Mike Davis

This piece originally appeared in TomDispatch.com in September 2004. The evacuation of New Orleans in the face of Hurricane Ivan looked sinisterly like Strom Thurmond’s version of the Rapture. Affluent white people fled the Big Easy in their SUVs, while the old and carless — mainly black — were left......

1. Breathe. If you are unlucky, you will inhale some spores of Coddidioides immitis. It is endemic in our soil. An ordinary case of resulting Valley Fever is not much worse than the flu, but the disseminated form is catastrophic. It causes meningitis as well as gruesome symptoms reminiscent of......