WRITING

A bike-riding vandal threw rocks at windows of the Greek Consulate in Manhattan Wednesday in an attack that may be linked to the bombing of a military recruiting center in Times Square, police said. | More >>

Notes: I didn’t do much for this story. We got there well after the place was cleaned up.

It’s the last lap dance for Scores, the strip club empire whose comely babes attracted A-list celebs and money-burning execs. | More >>

Notes: The PDF includes the other stories I contributed to that day.

Two aspiring fashionistas at Manhattan’s prestigious Fashion Institute of Technology were busted Wednesday night for selling cocaine outside their pricey college dorm, police said. | More >>

Notes: I did the student reactions in front of the dorm.

Straphangers cursed and drivers flew into road rage when told Wednesday night of a plan to raise subway fares and put tolls on the free East River bridges. | More >>

Grammy-winning songbird Ashanti graced the Daily News float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade—but before she sang for the thousands who lined the route and the millions watching at home, she talked with New York’s Hometown Paper. | More >>

Eric Holder, Barack Obama’s choice for attorney general, faces a roasting from Senate Republicans for his role in former President Bill Clinton’s last-minute pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich.

But the GOP’s aim isn’t to scuttle Holder. It’s to make Senate Democrats squirm, sources told the Daily News. | More >>

Notes: I was in East Elmhurst interviewing Ms. Holder.

Fur lover Lindsay Lohan showed up for a red-carpet event in Paris Saturday and got a dusting of white flour from an animal rights activist. | More >>

The retired aircraft carrier turned West Side floating museum reopened its doors Saturday after a $115 million makeover. | More >>

Members of a Queens church rocked by the alleged sexual shenanigans of a Viagra-popping vicar prayed Wednesday night that they overcome the scandal.

About 150 parishioners gathered for a "prayer service" at Our Lady of Snows Church in Floral Park to ask God to guide them "through this very difficult time." | More >>

In Stuyvesant Heights, young black families—and there are plenty along vibrant Lewis Avenue—see new hope in Obama and in their young children. Most of the young parents here never thought they would see a black president in their lifetime. But Obama made them see their future—and that of their children—in a new, hopeful light. | More >>

Notes: Besides the photo for this article, my friend Arnold Mahesan also snapped a few dozen great shots — with Niki, of course — of the pandemonium in Times Square. The photos were featured in this audio slide show by Kingsley Kanu.

The Brooklyn man who says police sadistically sodomized him with a walkie-talkie wept Saturday in his hospital bed as he held hands and prayed with the Rev. Al Sharpton. | More >>

The Rev. Al Sharpton went to the hospital bedside of a 24-year-old Brooklyn man today who claims cops brutally sodomized him with a walkie-talkie.

"I want to hear what he has to say," said Sharpton, who was flanked by Michael Mineo’s two attorneys. "I haven’t come to any conclusions." | More >>

Notes: This story went on-line a few hours before the full print version.

A no-sell zone near Ground Zero teems with dozens of vendors hawking cheesy World Trade Center souvenirs and fake designer handbags—even though it’s illegal.

A report by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer found 156 vendors—an average of more than 15 per day—on the somber streets during a recent 11-day stretch.

"Ground Zero and the memory of that day deserve dignity and respect," Stringer said. "Hawking counterfeit goods and creating a carnival-like atmosphere is just not right."

Stringer said his staff found more than 50 peddlers in one afternoon in the five block area where vending is prohibited. The report, obtained exclusively by the Daily News, will be made public today. | More >>

Notes: This is as good a time as any to remind readers that reporters don’t write article titles.

