A year ago this week, a 22-year old Army reject with a shaved head and a 9mm opened rapid-fire on a Congressional meet-and-greet outside a Tucson shopping mall, killing six and wounding 14, including a non-fatal headshot against Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The day after the shooting, I flew to Tucson to look for stories. Upon landing I found my way to Sportsman’s Wharehouse, the massive gun-shop where Loughner had purchased his Glock as easily as buying a bagel. At the counter I saw two kids Loughner’s age with sleeve and neck tattoos indicating current or past membership in one of the area’s many white power gangs. When I asked the guy behind the counter if the shooting had impacted sales, his manager cut me off and said staff weren’t allowed to talk to press. (more…)
There were cops everywhere. Some stood in packs around their police cars, others patrolled the fenced-off perimeter on foot while motorcycle cops circled the block in pairs. There were reinforcements outside LAPD’s massive headquarters, conveniently located across the street from City Hall…
Most don’t realize that much of the abuse happened while protesters were in police custody, completely outside the range of the press and news media. And the disgraceful truth is that lot of the abuse was police sadism, pure and simple…
These days, tourism is worth about $15 billion and 230,000 jobs to Berlin, Germany, and with 20 million annual hotel stays the city jumped past Rome last year to become the third most visited European city, trailing only Paris and…
They think that things are all right/For the deer and the dachshund are one. – Wallace Stevens I just came back from two days of snubbery at a conference in Budapest, and I’m here to tell you that even in…
eXiled Online Special UK Correspondent LONDON–As you’ve perhaps completely failed to notice, Russia recently won the prize of hosting the 2018 World Cup finals. Any ignorance about this on your part is understandable since a) you’re likely to be American…
From The eXiled’s Special Australasia Correspondent PERTH, AUSTRALIA–A few hours ago (as of writing this), Julian Assange released his first US Embassy cable regarding Australian politics. It’s still too early for me to make my mind up, but it’s never…
Maybe what’s happening in America today will seem funny to some other culture in some future time—how it happened that in the depths of America’s decline, Liberals, the great opposition to everything mean and ruthless in this culture, couldn’t muster…
Good news from the trenches of California’s water war: The cabal of billionaire farmers and real estate developers that has been engineering a stealth privatization of the state’s water supply is under attack. Two devastating lawsuits have been filed this summer in an attempt to claw back hundreds of millions (and possibly billions) of dollars in ill-gotten profits from a group of wealthy farmers and to bring one of the world’s largest water banks back under public control.
![Victorville Dispatch: Still Here, Still Proud [and Still Poor]](http://exiledonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/me-shooting-gun-270x270.jpg)
For months people had been asking me if I’m still living in Victorville and if so, why I stopped writing about it. Some dumbshit even accused me of running back to live the big city life, as if I was…
Story first published on AlterNet Anyone interested in taking the pulse of the GOP base in 2010 has a few options. They can watch Fox News at any hour of any day. They can trot down to their local Tea…
So it’s that time of the year again. That time of the year when you put on the stupid, oversized green hat, get outrageously drunk, approach a young man/woman/shaved-ape in a bleary haze and ramble on about how your third-cousin’s…
I had just moved into a house in the northern suburbs of Colorado Springs, and was getting to know one of my new roommates, a very attractive female in her mid 20’s. This was promising. At some point though, the…
This article was first published by AlterNet. HESPERIA, CA—Say hello to the thing that could save our gas-guzzlin’ suburban lifestyle: affordable residential solar power that’s within reach of the most cash-strapped America consumer. This breakthrough is not a result of…
I was in Detroit to visit my girlfriend’s family for Thanksgiving and decided to take a look around. Knowing my tastes, locals told me to head for a burnt-out slum called Highland Park, HP for short, as it’s hands-down the…
Article originally published by Vice magazine Prospects have never been good for ex-cons. Even during good economic times they hover between 50 and 75 percent unemployment, and generally take home about nine grand a year. No wonder 70 percent of…
Here’s yet another depressing area in which Victorville excels: According to the latest Housing Hall of Misery stats released by the National Association of Realtors, the greater San Bernardino metropolitan area came in 3rd place in the race to the…
This story first appeared on Alternet.org It was immediately obvious wandering through Berlin last weekend that the celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall were in trouble. In Alexanderplatz subway station, the main eastern transport…
MONTERREY, MEXICO — Another day, another shootout. Forget about the tropical storm that hit the Pacific just now, it’s raining bullets in this biatch. It seems that every day there is another firefight in this or that part of the…
This article was first published in the New York Press. HE WEARS A black hoodie to protect himself from the cold rain. The baby-faced guy is Dominican, probably in his early twenties. He rushes by me at the Graham Avenue…
