Articles
Categories

When the Crunch Becomes the Norm: Cries from Inside the 24-Hour Work Clock
According to no end of authorities extrapolating forward from the trends of the early 20th century, Americans should be wallowing in free time by now. A four-hour workday, the technocrat Harold Loeb wrote in 1933, would “satisfy fully the material needs of each

Polish Entrepreneurs after the 1989 Roundtable
Research chemist Malgorzata Dudek had worked for two decades at the technical university in Gliwice and in 1983 decided she wanted to apply that knowledge in a startup business. That proved too daunting. Her own knowledge was not the problem. She knew the

U.S. Border Wars Show No Signs of Keeping Migrants Out
El Paso, Texas—Wire fencing encases the sides of the Rio Grande where the river slices through El Paso on the U.S. side and Ciudad Juarez on the Mexican side of the border. Its purpose: to keep out illegal migrants who each year routinely

New Coal Isn’t Old Coal
WHITESVILLE, WV—During the last coal boom in Appalachia, a miner could quit a job in the morning and find a better one in another hollow before the next shift started. Randy Sprouse, until recently a tavern operator at Sundial, WV, was a young

The Jewish Museum in Berlin – “Not a Guilt Trip”
BERLIN – Like a streak of lightning or an unraveling Star of David, the Jewish Museum Berlin zigzags through this city’s Kreuzberg section, just steps away from graffiti-covered storefronts and boxy, high-rise public housing. Clad in zinc, its façade broken by irregular slashes

Hispanic Poultry Workers Live in New Southern Slums
Everyone in Siler City, NC, knows about North Chatham Avenue. They know the street the way one knows a dark secret. Both whites and blacks shake their heads at its mention. Even though the town feels shame about the dilapidated homes that line

Saving the Sage Grouse
They are nature’s own Greek chorus — plumed performers, dancing and chanting in a Dionysian frenzy, celebrating fertility, foreshadowing tragedy. Their own. The sage grouse has been dubbed the spotted owl of the plains. The sage grouse’s future depends on the willingness of

Report From Siberia: Making A Living
Across a frozen lake 10 kilometers east of the small Siberian village of Kazym, Sasha and his son, Ephiam, drag a sled loaded with a tangle of fishing net and rope. Two of Sasha’s friends soon follow with long poles freshly cut from

Tumpa: A Sex Worker of Calcutta
I look like a witch. Tumpa has painted my eyes thick with kohl, my lips bright pink, my toenails vibrant blue. During this daily ritual my mother calls long distance from England on my mobile phone. “How is everything darling?” “Fine, everything’s fine,”

Anatomy Of A Gay Murder
Jon Christopher Buice doesn’t look the part of a gay-bashing killer. Sitting behind a blue steel mesh in bleached white prison garb and T-shirt, the brown-eyed, baby-faced convict, even at 26, could pass still for the ordinary white suburban teenager he once was.

Education in Cuba
For the past few months, I’ve been given unlimited access to photograph the Cuban education system. I started with nursery schools and slowly worked my way to graduate study. With my pictures, I’ve tried to show both the diversity and the complexity of

Convicting the Wrong Man: Part Two of Two
The Christmas holidays were over and so was his last big murder trial. Veteran homicide prosecutor Mark Curry was cleaning up the clutter in his small office near the county courthouse when the phone rang. It would have been easier to let his

Milestones: A Road Map to the Indian Middle Clas
India, a country stereotyped for its vast number of poor, also is home to what many consider to be the world’s largest middle class. The very size and population of India tends to obscure everything else about the country. For example, India, a

Cracking An Unsolved Rape Case Makes History
For years after she was raped, Laurie Williams (not her real name) had occasional nightmares that took her back to that night in August 1994 when a man broke into her apartment and threatened to kill her unless he got what he demanded.

A Diary of Danger on the Seas
The crew of the fishing boat Edward L. Moore out of Portland, Maine. Scott “Scotty” Russell, 45, has been the captain of the Edward L. Moore (ELM) for the last 19 years. In his early twenties, while out of work as a house

The Third Grade Answer
During a recent visit to a maximum security prison in Virginia, where some 2,000 men are caged, I asked the warden to describe his most troublesome problem. I expected the usual answer – shivs, drugs, rapes, cellblock violence. Sure, he replied, all that

An Ant’s Life. Surprise: No One’s in Charge
Sunrise refracts over the Peloncillo Mountains, sending tendrils of light along the ground where biologist Deborah Gordon kneels in the dirt with an aspirator, sucking up dozens of ants. We’re in the desert a few hours drive from Tucson, where Arizona meets New

Masking the Face of Battle
(Curator’s Note: Photographs for this story were copyrighted and not available for electronic publishing.) Overlooked in 20th century war-making is that blatantly corrupt leader of a Balkan backwater who blazed a trail that faltering democratic leaders would follow in reviving domestic political fortunes

The Price Of Fish Our Nation’s Most Perilous Job Takes Life and Limb in New England
Douglas Goodale, by the age of 32, had 8 years of commercial fishing experience behind him when his job literally took his right arm and very nearly his life. Goodale was working by himself on his twenty-two foot purple lobster boat, “Barney,” about

The ‘Special Period’ In Cuba
Text and photos by Ernesto Bazan In November of 1992, I made my first trip to Cuba. I had bought a super cheap tourist package in Merida, in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. It was $350 for a flight and a week’s worth

Computer Think

Plastics Gone Soft

Political Deja Vu

Playing Cat and Mouse with the Soviet Bear

Plain Vanilla to Talking Machines

Living on the Fringes

No Sense of Place

Debating Doomsday

Herbie’s Decision

The Monolithic Idea

The Last Picture Show

Diversions and Alarms

The Filthy Five

The Real Price of Oil

Crazy Joe’s School

War Through the Looking Glass

Cornerback Security

The Northern Fish Mystery

No Happy Elvis Stories

Stalking The Oil Crisis

Mushroom

Letter From Los Alamos

A Creek Called Bloody Run

Religious Relics of Rock & Roll

Oilspeak

The Spiritual Grid: Searching for a Seminary

Afterlives


Good Neighbor Policy

Idoling Elvis

Blackouts: Eclipsing Energy Information

The Thicket of Tribal Law

Corporate Civil Defense

On the Road with Plutonium

Cost-efficient Contamination

A Crisis of Oil Information

Deregulating The Farmer

Paying for Pollution: Environmental Mediation in Japan

Jesus Christ and Jesse James in Belfast

Trading-off at Hooker Chemical

Elvis is Watching Us: Studying an American Dream

The Meat Inspector

Premonitions

Peace on Dong Jiadu Street

Guinea Pigs

Christ Figures

The Wall

Making Peace Between Tribes and Energy Lords

Frontier Justice

Antibiotics in Your Meat

The Lord Talking

Bachman’s Warbler

Jimmy Barr, Squatter

Uncertainty In CERT

Voices: The Founding Father

Tribal Control

Flies vs. Wasps

Storefront Justice

Kneecapping