Dominique Rosario, with six fellow dancers, hoofed down to Chelsea for a shot at the big time on "Randy Jackson Presents: America’s Best Dance Crew." The MTV reality series sought New York-area contestants for its upcoming third season. More than two dozen dance troupes turned out, strutting their synchronized stuff. | More >>

Going once, going twice—going nowhere. The sellers of the last home-run baseball hit in Yankees Stadium struck out Saturday when the ball didn’t sell at a sports memorabilia auction in Manhattan. | More >>

Notes: There’s one error in this article: Todd Chimoss said the Dell Webb’s rings, not Mickey Mantle’s car, would sell for $600,000-$800,000. He said the car should go for $100,000.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, and Sen. John McCain, the Republican candidate, defended their increasingly negative campaigns in the final presidential debate Wednesday night and in a unique twist to appeal to white middle-class voters directed their comments on the economy to “Joe the plumber,” an Ohio voter who represents highly sought-after swing voters in battleground states. | More >>

With more and more people owning just a mobile phone, pollsters acknowledge that land-line polling will eventually go the way of the telegraph and the rotary phone. “It will be tough to leave out 40 percent of the population one day,” conceded Gallop Polls spokesman Eric Nielsen. “It’s a train that’s coming, and there’s no way around it.” | More >> 10

Notes: Contributed by NYU Livewire.

Dozens of owners of illegal guns took their weapons to church Saturday—with the blessing of Brooklyn prosecutors. | More >>

A college student was so moved by the image of a brutally beaten elderly Brooklyn woman, he led a door-to-door effort to raise the $900 stolen from her during the attack. "She could have easily been my grandmother," said Keston Boyce, 26, of Brownsville, Brooklyn. "It hit close to home." | More >> 1

New York. Elvis Presley’s favorite peacock jumpsuit—featured on the cover of his 1975 album “Promised Land”—is on the auction block for the first time, an Upper East Side memorabilia vendor announced Thursday. | More >>

Notes: My last article with METRO New York. Pretty fun.

New York. The world’s largest charitable fund and the mayor of New York’s philanthropic program have teamed up to help the world quit smoking and save an estimated 1 billion deaths from cigarette smoke in the next century. | More >>

New York. More New Yorkers who attack MTA workers should be charged with felony assault, but that won’t happen without a change in the law, the Brooklyn District Attorney said yesterday. | More >>

Parents whose kids have been burned by dangerously hot playground mats have an ally at City Hall. | More >>

The Upper East Side doesn’t just have the ritziest stores, the most exclusive schools and our billionaire mayor’s not-so-humble abode. It also has the best quality of life in the nation — but not just because of the money — according to a one-of-a-kind study that focused on indicators like access to knowledge and health care, rather than per capita income or gross domestic product. | More >>

New York. It’s hell all over again for victims of domestic violence whose battering spouses call the Administration for Children’s Services with false claims about their abusive parenting. | More >>

If some Gothamites are more worried about A-Rod and the new iPhone than going hungry, they might say a bit of thanks. Their neighbor may not be so lucky. | More >>

Manhattan. When it comes to vexing New Yorkers, parking is the perennial champion. But it doesn’t have to be that way, says Wiley Norvell of Transportation Alternatives, a group that aims to get Gotham over its love-hate relationship with the car. | More >>

For these two friends, who have 143 years and 4,200 miles in the last month between them, it’s all about the adventure. | More >>

Smokers are asking the city for help quitting at three times last year’s rate since New York’s hike in cigarette taxes took effect, the Health Department said. | More >>

In an atmosphere of job losses and a souring economy, the U.S. Department of Labor held its annual conference promoting financial literacy yesterday. But one panelist said much of America’s recent economic woes could have been avoided with a little financial know-how. | More >>

A gay couple looking to adopt a child was discriminated against, a new complaint alleges. | More >>

The Great Hummus Faceoff seemed like a tall order to Kirk Rademaker. Hummus hawkers Sabra Dipping Co. commissioned the sand artist to create busts of presidential candidates Barack Obama, John McCain and Hillary Clinton out of the garlicky, mashed chickpea dip for the 54th Summer Fancy Food Show. Republican McCain was the easiest given his jowly mug. | More >>

Talk about immaturity. The 12-year-old girl who was allegedly stabbed Wednesday by an 18-year-old woman said calling her older assailant “immature” over MySpace set off the attack. | More >>

