New, Rare and Unreleased Material from the DMZ Empire
New, Rare and Unreleased Material from the DMZ Empire
My latest, from CorpWatch: The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity funds, may soon acquire the $2 billion government contracting business of consulting giant Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the biggest suppliers of technology and personnel to…
Lorin Maazel, the director of the New York Philharmonic, presented a bouquet to a performer in Pyongyang (Chang W. Lee/NY Times) More here, here and here. Great shots of the Philharmonic’s visit here. Timely analysis of U.S. ties with the…
“The beauty of this country is that someone who makes a statement and disrupts a public meeting won’t be taken out and shot.” — Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee, after an antiwar protestor from Code Pink was removed from a…
Birmingham 1963 Gaza 2008 AP: Egyptian security personnel use a water cannon to disperse Palestinian women, supporters of Hamas, during a demonstration at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2008. Hundreds of Palestinian…
Domestic surveillance in America: The Pentagon’s Counter-Intelligence Field Activity (CIFA) office signed onto this website today to read my story on the contract it recently awarded to a British contractor linked to former defense intelligence boss Stephen Cambone. The IP…
My latest, from CorpWatch: A Pentagon office that claims to monitor terrorist threats to U.S. military bases in North America — and was once reprimanded by the U.S. Congress for spying on antiwar activists — has just awarded a multi-million…
In 2006 and 2007, I had the tremendous honor of working under a Katrina Media Fellowship from the Open Society Institute to write stories about the social and economic impact of Hurricane Katrina. About 25 print journalists, film makers, photographers…
My latest, from CorpWatch. “A new U.S. intelligence institution will allow government spy agencies to conduct broad surveillance and reconnaissance inside the country for the first time. Contractors like Boeing, BAE Systems, Harris Corporation, L-3 Communications and Science Applications International…
From Hankyoreh, via H.K. Suh in DC: “Imagine an American Christian rock band going to North Korea, a country accused of being one of the most oppressed in terms of religious freedom, and not only performing a Christian hymn but…
Bruce Cumings, the nation’s foremost historian of US-Korean relations, analyzes the Bush administration’s recent deal with Kim Jong Il: “Bizarre events may well place Bush and ‘evildoer’ Kim Jong Il side by side as peacemakers. If so, all well and…
Darrel Petties & Strength in Praise rock out at the Cooper-Young Festival, Memphis, Tennessee, September 15, 2007. Photo by Tim Shorrock.
“Legacy of Ashes,” the new book on the CIA by the New York Times’ Tim Weiner, has been getting rave reviews from the mainstream press. Now, finally, people with historical knowledge of the agency are beginning to poke holes in…
Despite the casinos, things are still tough down on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast two years after Hurricane Katrina. Read my piece, “Hurricane Recovery, Republican Style” today in Salon. My reporting from the Gulf over the past year has been subsidized by…
My latest: The role of US intelligence in Hurricane Katrina. Read an update on the domestic use of military spy satellites here.
Direct US negotiations with North Korea finally bear fruit for the two Koreas: the leaders of South and North will meet August 28-30 for a summit. Details from Hankyoreh. Update: The summit was postponed until October.
…and if you’re a music fan, don’t miss Respect Yourself, the new PBS documentary on Memphis’ Stax Records, produced by my fellow Memphian, Robert Gordon. It’s a beautifully done tribute to the label that produced some of the greatest American…
In October, 2005, one month after Hurricane Katrina, I spent three weeks living in New Orleans to learn about the Common Ground free clinic. Located in Algiers, just across the Mississippi River from the French Quarter, the clinic served anyone…
Japan’s nuclear power industry has a terrible record of cover-ups, and the recent earthquake in Niigata has triggered another one. The quake caused fires and a significant leak of radioactive fuel, forcing the government to shut down the world’s largest…
R.J. Hillhouse, the author of Outsourced, the latest in espionage fiction, takes an interesting look at real, live outsourcing at the CIA in Sunday’s Washington Post. Here’s an excerpt: “Although the contracting system is Byzantine, there’s no question that the…
