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I have a piece in the upcoming issue of the New Republic on the meltdown of the Hyde Park food co-op, where Barack Obama did his shopping. Food politics have always been a political wildcard. In this election, Obama still can’t seem to shake his arugula image among some working-class voters. The sign outside the new grocery store in Hyde Park probably won’t help: AMERICA’S MOST EUROPEAN SUPERMARKET.

I have a piece in the current issue of New York Magazine on the feud to control Central Park. The popularity of jogging, biking and dog walking has pitted rival factions against each other. This year, the Park celebrates its 150th anniversary. Far from the urban oasis its founders imagined, the Park has been transformed into a Type-A battleground. “There is a lot of hate,” nationally ranked cyclist Sarah Chubb, the president of Condé Nast’s CondéNet,” told me. “The Road Runners club can take over the entire park, and they get pissed at us if our races go past 8 a.m. The runners don’t stay where they’re supposed to stay, they’re wearing headphones, and they’ll scream at you if you ask them to get out of the way!”

From the piece:

The struggle for Central Park is, in its essence, like any other New York neighborhood conflict, with the same kinds of seething antagonisms and the same immutable stereotypes. There are the old-timers (I was here first!), the colonizers (The park is ours!), and the new-money arrivistes (Who do you think you are?).

Read the full story HERE

I have an essay in the current issue of Outside Magazine on fitness in America. The piece looks at our obsession with training at the expense of actually enjoying sports in the first place. Read the full piece HERE

I have a piece in the upcoming issue of the New Republic on Rupert Murdoch’s latest moves at the Wall Street Journal. Since Murdoch closed on the $5 billion deal for Dow Jones last year, he’s stated his goal to use the Journal to challenge the New York Times. But not everyone inside the Journal is pleased at where Murdoch is taking the paper. As one staffer put it to me, “what the f**k is going on?”

Read the full piece HERE

I will be on NPR at 3pm this afternoon speaking about my Slate essay “Running with Slowpokes.” For all running fans, the segment will air on Talk of the Nation. You can listen online HERE

I have a piece in the New Republic this week on the progressive backlash to Ralph Nader’s 2008 Presidential campaign. Still smarting from the 2000 Florida recount, and Nader’s perceived role as a spoiler, many of Nader’s closest allies are now among his harshest critics. “There is no reason for him to run again, except his own ego,” one anti-Nader liberal told me. “He doesn’t have any credibility or access to people we already have access to. In the public-interest community, he presumes to speak for progressives, and we’re left behind cleaning up the shit,” another said. As Hillary and Obama duke it out for the Democratic nomination, Democrats also face the prospect of Nader’s presence to their left flank in a closely-contested fight with McCain this fall.

Read the full piece HERE

I have a piece in the current issue of Wired on the future of green business. The piece goes behind some of the hype that has clouded the media’s coverage of corporate America’s environmental efforts. Read the full piece HERE

I have a cover story in New York Magazine this week on the Horace Mann School. The piece goes inside Horace Mann as a series of scandals unfold. When the children of rich and powerful parents created Facebook pages attacking teachers, and the teachers logged into Facebook and discovered the offensive material, Horace Mann confronted issues of privacy, appropriate speech and the influence of wealth on campus. In dealing with the crisis, Horace Mann administrators faced a choice: Discipline the students, or brush the matter aside as some members of the board of trustees wanted. From the piece:

Then, after lunch, McGuire and Sheehy were walking in front of Tillinghast Hall when a woman wearing alligator sunglasses stormed up to them. It was the trustee whose daughter had formed the anti-McGuire club.

“You logged into Facebook under a false name,” the woman said, glaring at McGuire.

“I had a right to defend myself against defamation,” McGuire responded.

“Students are just blowing off steam,” the trustee said. “They’re very stressed; it’s not unusual for them to say racist and sexist things … The site is private.”

“No,” McGuire insisted, “it’s got 9 million users.”

“What you did was like breaking into my daughter’s room and reading her diary … ”

“No,” McGuire said, the emotion rising in her voice, “what your daughter did was the equivalent of posting something in Times Square.”

McGuire could not control herself any longer. “What your daughter did was actionable, and I’m not talking about this anymore,” she said before walking off.

With private education increasingly dependent on donations from wealthy parents, many of whom sit on schools’ board of trustees, some are wondering if the power dynamics on campus have been distorted by the influence of money and power and the furious admissions race to get into top-flight colleges. And, with new technology and the Internet amplifying these pressures, Horace Mann is being tested like never before.

Read the full piece HERE

I have a piece in the current issue of New York Magazine on the downfall of Bear Stearns. Last Monday, stunned and angry Bear Stearns employees arrived at the firm’s Madison Avenue offices to absorb the news that JP Morgan had bought their 85-year-old bank for a mere 2 bucks a share. “I lost a lot of money,” one Bear staffer told me. “It has felt like an Enron, but without the fraud.”

Read the full piece here.

For months, journalists from the Australian newspaper have been poking holes in Ishmael Beah’s child soldier memoir, A Long Way Gone. I have a piece out in Slate on their feud with the book’s publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The Aussie reporters claim that Beah embellished his story and served as a child solider in Sierra Leone for perhaps several months, not the two years chronicled in this book. Now, they’re willing to go to court to prove their right. “If I’m maliciously inflicting commercial damage on them, they should sue,” one of the reporters, Peter Wilson told me. “They’re not suing because they know I’m telling the truth. And they’re hoping we’ll just go away. So my response is, sue us, and we’ll see you in court.”

Read the full piece HERE