Pride Weekend isn’t just a celebration. This year’s festivities kicked off Thursday with the fifth anniversary of Lawrence v. Texas, a landmark Supreme Court case that overturned 14 state sodomy laws across the U.S. and helped open the door for gay marriage. | More >>

The people building New York’s most unique park—30 feet above Manhattan’s West Side—unveiled the radical design for the project’s second phase yesterday, including a metal walkway lifting visitors 8 additional feet into a cool Amazonian canopy. | More >>

Jim Dolan has been known to enrage Knicks fans, offend women’s groups and aggravate Yankees viewers. And the relationship between the chairman of the board of Cablevision and the National Hockey League appears to have grown icy as well. | More >>

The city Health Department confirmed yesterday that seven New Yorkers have fallen ill with salmonella infections due to contaminated raw tomatoes, spreading the outbreak that has affected nearly 300 across the country and sent more than 40 to hospital. | More >>

William Lattarulo told his workers not to worry when the building began to shake, but now the contractor who allegedly cut corners at an East New York job site is facing manslaughter charges in the crushing death of a 30-year-old worker. | More >>

A track fire on a PATH train line caused commuter chaos yesterday, shutting down five stations during rush hour and sending would-be passengers scrambling for a way from Manhattan to New Jersey. | More >>

A drug raid turned deadly yesterday when three alleged conspirators tried to escape a drug bust by leaping out a ninth-floor window. | More >>

A Hispanic group said it is boycotting CNN in response to what it calls an anti-Latino "hate message" by the cable network’s star, Lou Dobbs. | More >>

Driving is slow, taking the train is better, but biking is best, according to the organizers of a rush-hour race Thursday from Brooklyn’s Fort Greene to Union Square which pedal power won handily. | More >>

City Hall. Twenty one City Council members promised a showdown with the mayor over proposed cuts to education and youth programs, saying they won’t pass the city’s $60 billion budget unless the over $400 million of funding is restored. | More >>

Jodi Reznik’s project is to paint cops—the ones we’ve lost. | More >>

Notes: The front-page lead, written by editor Mark Bulliet and myself, read like this: Jodi Reznik’s project is to paint cops—the ones we’ve lost. She gave her Portrait of "fallen angel" Detective Dillon Stewart—killed senselessly in 2005 during a traffic stop—to his family yesterday. ’I just couldn’t come to terms" with Stewart’s tragedy, said Reznik from her East 17th Street andAvenue M studio. The oil painter hopes to paint as many fallen heroes as she can, and she’s already finished her third—Officer Francis Hennessy, who collapsed and died from a brain aneurysm while responding to a gun call in Brooklyn.

Times Square. Sporting a Detroit Red Wings Steve Y-Z-E-R-M-A-N jersey, Joe Zanger-Nadis, 24, said he went all the way to his regional spelling bee finals in sixth grade, but yesterday got stumped in the first round with the name of Major League Soccer Star Claudio R-E-Y-N-A of Red Bull New York. The New Yorker was competing in the first annual Sports Spelling Bee at the ESPN Zone in Times Square, which tested fans’ skills with the monikers of famous athletes. "It’s the only soccer league I don’t follow," the defeated 24 year-old said. | More >>

NEW YORK, MAY 2 — On November 2, 2006, 25-year-old Ramiro Jara unclipped his harness from his safety line and attempted to cross between two scaffolds, 25 feet apart and 15 stories above busy morning traffic, suspended from the roof of the building he was working on.

