Houses get old. Their roofs leak, foundations shift, pipes rust, but her dogs ate a Willits’ woman’s house. “My house was already quite damaged when I bought it,” Lydia Dittmeier, 45, begins, “but I don’t…
Posts published in December 2001
They started by shaking hands. We said “Salaam aleikum” — peace be upon you — then the first pebbles flew past my face. A small boy tried to grab my bag. Then another. Then someone…
Those Cherry Cokes in a can the Coca-Cola people are selling these days are convenient, I'll grant you, and at least come close to tasting like the real thing. But, boy, do they take the…
“If liberty means anything at all,” George Orwell wrote, “it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” From all indications, the gatekeepers for big media in the United States…
Has the collapse of Enron finally pushed social security “reform” off the political agenda for the foreseeable future? Half the stock in Enron employees' 401(k) retirement plans was Enron paper, contributed as a company match,…
In 1968, while speaking at an Unbirthday Party for Lyndon Johnson held during the Democratic convention in Chicago, I revealed to the audience the true story of a reporter who had once interviewed LBJ. After…
Yet another important story getting buried in these days of War and Patriotism is the Federal Communications Commission’s continuing campaign to get rid of regulations hindering the increasing monopolization of the news industry. On Sept.…
SUV, pickup truck or sedan, hardtop or convertible, it doesn't matter. You're driving what is in effect a moving billboard, labeled front, side and rear with the manufacturer's name and distinctive logo. Racing car drivers…
The story had everything: drugs, rape, torture, angry Indians, a corrupt justice system, gringo intervention… Philip True would have loved to cover it. But True, one-time correspondent for the San Antonio Texas Express-News in Mexico,…