Ben Ehrenreich

(Jim Laurie/AP)

The Minuteman's Tale

Ben Ehrenreich
Politics does funny things to people. In March 2005, when I first interviewed Jim Gilchrist, the Minuteman Project had not yet begun, but he already gave the distinct impression that he was in over his head, and knew it. “I never thought it would get this big,” the retired CPA......
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Clear Cut Press

Ben Ehrenreich
Throw together an indie record exec (Richard Jensen, of Sub Pop and Up Records) and a smarter-than-smart, unfashionably literate novelist (Matthew Stadler, author of The Sex Offender and Allan Stein), and what emerges? With luck, something like Clear Cut Press, Jensen and Stadler’s Oregon-based publishing house. “We realized there was......

Lists

Ben Ehrenreich
BEN EHRENREICH (Weekly contributor whose first novel, The Suitors, will be published in April by Counterpoint) Only one book this year had me laughing for a good half hour at the image of naked Joseph Goebbels, 400 pounds when emptied of entrails, bouncing down the steps of the Pyramid of......
Post-election pool party at Hotel Montana the day after protesters celebrated

Haiti's Hope

Ben Ehrenreich
The older people say that dèyè mòn gen mòn?; beyond the mountains there are also other cities. Those cities are fading. Those mountains are fading too, because the soil is no longer rich and they expose their stony bones, bleached by wind and storm, to the sun. Beyond these scorched......
Illustrations by Tra Selhtrow

Fighting

Ben Ehrenreich
The helicopter alone usually does the trick. Swoop down, raise some dust, empty a clip, break some windows, shoot a dog or a mule to make your point known. That should do it. Land, swords unsheathed, safeties off, be ready. A few shots in the air never hurt. Round up......

Waiting for Preval

Ben Ehrenreich
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI — “I don’t see how anybody could possibly, possibly, commit fraud in this election.” So said Jacques Bernard, director general of Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP by its French initials) at a February 6 press conference the night before the first election since the 2004 overthrow of President......

Silent Streets

Ben Ehrenreich
PORT AU PRINCE — In the week before Haiti’s first election in six years, the capital was eerily calm. The violence that had racked the city for months suddenly ebbed. Parts of town that had for months been off-limits to outsiders were safe. Caravans of pickup trucks blaring campaign slogans......

Double Standard

Ben Ehrenreich
FOUR YEARS AGO, the directors of one Los Angeles office of the Fund for Public Interest Research told their bosses that they planned to unionize. To their surprise, the Fund — a giant national umbrella group that runs canvassing and fund-raising campaigns for nonprofits like the Sierra Club and the......

Ring of Fire

Ben Ehrenreich
Photo by Joe Klein “Who knows the end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise. Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men.” —H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu “I had a dream the other night,” David Agranoff......

Pains of the Father

Ben Ehrenreich
Photo: AP / Wide World“Today I understand,” says Fernando Suarez del Solar, but there is no joy in his voice, and nothing like triumph. He sucks hard on a Chesterfield filter, and tips the ash into a small, glass ashtray perched on the edge of the computer console in front......