He never made it. | More >>

MIDTOWN. New York City taxicab, for-hire vehicle and paratransit drivers were honored yesterday at the city’s annual ceremony for hacks who go above and beyond the call of duty. But for these celebrated cabbies, it was all in a day’s work. | More >>

John Feal said it was a step in the right direction, but he wasn’t thrilled that a federal court yesterday allowed lawsuits against the Port Authority on behalf of fellow sick and injured 9/11 responders. | More >>

Thomas McLean, 66, of the Bronx, was first in line for the New York Mets anthem contest, the search to find five talents who would sing the national anthem at home games this season. Was he nervous? “No, not really,” McLean said. | More >>

Notes: When I asked him if he was nervous, Thomas McLean happened to be scuffing his feet like a cross-country skier. I had to take his word for it when he answered “No.” That bit of colour unfortunately didn’t make print.

New York City is growing fatter faster than the rest of America, a Health Department report said. The study, published in Preventing Chronic Disease, said that the city’s rate of obesity grew by 17 percent between 2002 and 2004, versus 6 percent nationwide. | More >>

Notes: Attached to the PDF is the “Today’s Debate” piece I did for the issue.

Even in liberal New York State, at least one politician is taking his pro-Iraq war to the polls. Kieran Michael Lalor, a former Marine, is running for Congress as an Iraq veteran who remains committed to Bush’s Iraq policy. | More >>

Notes: This was part of a package on the 5th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

FLATIRON. Valerie Plame Wilson has worked in exotic locales and in dangerous situations to defend America. But the Spy Club in the Flatiron district, with its leather-upholstered doors, mood-lit dance floor and black-and-white posters of James Bond was new for the former C.I.A. operative. “Serious policy discussion is not complete unless we have the disco balls,” she said, pointing to the spinning orbs hanging from the ceiling. | More >> 21

The Irish pubs that line Second Avenue did brisk business yesterday. Revelers bar-hopped while snapping photos of the accident scene [the fallen crane on 51st street which destroyed a townhouse and killed eight]. The second floor of the Pig ’n’ Whistle pub provided an unobstructed view into the back of what had been the townhouse. | More >>

Notes: I did the bulk of the reporting for the adjacent article on the accident besides the AP stuff.

Pride, envy, lust,—and now stem cell research? As if we didn’t have enough guilt, a Vatican spokesman announced seven new deadly "social" sins that include pollution, creating poverty, drug abuse and "morally dubious" scientific experiments such as stem cell research. | More >>

Notes: This was just a re-write from the wire services, but it was still fun. I (almost) regret holding back on a Spitzer joke.

Manhattan. Residents at an apartment building in Harlem know the six-story building’s elevator can open its doors — even when the elevator’s moving. | More >>

MIDTOWN. Two businessmen were slashed in a Midtown office building yesterday after an altercation with a customer at around noon, police said. | More >>

In November 2006, 25-year-old Raymond Jara of Brooklyn died from a fall while working on a building near Union Square. His death prompted the city to create the Scaffold Worker Safety Task Force. | More >>

Notes: This is not quite the original piece.

JERSEY CITY, Feb. 5 Not a lot of people at polling station E1 in downtown Jersey City on the first floor of the Battery Review Senior Citizens home were struggling with their choices in the New Jersey presidential primary Tuesday. | More >>

Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, is a strongly Democratic neighborhood with an overwhelmingly black population. And when you ask people who they’re supporting in tomorrow’s Democratic primary, they’re all singing a common tune: They want Barack Obama to win. | More >>

Notes: This sounded much more pro-Obama than I had anticipated. I thought the lead was about a predominantly black neighborhood where race is important in their decisions in the Democratic primary, but that got watered down.

It is a strangely joyous, unfamiliar day for the state of New Jersey. Its Giants are football champions, feted in the Canyon of Heroes in Manhattan. And its vote is pivotal to the outcome of Super Tuesday. | More >>

Oprah Winfrey’s ongoing campaign to bring shallow sound bite political analysis to a new generation of her suburbanite fans hit a new low today. Oprah’s interview with radical culture warrior Bill O’Reilly, of FOX News fame, is just another example of how the conservative polemics continue to tear apart the political fabric that unites Americans. But the very fact that O’Reilly was invited by the unabashedly liberal media tycoon and therapist-to-the-stars shows that the saner half of America’s red-blue cultural divide just doesn’t get it. | More >>

