Latest Story

Featured Photojournalist – Jean-Marie Simon

Throughout the 1980s, as Guatemala was experiencing the worst years of its long and ghastly civil war, few foreign photographers, writers or journalists chose to make this country their home. And with good reason. The nation was terrorized by an ongoing conflict and a brutal, repressive regime that unleashed upon its citizenry some of the most heinous state enforced madness of the 20th Century.

Jean-Marie Simon was one of those very few journalists who chose to live here, and in 1987 she published, Guatemala: Eternal Spring / Eternal Tyranny (W.W. Norton & Co.) The book is a moving and enigmatic presentation, often in the form of short vignettes of text and image that give the reader the sensation that the war, itself, is growing around them from a thousand different points in time and space. Reading this book is as important to understanding the Guatemala Civil War as reading The Art of Political Murder by Francisco Goldman is to understanding how its howling still echoes down canyons of impunity to this very day.

In June of this… »

First Person Shooter – On Bribery

There’s a strong case to be made that corrupt behavior in Guatemala in the form of paying bribes at the borders (and anywhere in between) is both beneficial and on moral high ground.

“We’re not here to save the country from itself, just to get the job done.”

My traveling… »

Terrible But True – Of History Class and Hooker Debts

When I first started working in the New York City Public Education system, my father gave me a bit of advice. He said, “Whatever you do, don’t end up on the cover of the New York Post.” Sound advice for anyone, really. Particularly if you are going to… »

The Surly Bartender – Eine Kleine Kristalnachtmusic

Tell you what: I’ll buy the next round if you shut the fuck up for five minutes. No offense, you’re completely entitled to your retarded opinion. It’s just, if I hear one more goddamn patriotic Real American bray about the real meaning of “liberty,” my reaction is to… »

The Hedgehog and the Fox – Racism or Immigration Control on the Arizona Border?

A few decades back, Isaiah Berlin, one of the great pragmatic philosophers of the 20th Century, wrote an essay entitled “The Hedgehog and The Fox.” The title comes from a poem by Archilochus, written in the 7th Century, B.C.E. in which the ancient fabler noted, “The Fox knows… »

First Person Shooter – Part Time, Part One

I’ve had some jobs in my day.

It always happened like this. I needed some money so I found some way to make it. The thought of a career never really was my thing. Being something – a doctor, a lawyer, an Indian chief just didn’t ring true. The… »

From the Recesses – Salting the Ocean

My grandmother died in late January of 2005, at 93 years of age. The day before she ended this dance, she and I were planning her 94th birthday party and joking about the hospital food. Sometime in the evening a nurse came in and said the… »

bistrot-5-web-ad1
RSS Feed RSS Feed for the La Cuadra Magazine