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The Trump Card, The National Law Journal May 16, 1988
Nearly thirty years ago in my early days as a reporter, I did a long story for the National Law Journal on Donald Trump’s aggressive use of litigation. Among other things, it shows his well-developed habit of stiffing contractors who work for him, recently re-reported in a fine story by USA today http://usat.ly/1TY1QLb. Re-reading this…
Continue readingThe Pope Who Tried, (The Pope and Mussolini), New York Review of Books, April 23, 2015
The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe by David I. Kertzer Random House, 549 pp., $32.00; $20.00 (paper) Hulton Archive/Getty Images Monsignor Francesco Borgongini-Duca, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, Francesco Pacelli, Benito Mussolini, and Dino Grandi at the signing of the Lateran Treaty between Italy and the…
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Why French Law Treats Dieudonné and Charlie Hebdo Differently, The New Yorker, Jan. 15, 2015
On the same day that the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdoimmediately sold out an initial run of five million copies of its latest issue—which featured a cover image of the prophet Muhammad—French police arrested the comedian and activist Dieudonné M’bala M’bala for writing on his Facebook page, “Je me sens Charlie Coulibaly.”* Dieudonné was charged with “incitement…
Continue readingMont-Sant-Michel is trying an extreme makeover to save its dreamlike setting, Smithsonian magazine, June 2014
“One needs to be eight centuries old to know what this mass of encrusted architecture meant to its builders,” wrote Henry Adams in his book Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres. And that was more than a hundred years ago. Mont-Saint-Michel has gone through several major transformations since Adams’ time and is in the midst of another one now…
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