Every publication in the democratic western world—including Turn Left—abhors the violence, destruction and death wreaked across the Muslim world in response to Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoon controversy. But that’s only half the story. | More >>

Once upon a time, The Cornell American (among other white supremacist outfits, some of whom were cited in the relevant issue) helped bring bigotry back like so many teenage girls with trucker hats. It’s the new tolerance! Young, Black men, as their logic went, are naturally predisposed to crime. (Think that’s an unfair reading? Part of the beauty of being progressive is the uncanny ability to read between the lines.) Sadly, racial stereotyping is a part of bigotry we’re still grappling with after so long. And to make matters worse, it’s the same story in the beer world.

Stout beers are the most stereotyped brews around. When was the last time you heard a beer lover who says she loves beer, but hates Guinness? All too often, beer lovers complain: too thick, too bitter, too strong. Too bad, I say.

Stouts are some of my favorite beers, and they should be some of yours, too. Good progressives shouldn’t be afraid of what they don’t know. And there’s a quality and variety among stouts that you should appreciate first before judging these dark delicacies. After all, you may like this thick, smooth style of beer. You may go black, and have a difficult decision as to whether or not to go back. | More >>

Beer and progressivism go together better than Tom DeLay and Texas grand juries. And I’m not talking about “Drinking Liberally,” the weekly social events among Cornell progressives lubricated by our old pals boxed wine and Milwaukee’s Best. Appreciating good beer is all about understanding and relishing diversity, flirting with differences, and appreciating the uniqueness of the oft-untasted brew. It is breaking the mold of Beast-chugging frat party monotony, helping make the monoculture of West Campus most hospitable for tasty brews of different backgrounds.

Enter Brewery Ommegang. I have no idea how these guys feel about Russ Feingold or whether they prefer NPR over Fox’s parody of journalism. But their beverages inspire the best progressive sentiments in the hearts of beer lovers nationwide. Based in nearby Cooperstown, NY, they represent the best possible product of ale Affirmative Action. God bless America. | More >>

Why are American human rights activists holding a rally before Canada’s Parliament Buildings instead of on Capitol Hill? | More >>

Hurricane Katrina forced young people, staff and faculty at institutions of higher learning on the Gulf Coast from their first few days of studies. In the midst of stories of bureaucratic bungling leaving Katrina victims in the cold, colleges and universities from across the country have stepped up to fill the academic void that the winds and water of Katrina left behind. | More >>

The Bush Administration’s disturbing complicity with Sudan’s National Islamic Front regime, the masterminds behind the Darfur genocide, puts America’s constructive engagement with Khartoum within sight of moral equivalence to committing the genocide itself. | More >>

Former Cornell scientists name some slimy species after White House neocons, apparently to honor them. In that same spirit, Turn Left has some suggestions of our own for animals ready to receive monikers inspired by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld! | More >>

I’m David Horowitz. And boy do I love my ego trip of a job. | More >>

In May of 2000, a very special book appeared on the streets of Khartoum. Due to heavy media restrictions imposed by the authoritarian Sudanese government, the book was distributed carefully and quickly, appearing at the entrances of mosques for patrons to peruse as they left Friday prayers. The Black Book: Imbalance of Power and Wealth in Sudan, struck a special chord with the Sudanese people. It was an instant popular hit, which comes as no surprise to the people of Sudan, victims of decades of negligent and often brutal rule from its national governments. | More >>

David Horowitz isn’t really concerned about academic freedom. If America had it his way, there’s be less freedom in colleges and universities across the country. Who is in charge of academic standards, if not academics themselves? Are we really ready for an American academy that claims truth is relative to provide a more comfortable home to the world’s most twisted conservative ideas? | More >>

How much are western media responsible for the lack of interest in the ongoing genocide in Darfur? It turns out, shabby and amoral reporting seem to have trumped journalistic integrity and the pursuit of the truth. | More >>

The genocide in Darfur, like the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster, is an opportunity to prove American righteousness—but also a mirror to our greatest faults as a civilization. | More >>

Turn Left Editor-In-Chief Andrew Garib replies to criticisms leveled against his article “Racism: We Have A Problem.” Moderator Critique included. | More >>

Notes: This was written in response to a critique of my article “Racism: We Have A Problem.” Moderator Critique included. The title of the piece is the name of the Moderator section it appeared in.

