Articles
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“The Monkey’s Head”
Does a New Mexico museum have looted and smuggled artifacts in its collection? It’s among the best collections of pre-Columbian art anywhere. In a gallery at the Palace of the Governors museum in Santa Fe, N.M., dimly lit and hushed but for a
The Dichotomies in Indian Women’s Lives
For every truth you find in India, the opposite is equally true. This well-worn cliché is doubly true when looking at the lives of Indian women. Indira Gandhi’s rule as Prime Minister of India, for example, was a triumph for women in leadership,
Stopping the Pillage
In Peru, villagers mobilize against the looters who ransack ancient sites A lean man in his 50s with skin burnished from a lifetime working in sugar cane fields, Gregorio Becerra remembers the days when his father used to bring home ancient ceramic pots
Tremors from the Enola Gay Controversy: An Argument for the Postmodern Museum
WASHINGTON — Sitting in his book-lined office at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, Michael Neufeld talks bitterly about his role as the much-maligned curator of the most infamous museum exhibition never mounted. Michael Neufeld, curator of the Enola Gay exhibition. (Photo
A Judge in Coal Country
In the coal business, lawsuits are as common as roof falls and black lung disease. They’re part of doing business. Charles H. Haden II, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Charleston WV. (The Charleston (WV) Gazette) At first blush, the West
General on a Tightrope
With his country’s domestic and foreign policies largely buried in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, General Pervez Musharraf, the military ruler of Pakistan, faced a stark choice: to align his country solidly behind the United States’ war against
Haitians in New York
Brooklyn, NY — It was one of those New York City summer days when the heat bounced back and forth between buildings and the asphalt seemed to sweat. The temperature alone was cause for irritation. The police department’s timing could not have been
Beauty and the Brothel: Prostitutes and AIDS in India
Beauty and her customer Naren in the brothel. Beauty is from Bangladesh and without papers she sleeps her way across the border in order to go home to visit her five-year old son. She is very popular with the customers. She says of
The Life and Legacy of Paul de Kruif
It was the first day of the 2001 Key West Literary Seminar — an annual event that attracts hundreds of readers and writers to the southernmost town in the United States — and one of the panelists was observing that the whole enterprise
An Amazon Preserve
What immediately strikes a newcomer upon entering the forest is how noisy it is, and how dark, beneath the canopy. Late last summer, I found myself standing in a preserve, a few hours drive from Manaus, Brazil in “continuous forest” which stretches for
What Bodies?
Leon Daniel, as did others who reported from Vietnam during the 1960s, knew about war and death. So he was puzzled by the lack of corpses at the tip of the Neutral Zone between Saudi Arabia and Iraq on Feb. 25, 1991. Clearly
Belly of the Beast
On a broad and shallow lake situated in the middle of a vast oil field north of the city of Surgut in northwestern Siberia, a Khanty (han-tee) fisherman poles his battered metal boat — an old Russian motorboat sans the motor — across
The Dailiness of Life: One Man’s Struggle With Mental Illness
“As the sun was setting it was fucking eerie, very unnerving, nothing has changed. The neighborhood’s still the same.” Eighteen years ago, I began shooting a 20-year documentary about my Uncle Charlie and the rest of my Brooklyn family. This no-holds-barred photographic epic
Haitian-Americans: Their Search for Political Identity in South Florida
Phillip Brutus insists he isn’t nervous, but there is an anxious edge to him on this first day of the Florida legislative session. It’s there, in his clipped conversations and his hurried gait as he walks the halls of the State House, shaking
A Son Confronts Oil Poverty in the Niger Delta
“As much money as they take out of here, this place should look like New York,” Ken Wiwa says, gesturing at the passing landscape as his car, chauffeured by his father’s driver, Sonny, speeds southeast from Port Harcourt towards Ogoniland along the area’s
Hispanic Workers Health Needs are Overwhelming Southern Poultry Towns
Everyone’s time is set to four thirty in the afternoon in Siler City, North Carolina. It’s the hour when everyone comes home. Children come home from school and toss their backpacks on the floor. Parents come home from the chicken plants and leave
The Future of Bonobos: An Animal Akin to Ourselves
Human tragedies often reverberate in unexpected ways, threatening environmental destruction and endangering other species. Consider the unfolding tragedy of the Congo, where continued fighting has caused the deaths of more than 1.7 million people in the past two years. Caught in the merciless
When the Sea Calls
Douglas Goodale, by the age of 32, had eight 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 22-foot purple lobster boat, “Barney,” about one
A Museum In Black and White
In the mythology of the Underground Railroad, the Ohio River has a sacramental status. Crossing it transformed slaves into free men and women. The alchemy was imperfect, to be sure: Under federal law, slaves in the North remained property and could be recaptured.
Look Over Here
Few American presidents projected the image of Commander-In-Chief more than Ronald Reagan. He snapped salutes at Marine honor guards around the White House with the skill of a Washington, Grant or Eisenhower. While those presidents learned on the battlefield, Reagan was trained by
