Hurricane Me

(This story about Hurricane Mitch was initially published in Fathom.)
 
If you live somewhere, you don’t want me to visit. No, really. I’m approximately as safe to have around as the Grim Reaper. In fact, I seem to be his official advance scout. I can’t count the places that have experienced genuine disaster soon after welcoming me with warm, soon-to-be-severed arms.

Katniss Fight: Could Jennifer Lawrence Take Down PETA?

(The fourth part of an exposé of PETA’s mass butchery of healthy pets.)

“Screw PETA,” quoth Jennifer Lawrence, the actress of the moment. This is a young woman with genuine courage: a good thing, as she will likely be terrorized in the months to come.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals do not play nice. Not at all.

PETA’s Death Cult, Part 9: Meet the Man Who is Rescuing Animal Welfare

Nathan Winograd is the leader of the No Kill movement, a genuine revolution in animal welfare. Three million healthy and adoptable pets will be killed next year in America’s shelters. Not, however, if Winograd and his growing army have any say. I caught up with him a few weeks after the No Kill Advocacy Centre‘s annual conference in Washington D.C.

Dysmedia

Who I was in the Nineties.

(Writing. Media that was New at the time. Poorly scanned photography. Primitive graphics. Quite proud of this.)

Vicky Cristina Malia Oaxaca (What the President’s Daughter Was REALLY Doing in Mexico)

There are so many reasons to criticize President Obama’s decision to allow his daughter to spend her spring break down Mexico way in the city of Oaxaca. Some of these reasons are depressingly ignorant, but others are refreshingly stupid. Not knowing anything about Oaxaca is a good place to start.

I’m afraid Malia Obama was just not having a Jenna Bush-style spring break.

PETA’s Death Cult, Part 10: Wikipedia Cuts on the Bias

They say that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. What this quip fails to acknowledge, however, is just what an achievement the camel is. No mean feat to design one.

Wikipedia is a camel.

I’ve always been a fan of Wikipedia. Detractors argue that you have to double-check everything you encounter there. I see this as an argument in its favor: you should double-check any fact, encountered anywhere, but only Wikipedia comes with this useful caveat branded on its communal forehead. 

I’d Like to Apologize for Calling Rush Limbaugh a Sex Tourist

DEMOCRATS HAVE been disgracefully uncharitable to Rush Limbaugh. He has apologized for calling a perfectly decent woman a slut and a prostitute; he deserves generosity in return. The man’s fickle sponsors have been departing all weekend, like ships from a sinking rat, so I propose that Democrats demonstrate bipartisan moral support, by sponsoring Mr.

PETA’s Death Cult, Part 11: What Is it About Animal Rights That Brings Out the Worst in People?

Animal rights activists, opposed to the No Kill movement, recently threatened to kill Nathan Winograd’s beloved pet dog. The threat appeared on a Facebook page entitled “I Hate Dog Breeders.”

Nathan Winograd is of course the leading voice for the No Kill movement. His campaign to end the unnecessary killing of shelter animals has inspired all sorts of slurs, one of which is that he is in the pocket of the puppy mill industry.

Hairless Love: Understanding Mexico’s Very Bald Dog

Fifty years ago, the Xoloitzcuintli — the Mexican Hairless dog — was on the edge of extinction. Now one sleeps in my bed. Whether this is an improvement in the creature’s circumstance can be debated. Other bald news, however, is unquestionably good: After centuries honing its attributes as the world’s weirdest (not ugliest) dog, the Mexican Hairless was officially welcomed this year at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.

How to Not Get Beheaded in Mexico

I CAN’T EVEN REMEMBER when I last experienced the beheading of a close friend. Everyone assumes it must be a weekly, or even a daily event: after all, I live in Mexico. The truth, however, is that you are as likely to have your head removed against your will in my town — Oaxaca — as you are to be murdered by roving, machete-crazed gangs in Martha’s Vineyard.

Should a Novelist Feel Bitter Losing to Stephen King? Not Really.

(THE NEW YORK TIMES, June 29, 2000. They wanted to know what it felt like to have Stephen King make a fortune on an idea which had originally been mine, and upon which I had famously not made a fortune. This piece ushers in my much-lauded period of faux self-effacement.)

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Stephen King, as I’m sure you know, made headlines — and a small fortune — when his e-novella, “Riding the Bullet,” was published online in March.

Democracy’s Best Barometer? Dead Cats.

THE CAMPAIGN MANAGER of a congressional candidate in Arkansas returns home to find his children’s cat bludgeoned to death. The creature’s skull is caved in. The word “liberal” has been scrawled on the corpse. Why should you care?

It is easy to dismiss this as a small crime, relative to the atrocities we read about daily.