Bush’s 2004 electoral victory was less about ‘values’ and more about how the Republican party removed vital issues from the election agenda—and from the attention of Americans. Will we settle for a one-value America? | More >>

Sarah Townsley’s article was racist drivel. So why didn’t more people call a spade a spade? | More >>

A Bush-bashing fever seemed to have infected the minds of the journalistic elite – and it’s this epidemic, and not the fraudulent Bush National Guard memo, that is the real story here. | More >>

Unique times are marked – and sometimes marred – by rapid change. Indeed, the last four years have been unique in history, for both the swiftness of succession of colossal events, and for the way in which these events have scarred the lives, if not the consciousness, of the world’s inhabitants. And like other unique eras, the uneasiness of these times is equally potent abroad as it is here at home, where our leaders and the contingencies of history have conspired to produce a truly universal unrest. | More >>

Whether or not you’re a fan of Senator John McCain, you have to agree with the premise of his recent book about the need for true personal courage in politics and elsewhere – a virtue conspicuously lacking in our common federal legislator. Federal discourse is more like the lobbing of rhetorical grenades to opposing sides of great halls, wielding more often than not threats to character rather than policy, and suffering unmitigatable collateral damage to the less popular elements of ideological strains. A good analogy would be the various philosophical treatises in the men’s bathroom in Uris Library. Whether your Sigma Somethingorother, Delta Thisorthat, or the GOP, hardly anyone – in Uris stalls or on the Senate floor – gets anything meaningful across. | More >>

The growth of popular expressions of spirituality in America can be seen in part as a reaction to a paternalistic, cynical and atheistic attitude regularly associated with the Left. Instead of being seen as the champions of diversity of religion and beliefs, progressives are in general viewed (often correctly) as those who condemn religion as the people’s opiate, or worse, some form of mental delusion. | More >>

A critical look at the one of the worst bills to pass through Congress in recent history, three months after the Medicare overhaul became law. According to a recent poll, more and more Americans are having doubts about Senate Majority Leader Dr. Bill Frist’s love-child with corporate America. | More >>

George Bush’s doubious WMD Theory of Knowledge involves nothing more than distracting the world’s attention with questions about American intelligence while brushing off the real issue: The government, not just the intelligence community, was in the wrong. | More >>

We’re living under an administration for whom ‘perception management’ and ‘strategic influence’ are accepted buzz-words for thinly-veiled government-sponsored programs of thought control. America should spend its energy, money and influence on genuinely winning the ‘War of Ideas’ rather than blatantly lying to the world’s public for base realist ends. | More >>

In a time when even our most cherished liberal values are under seige from the likes of Ashcroft and Ridge, the liberal cause must be clearly restated in order to withstand attack from those who wish for an America where the rich reign and some are more equal than others. | More >>

I have written extensively on the depressing quality of political dialogue on this campus and in this country, especially discussion of the issues of highest importance. Behind party lines and empty rhetoric lies a fundamental distrust for those with opposing political views and affiliations. In the early 90’s, many of the Republican right-wing viewed President Clinton’s attempt at health insurance nationalization as a socialist Trojan Horse. Today we need look no farther than the ‘Bush is a Nazi’ camp for corresponding views in the political Left. | More >>

Very few issues are cut and dry in contemporary politics, and even fewer have a clear majority for or against a given side in the debate. The issues that Americans have decided upon – for example, civil rights, women’s rights, and women’s suffrage – have more often than not been resolved, at least legislatively, in decades past. On the other hand, contemporary issues are by definition those that have not been decided upon by the masses, whether or not a sound morality has found resonance with one debating faction or another. And yet there is one contemporary topic that much of America seems to have decided is an issue neither contentious nor worthy of debate in their eyes – one that is nonetheless as ethically cut-and-dry as women’s and civil rights. | More >>

