Journalism
Occupy Wall Street Did More Than You Think
Published in The AtlanticA decade before United Nations climate scientists issued a “code red for humanity,” the 20-year-old college junior Evan Weber joined several thousand protesters descending on Wall Street to declare a code red for democracy. At the height of the Great Recession, Weber and his generation saw the climate crisis staring them in the face, along …
The Triumph of Occupy Wall Street
Published in The AtlanticOn her first campaign stop in Iowa in April, Hillary Clinton struck a decisively populist tone, declaring that “the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top.” Later, she sharpened her rhetoric on income inequality by comparing the salaries of America’s richest hedge fund managers with kindergarten teachers. Clinton isn’t alone. Democratic …
Spain’s Rebellion Moves to Print
Published in TruthoutLa Marea, Spain’s radical new monthly magazine, operates out of a narrow, lime green-colored office space in southeastern Madrid, in the working class stronghold of Vallecas. There is a small foyer with a couch to receive visitors; some cramped desks with three second-hand computers bought at 70 euros a piece; and a back room with …
With Sephardic Routes, Spain Connects with Jewish History
Published in Los Angeles TimesGIRONA, Spain—For Aida Oceransky, life as a Jew in Spain today isn’t the silent burden it used to be. When she emigrated here from her native Mexico in 1968, Oceransky didn’t dare talk about her family’s Ukrainian Jewish past. All the Jews she knew in the 1970s and ’80s went to Mass. Even a decade …
“We Have to Be Awake”: Interview with Vaclav Havel
Published in NewsweekTwenty years after he led the Velvet Revolution, paving the way for the rise of democracy in Eastern Europe, Václav Havel, a playwright and dissident who became free Czechoslovakia’s first president, sat down in Berlin with NEWSWEEK’s Michael Levitin to discuss fear of Russia, the importance of NATO, and why some of his countrymen still …
Rescuing Mendelssohn from the Nazi Smear Campaign
Published in NewsweekWhen the 20-year-old Felix Mendelssohn conducted Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion in Berlin in 1829, it caused a national sensation. In those days, when a composer died his contemporaries stopped playing him and his music died as well. But Mendelssohn, a brilliant composer, pianist and conductor who felt indebted to Bach, broke with tradition and performed …
Culture Shift: China’s New Confucianism
Published in Los Angeles TimesLast fall, on the eve of Confucius‘ birthday (Sept. 28) and the International Confucius Culture Festival, I visited several of China’s 2,000 Confucian temples, including a palatial complex in Qufu, the sage’s hometown, one of the three great examples of classical Chinese architecture. What struck me in conversation with the locals was not how much …
The iMac as Bauhaus’s Progeny
Published in Toronto StarToronto Star File Photos Products of the Bauhaus design movement are more findable than you might expect from such an avant-garde, long-ago phenomenon. One example is the Toronto Dominion Centre by architect Mies van der Rohe. BERLIN—It’s curious to see a building as a living, breathing thing. That was my first thought some weeks ago …
Shadow Places: A Journalist’s Rediscovery Breaks the Long Silence in Bavaria
Published in TikkunThe town of Plattling lies at the foothills of the Bavarian Forest, which climbs mountainously off the plain where the Isar and Danube rivers meet in southeastern Germany. The sky hangs oppressively gray here, even in June when the potato and sugar beet fields emit a green summer luster and the Niederbayern, or Lower Bavaria, …
Germany’s Greek Tragedy: Review
Published in Financial TimesIn the waning days of the first world war, with two million German soldiers dead and more than twice that many injured, a sailors’ mutiny in the northern port city of Kiel kicked off a revolution that would destroy imperial Germany and set the republic on a visionary, democratic course. As a result, striking miners …
Wallace Weir: A New Beginning in California’s River Management
Published in Water DeeplyThink of the Delta floodplain as a giant bathtub. Now imagine you’ve got a plug that you can insert or take out at will, allowing you to control the amount of water that fills up the plain, creating ideal conditions to grow the aquatic plant life that supports salmon and other fish species. Finally, imagine that …