November/December 2000

November December 2000 CoverFeatures
Trillion-Dollar Hideaway
by Ken Silverstein
Welcome to the tax-free tropics, where wealthy Americans -- including many made rich by the stock market boom -- have found a sunny place to stash their cash to avoid the IRS.

The Same River Twice
by Bill Donahue
A kayak journey down the Los Angeles River finds miles of concrete, great blue herons, and an ambitious vision for turning this flood control chute back into a river.

The Healing Game
photo essay by Tim Hetherington
text by Bill Berkeley
Liberia's child veterans have lived through -- and participated in -- one of the decade's most brutal civil wars. But on the soccer field, the former combatants are finding a measure of normalcy.

The Conscience of Place: Sand Creek
by Verlyn Kinkenborg
In the first of a series on forgotten places that stirred the American conscience, the author revisits the site fo teh Sand Creek Massacre, where in 1864 the Colorado Cavalry staged a savage attack on a peaceful Indian village.

Camp Fear
by Bruce Selcraig
Politicians nationwide tout boot camps as a tough-love solution to juvenile crime. But abuses -- and a death -- at camps in South Dakota have raised serious concerns about programs that treat kids like military recruits.

Patriotic Acts
by Bill McKibben
Reflections on civic duty, revolution, and civil disobedience in a globalized age

Departments
Backtalk
Readers sound off on President Clinton's legacy, rich political candidates, and governmental anti-terrorism activities.

Outfront

  • Trouble in Coca Country: For community workers on Colombia's cocaine frontier, the war on drugs is getting personal.
  • Growing Resistance: Is agribusiness squandering one of medicine's most potent weapons?
  • Righteous Brothers: Two of Cesar Chavez's sons are putting farmworkers and radio on the same wavelength.
  • Underage Unions: Across the world, child laborers are banding together to demand "work with dignity." But international labor organizations say they won't support child-worker unions -- because kids shouldn't be working, period.
  • Hip-hop Litigator: Mother Jones' Hellraiser of the month, Van Jones

Exposure
Runway show: Las Vegas, Nevada

Power Plays: The New Political Theater
by Paul Taylor
Late-night comedy: where more Americans get their politics than any other source

The Commons
by Sue Halpern
A new federal initiative is supposed to stop road construction in large national forests. So why does it exempt the biggest one?

Media Jones

  • Media Pick: Singer-songwriter Greg Brown -- why good politics doesn't excuse bad songwriting
  • Without a Paddle -- On his kayak journey down the Los Angeles River (" The Same River Twice"), Bill Donahue survived a dunking in its foul waters, an encounter with a Charles Manson look-alike, and a near beheading by a wire strung across the river. His seriocomic odyssey sent us in search of other works where an idyllic river trip falls prey to the undertow.
  • Book, music, and film reviews
  • Novel Gifts for the Holidays: A veteran organizer and University of California professor Arthur Blaustein recommends fiction titles to challenge the imagination, open the mind, and (just maybe) change the world.

P.S.
Cartoon by Charise Mericle Harper'