A Cure for What Jails Ya

May 4, 2006

An interview with jailed “eco-terrorist” Jeffrey Luers
04 May 2006

In 2000, 21-year-old Jeff Luers and an accomplice set fire to three pickup trucks at a dealership in Eugene, Ore., to bring attention to gas-guzzlers’ contribution to global warming. They were promptly arrested. Luers, who refused to plea bargain, was sentenced to 22 years, eight months in prison. It is the longest term ever handed down for environmentally motivated sabotage in America — and far longer than sentences given to arsonists in Oregon who have destroyed more property and endangered peoples’ lives.

But Luers’ sentence may be surpassed if any of the upcoming trials of 11 people arrested in January for eco-motivated arson and vandalism yield convictions. (more…)

Posted in Grist, Online

Getting Rila

May 2006

I was riding my mountain bike down a steep path into a wooded gorge. Niki Titev, a member of the Bulgarian national mountain biking team, was, predictably, far ahead of me when a woman emerged from the woods at the side of the trail. I stopped and smiled. Clad in a head scarf, her hands stained purple from picking blueberries, Nedjibe was a Pomak—a part of the Bulgarian Muslim minority. When I asked whether I could take her picture, she shook her head back and forth in the charmingly confusing Bulgarian gesture for yes.

While Titev comes to Rila to bomb down the ski runs at Borovets, Nedjibe comes to gather berries and fatten her sheep in the high summer meadows. Across a gulf of centuries, they have these mountains in common. (more…)

Posted in Magazines, Travel + Leisure

Sofia, Bulgaria: An Ancient City That Wears Its History Well

April 30, 2006

THE storm had just broken, taking with it the August mugginess. I looked up from the balcony of my hotel across the dampened city of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Directly in front of me, the golden domes of the huge Aleksandr Nevsky Cathedral were set against the dark sky. Twin rainbows arced above them as though the sky itself were part of the building’s design. Sofia is that kind of place.

Read the rest on the NYT site…

Posted in New York Times, Newspapers