Articles in Newsweek and The Daily Beast
Arts & Entertainment writing for The Los Angeles Times
SHAKE GIRL, a graphic novel, co-adapted with the Stanford Graphic Novel Project.
This 210-page book was inspired by the article Faces of the Past and the Future (below). To access Shake Girl, go to this link and click READ.
Le Scandal
The Arab world's revolutions have exposed the moral bankruptcy of France's foreign policy.
(2359 words)
Foreign Policy, February 25, 2011
Sarkozy's Iron Lady
Meet Michèle Alliot-Marie, France's right-wing, rugby-loving new foreign minister.
(1878 words)
Foreign Policy, November 22, 2010
We Sing Everything. We Have Nothing Else ("BEST MUSIC WRITING" anthology, 2008)
Despite decades of poverty, war and dictatorship, the Congo has the richest musical history in Africa. But today it’s teeming with decadent pop stars, wannabe playas and street hustlers angling for their cut. Welcome to the most desperate scene on earth.
(3900 words)
SPIN, April 2007
Faces of the Past and the Future
The story of Tat Marina, a beautiful teenage karaoke star taken as a second wife by a powerful Cambodian official — until his first wife wreaked an awful revenge on her, stealing her face, and perhaps, her future. The inspiration for the graphic novel SHAKE GIRL.
(about 5500 words)
Open City, Fall 2006
Future Shock (1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(pdf)
Depressing housing projects, no job opportunities, and racist cops. Sound familiar? The French-born children of Arab and black African immigrants know what life in the ’hood is all about. So they rose up and raged with 21st-century fire ... a frontline report from the banlieue of Paris.
(2500 words)
Vibe, March 2006
A Tragedy of No Importance
A detailed investigation and reconstruction of the March 30, 1997 grenade attack in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the subsequent FBI investigation, and what it means for nation-building efforts and democracy.
(about 8000 words, plus notes and sources)
Posted March 29, 2005
Shook Ones ("BEST MUSIC WRITING" anthology special mention, 2004)
The boys of Sierra Leone were kidnapped, drugged, and instructed to kill their neighbors. Many have adopted American hip-hop as a way to forget the devastation.
(3900 words)
SPIN, July 2004
Cleaning House
Sierra Leone’s war crimes tribunal defied history by going after the victors, not just the losers, of the country’s civil war. Rebuilders of Iraq are taking notice.
(3200 words)
Legal Affairs magazine, Sept-Oct 2003
So Far From God, So Close to Ground Zero
Mexican immigrants are transforming New York City’s Latino presence, even as they cope with the usual--and some unexpected--pitfalls
(3600 words)
Los Angeles Times Magazine, August 3, 2003
Devil’s Advocates
Three lawyers who chose to defend accused terrorists and war criminals discover something about themselves, and that ‘evil’ is not always absolute
(3200 words)
Los Angeles Times Magazine, December 1, 2002
A Terrorist’s Second Thoughts
Twenty-six years after he killed an exiled Chilean ambassador, the assassin and the victim’s son, an L.A. muralist, understand a simple truth about young men blinded by ideology
(3737 words)
Los Angeles Times Magazine, July 21, 2002
Bringing Bethlehem Home
Inside the Church of the Nativity, under siege by Israeli forces.
(1458 words)
Los Angeles Times Magazine, June 16, 2002
The Remote-Control Revolution
Nostalgic Cambodian exiles in Little Phnom Penh look homeward.
(3137 words)
Los Angeles Times Magazine, June 24, 2001
The Plotting Fields
The role of Long Beach Cambodians in a failed coup.
(1395 words)
LA Weekly, January 19, 2001
Welcome to the Jungle
Pirated American movies stock Cambodian store shelves.
(529 words)
Los Angeles Magazine, May 2000
Five Degrees of Exile
Escaping dictatorships: Broken lives in the city of angels
(3407 words)
Los Angeles Times Magazine, July 11, 1999
E-mail is a Real Revolution
For Cambodian opposition leader, the net is a lifeline.
(1163 words)
Salon, March 1999
Viva Pinochet
LA Chileans pull for their ailing dictator.
(705 words)
LA Weekly, March 12, 1999
Dying Declaration
Pol Pot’s last published words
(1875 words)
LA Weekly, April 31, 1998
Who Killed Pol Pot?
He took his secrets to the pyre and his 1.7 million victims were denied justice. But his death suited some.
(1492 words)
Independent on Sunday (London), April 19, 1998
iMama
My son is mistaking a smartphone for his mother.
(1036 words)
Slate, October 4, 2010
French for Birth
When our baby was born in Paris, we worried about his health, not the hospital bill.
(1194 words)
Newsweek, September 8, 2009
Letter From New York
How’s the city feeling these days? A view from the edge.
(1439 words)
Los Angeles Times Magazine, February 17, 2002
Trying to Love New York
Seduced by promised charms, a lifelong Angeleno tries that other center of the universe.
(3388 words)
Los Angeles Times Magazine, September 2, 2001
The Reckoning
A glimpse of LA’s political future.
(602 words)
Los Angeles Magazine, April 1999
The Killing Courts
Hoops in Phnom Penh’s ‘Olympic Stadium’
(677 words)
LA Weekly, March 27, 1998
15 More Minutes: Checking In on Joel Wachs
The longtime L.A. city councilman is ebullient about his job in New York as president of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. He doesn’t miss politics, but he does yearn for L.A.
(1451 words)
Los Angeles Times Magazine, April 21, 2002
You’re Out
California’s three-strikes law keeps swinging.
(475 words)
Los Angeles Magazine, August 1999
Attention, Shoppers
Bank branches in supermarkets are sitting ducks for shop ’n’ rob bandits.
(518 words)
Los Angeles Magazine, January 1999
The Dope Show
The war on drugs finally wins a round -- by not sending offenders to jail.
(508 words)
Los Angeles Magazine, May 1999
Politics of the Macabre
An endorsement from beyond.
(364 words)
LA Weekly, April 6, 1999