death
Wave of Immolation
It’s not every day that you meet someone who has set himself on fire. One reason for this is because it’s pretty much the most awful and insane thing imaginable. On a recent trip to Bulgaria, I met not one but two people who had survived suicide...
I Left My Lungs in Aamjiwnaang
The first thing you notice about Sarnia, Ontario, is the smell: a potent mix of gasoline, melting asphalt, and the occasional trace of rotten egg. Shortly after my arrival I already felt unpleasantly high and dizzy, like I wasn’t getting enough air...
A Terminal Cancer Patient Talks to an Exonerated Serial Killer
Sture Bergwall, formerly known as Thomas Quick, used to be considered Scandinavia's worst serial killer. He had been convicted of sexually abusing 30 little boys before stabbing them to death. Just before Sture was exonerated, I met the man to talk...
The Egyptian Army Massacred 72 Egyptians This Weekend
The first bloodied victims began to arrive at the crude field hospital behind Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque in the early hours of Saturday morning. To begin with, the main causes of the injuries were birdshot and tear gas, inflicted when security...
I'll Always Love You, Tony Soprano
James Gandolfini, American actor and American icon, has died at age 51. Before him, TV acting seemed to be more about doing a passable, consistent job. His Tony Soprano character, on the other hand, seemed like someone I knew. Not somebody I liked or...
Homophobic Killings Won't Dampen New York's Gay Pride
At the end of this month, New York will celebrate its annual gay-pride march. But the parties and marches will be tarnished by the string of recent hate crimes that prompted that presence. The most notorious of those crimes being the murder of 32-year...
Gold Miners Are Exhuming and Trafficking Corpses in Romania
Since 2004, the Romanian Roșia Montană Gold Corporation (RMGC) has been illegally trafficking corpses in Roșia Montană, a mountainous area in the heart of—fittingly—Transylvania. The corpses in question are buried above a vast wealth of gold that the...
Interviewing South African Rape Victims Isn't Easy When You're Disfigured
Late last year, I spent a week in South Africa's townships researching the jolly topic of masculinity and child rape for an article. Being my first foreign assignment, I was expecting a bit of a rough ride into an unknown territory and the horribly...
Alabama’s Strip Clubs of Death
Most of the time, shootings in strip clubs are rare occurrences, the result of a drunk who’s thrown out of the club and comes back with a gun for revenge. But in Alabama the strip-club murder rate is completely out of control. Curious to see the sites...
Is Burma’s Government Involved in Ethnic Cleansing?
The last couple of weeks have been filled with mixed news for the Burmese government. On the bright side, the European Union decided to permanently lift sanctions against the country and deeper trade ties with the United States were announced. On the...
A Long Way from Home
What has America done to Chechnya? While we’ll still be searching for more information about the Tsarnaev brothers and what motivated them for months—if not years—to come, their roots in Chechnya and the history of that country are a good place to...
Californians Are Dying to Go to Colma
Colma is a tiny town south of San Francisco, where nearly 2 million people are buried. Colma, which spans about two miles from one side to the other, is a necropolis. Necropolis is a word derived from the Greek term 'nekropolis,' which translates to...