If there’s one truism in politics in the 21st Century, it is that the media’s power is unparalleled. Governments small and large must vie for attention in order to hock their policy wares (no matter how vaudevillian or Orwellian). But simply dominating the news is not enough, for (although it may not seem this way) the viewing and reading audience is fickle. Attention must be kept, guided, and directed by the egos of Albany or Sacramento or Washington D.C. itself. | More >>

Notes: This article marks the creation of The Back Burner, our ironically positioned front-of-book section on underreported stories.

It may seem cynical of me to say this, but in the era of 24 hours news, reporters embedded among military ranks, and ‘smart’ laser-guided munitions equipped with video cameras, a picture is worth a thousand criticisms. As are military vocabulary, campaign names, the rhetoric of the belligerents, and reassurances of moral high-standing from government officials. | More >>

Tax cuts, inflated government spending, and growing spending requirements on states and municipalities add up to only one thing: The misguided neoconservative ideal of small government. While America’s governments experience excruciating contractions, Americans are the ones left with empty hands. | More >>

In the current North American political environment, victories for the Left are few and far between. November’s disastrous election results are only part of the story; the defeat of Kyoto, tax cuts, military spending, social service cuts, and our government’s jingoistic attitudes towards Iraq and the UN are examples of where the advancement of progressive aims and beliefs has flat out failed. As Alexandra Berke writes in our What’s Left column, we on the progressive side of the political spectrum no doubt feel the pain. | More >>

It’s no secret that Americans are adverse to most ideas involving big government, nationwide state social programmes, or anything that is remotely related to socialization of government. Americans’ attitudes towards heath care seem no different. But here in a nation where forty-five million citizens are without proper heath coverage, it is doubtful that we can long ignore the possibility of a Canadian-style single-payer health system, nation-wide, and universally accessible. | More >>

It seems universally accepted that since the 1980’s what mainstream America calls ‘rap’ is the cheap urban parody of proper, progressive and artistically-driven music. Hip hop culture is to the world what is often seen on television or heard on your local mix radio station: an excuse for the creation of simplistic club beats and the propagation of degenerative social mores. And since the average consumer is bombarded by what hip- hop scholars would consider the least progressive and most unimpressive forms of the culture and music, the larger world of hip hop, one of the most diverse and important facets of North American culture, remains hidden from the hearts and minds of most people. Even worse is the ignorance of artistic and musical critics, the gurus of culture, who have for thirty years neglected the artistry and importance hip hop music. | More >>

Notes: This was my first article for Turn Left, Cornell’s leading liberal newspaper at the time. I would go on to become editor for more than two years and continued to work with the paper well into senior year.

I feel it imperative that this Issue of The i address the issue that has immediate importance to our readers. The attack upon the United States in September and subsequent terrorist actions take obvious precedence over other news. With an unambiguous and potentially devastating threat looming overhead, North Americans feel the incessant need to know more about the news and events surrounding the terrorist acts. | More >>

A recent letter to The i Newsletter addressed some issues regarding the production of a school publication such as The i and its counterpart, Turner Fenton’s official school paper Turneround. | More >>

It is quite ironic that 3Com’s Planet Project, a ’global’ poll whose goal is to ’cross the "Digital Divide" and reach out to all peoples’, is exclusively found on the Internet. | More >>

Notes: Table included in attached PDF.

A critique of the pharmaceutical industry’s policy towards genetically modified foods including safety claims, corporate ownership of the food industry, environmental concerns, and the idea that GM foods may end famine and hunger worldwide. | More >>

Notes: This article was published in the first edition of The i Newsletter, the opinion journal we started the previous year at Turner Fenton Secondary School in Brampton, Ont.