Express
Out of the Blue: My Experience in the NYPD
By Yvette WaltonEvery morning I had to get up so early, just so I could get to the bus stop and then to the train station, in order to arrive at the Academy on time. Ultimately we will be assigned to Brooklyn for driving practice, a two-week assignment, and I will need a car rather desperately. Please God let there be someone who can hook a sista up with a ride; if not, please let me be able to find and afford a little piece of car.
Ballots and Bloodshed: An Election Update from Guatemala
By Writers BlocOn November 9th Guatemalan voters soundly rejected the candidacy of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt who presided over the worst parts of that country’s civil war during the early 1980s. This was the second election held since the 36-year civil war ended in 1996. During much of the campaign, it had seemed that Montt would return to power thanks in large part to widespread intimidation by paramilitaries, or former members of the Civil Defense Patrols, or "ex-PACs," connected to Montt’s extreme right wing party, the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG). Along with widespread fraud the campaign saw at least 28 politicians and activists murdered.
Down the Up Escalator Operation Tribute to Freedom: A Triumph of the Will
By Ryan Grim"To tell you the truth," said arresting Officer C. Curry-Haglere of the DC Metro Police Department, "I’d rather live in a world the way this guy sees it than the way it really is." Thus ended a rather surreal night of corporate-sponsored patriotism at the NFL/Britney Spears/Pepsi extravaganza called "Operation Tribute to Freedom." The evening’s entertainment stretched from the Capitol Hill Mall to a VIP tent full of badly wounded Iraqi war vets to the inside of a DC jail. My brother Greg and I were attending so as to pay our tribute to Freedom.
A World Apart: Writing From the Front
By John Crawford"Where’s everyone at?" I asked, hastening to get the party started. "Over there in the beer tent, of course. C’mon, we got you guys some seats saved," said my old friend Rick. We’d grown up together playing war in the woods. The beer tent was the center point of the Blue Crab Festival, Palatka Florida’s equivalent of Labor Day, Veteran’s Day and Disney World all rolled into one. In reality the whole charade was set up for this alone, a circus tent full of beer dispensing vixens and worn out bands playing worn out hits.
