life before Pantheon, paying particular attention to the political climate of the 1940s and 50s. The Rail’s Williams Cole and Theodore Hamm recently sat down with Schiffrin at his Upper West Side apartment, which contains one wall of books Schiffrin’s father had published in France and then when he directed Pantheon in the 1940s, and another wall of those of that Schiffrin published when he took over Pantheon in the 1960s.

The Bush administration will best be remembered for its destruction of two of the world’s great cities, Baghdad and New Orleans.

It’s one year before the 2008 presidential primary actually begins, and already the field is overflowing with contenders, pretenders, rock stars, hangers-on, early risers, late bloomers, and nice guys who will finish last.

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?

Halloween both came early and lasted long for the Democrats this year, as they donned the costumes of an antiwar party. ...

Say what you will about Mike Bloomberg, but this fact is indisputable: he is the most powerful mayor in the history of New York City.

When Ralph Ginzburg died this past July at age 76, he was variously remembered as a controversial publisher, foe of both Bobby Kennedy and Barry Goldwater, successful photographer, leading opponent of circumcision and a master of disguise, his most favorite being that of a minister. Here, Theodore Hamm delves into what one of his publications, Eros, was all about.

It goes without saying that 9/11 was the worst day in the history of our city.

Born and raised in the Bronx and a graduate of City College, Robert Scheer is the former editor of Ramparts, the leading radical magazine of the 1960s.

More than a few onlookers have characterized this political season’s most exciting local contest as a battle over race.

A sure sign that a neighborhood is over is when its real estate starts to be marketed to “rock stars” seeking to “avoid the paparazzi.”

I never did make it to see Johnny Cash.


My wife Emily, our friend David and I had tickets for his show in Reno, the place he made mythic. It was October of 1997, and although Johnny had already started to take ill, we had no idea it would be one of his last performances.