articles


recent features
	LAST DAYS OF TAIPEI [The New York Times Style Magazine - March 30, 2008] In a cover length travel essay, I meet novelists, artists, movie producers, and cafe owners, looking for ghosts of Taiwan's difficult history across the city of Taipei.
	MR. SUCCESSFUL [This American Life - August 11, 2007] An 18-year-old in foster care, Anthony Pico, gives speeches to the big and powerful all over California. Public speaking changed his life. But being a spokeskid, he's found, is complicated. Option-click (Mac) or Right-click (PC) here to download as an MP3.
	POP UP CITIES [Wired - May 2007] One day soon, a marshy island near Shanghai wil be home to a scratch-built metropolis of half a million people. Let a thousand high-density, instant assembly, bright-green communities bloom (China's going to need them.) I traveled to Shanghai and London to report this cover-length feature, the first in-depth look at the planned city Dongtan.
	JUST ONE THING MISSING [This American Life - April 7, 2007] I created a radio follow up to The Invisibles, a story of undocumented immigrant kids who grew up in the United States, graduated from state universities, and now, can't work. Hear the story of a UCLA chemistry major who fears she'll always be a fast food waitress. Option-click (Mac) or Right-click (PC) here to download as an MP3. Or listen to a streaming version here.
	THE DOWNHILL BATTLE [Travel+Leisure - March, 2007] I chipped in the second installment in Travel+Leisure's year long series on climate change: "Global Warming and the Traveler's World." My piece looked at the ski industry, especially The Aspen Skiing Company's activism on climate policy.
	NETWORK PHILANTHROPY [WEST: The Los Angeles Times - January 21, 2007] This cover story profiles billionaires Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll, the founder and first president, respectively, of Ebay, and two of the country's most provocative philanthropists. They may illustrate a new way to approach philanthropy, one that will likely grow in influence as the center of gravity in American philanthropy shifts from New York to the high tech west.
	MISC [September, 2006] A few short pieces to check out this month: Volunteers help rebuild the gulf coast, in the 35th anniversary issue of Travel + Leisure. Arhictect Will Alsop rethinks prison design, with the help of inmates, in Metropolis. David Cope writes software that composes counterfeit Vivaldi, in Wired. Oakland high schoolers fill in for missing guidance counselors, in the Los Angeles Times. And MIT's Technology Review names its "TR35" humanitarian of the year for her work on simple technologies that save energy and lives.
	THE LAPTOP CRUSADE [Wired - August, 2006] This short feature follows designer Yves Behar as he works with the MIT Media Lab spin-off "One Laptop Per Child" to try and design a $100 laptop for developing world schools.
	DO THE RIGHT THING [WEST: The Los Angeles Times - July 23, 2006] This cover story profiles Ben Goldhirsh, a 26 year old Hollywood newcomer who is using a big inheritance to produce socially responsible films, launch a magazine called Good, and support social entrepreneurs. Interesting guy.
	READY OR NOT [WEST: The Los Angeles Times - June 4, 2006] Why is Los Angeles County twice as likely as the rest of the state to keep kids in foster care past age 18, and as much as 10 times more likely to keep kids in care past age 19? The answer begins with a local judge, and ends with a notion that more foster care may help kids avoid school dropout, unemployment, homelessness, incarceration, and unwanted pregnancies.
	LOST IN AMERICA [Foreign Policy - May/June, 2006] In this essay, I take a look at what American kids learn about the modern world in K-12 schools (not very much), and explore why American education has been so slow to adapt to globalization.
	THE INVISIBLES [West: The Los Angeles Times - April 23, 2006] This cover story reveals the secret lives of students in UCLA's undocumented immigrant club, and considers their uncertain future. These kids came to America at a very young age, and grew up to be top students -- even high school valedictorians. Now they are targets for deportation, some of them to "home countries" they cannot remember.
	SHIFT WORK [The Washington Monthly - April, 2006] This essay looks at the way state and local governments are developing their own immigration enforcement schemes -- deputizing everyone from cops and nurses to local educators -- and explains why even immigration hardliners should be disturbed by the trend.
	AFTER SHOCK [The New Republic - September 26, 2005] In this cover essay, I consider the past and future of earthquakes in northern California, in light of a 2001 FEMA study that named a San Francisco earthquake, a hurricane in New Orleans hurricane, and a terrorist attack in New York the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters that could strike the United States.
	THE BITTER PILL [Wired - April, 2005] Here, I investigate the reasons why buprenorphine, a promising new treatment tool for drug addiction, has been slower to take off than doctors and New York City health officials hoped, or expected.
	WORKING WITH THE ENEMY [New York Times - January 16, 2005] This cover length feature profiles the work of Denver's local teacher union, which bucked traditional union ideas to design and champion a new system of performance-based pay.
	LIFE ON THE INSIDE [pdf] [Mother Jones - January/February, 2005] I profile Pathways to Housing, an increasingly influential program that places mentally ill homeless into apartments scattered around New York City, and now, Washington DC. Pathways illustrates a promising shift away from shelters and toward permanent supportive housing as a way to stabilize a city's most vulnerable residents.
	HOT WHEELS [Wired - October, 2004] I travel to DaimlerBenz headquarters in Germany and shadow market researchers at focus groups in the United States, for a look at the firm's efforts to sell Americans on 80 mpg Smarts—the world's smallest, greenest production cars.
	THE ABOLITIONIST [The Atlantic Monthly - June, 2004] Here, I size up compassionate conservatism on the street, with a profile of the Bush administration's homelessness czar, Philip Mangano.
	EXIT DATE [New York Times Magazine - May 2, 2004] In this feature, I follow a Sierra Leonean family through the last months of their stay in the United States under "temporary protected status," a kind of temporary citizenship that can last a decade or more, only to end in deportation.
	THE GREAT ROBOT RACE [Wired - March, 2004] Driverless robots race from Disneyland to Vegas, for a million dollars in Defense Department cash. In a cover length feature, I follow the frontrunner, survey the competition, and look at why autonomy is such difficult science.
	GOING THE DISTANCE [Travel + Leisure - February, 2004] I traveled to Dharamsala, India, to report on the growing popularity of volunteer vacations, a hyrbid of tourism and social work. This feature looks at the history of volunter travel, and the difficulties involved in making a trip work.
	OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES [Washington Post Magazine - February 2, 2003] This cover story follows the production of Children of War, a collaboration between New York playwright Ping Chong and Washington, DC's Center for Multicultural Human Services that brought together five teenage immigrants and refugees to perform their life stories on stage.
	BIOTECH'S BLACK MARKET [Mother Jones - September 2002] This feature investigates the world's first known bootlegger of genetically engineered crops, D.B. Desai, tracking the fallout from his case across India. "Biotech's Black Market" was listed as a notable article in the 2003 edition of the Best American Science and Nature Writing series.
	JAPAN'S GROSS NATIONAL COOL [pdf] [Foreign Policy - June/July 2002] This essay explores why Japanese cultural influence boomed globally in the 1990s, after its economy crashed, instead of during the 1980s, when the country enjoyed greater political and economic influence. It was the subject of a TIME Asia cover story and a profile in the "Year in Ideas" issue of the New York Times Magazine, and was reprinted in a number of international publications, including The Guardian (UK) and Chuo Koron (Japan).