Tarek Mehanna (photo courtesy Mehanna family)

Government prosecutors claimed that Tarek Mehanna was the type of person that would contemplate killing Americans as they shopped at the mall. But for every day of Mehanna’s eight-week trial, the courtroom was filled with supporters from the mainstream Muslim community here in Massachusetts. That was the first sign that this wasn’t a clear cut case of a terrorist caught in the act. As I continued to follow the case, I found myself troubled by the prosecution’s case. The government presented as evidence internet chats that Mehanna had sent as a young 20-something to his friends. Yes, the chats were troubling, at times celebrating the deaths of U.S. soldier in Iraq, but my understanding is that even unpopular opinions are protected by freedom of speech. Also, the government argued that because Mehanna had translated pro-Jihad documents, that made him part of Al-Queda’s “propaganda wing.” But perhaps the most questionable aspect of the trial were the government witnesses. They were all friends of Tarek that had been granted immunity for testifying against him. But one of them admitted to proposing terrorist acts, and all said that Mehanna was not the most extreme in their group of friends. It was strange on the face of it. These men are no longer a threat because the cooperated with the FBI, but Mehanna, who refused, must be put in prison for life. I understand this is common procedure, but when you have people testifying who are perhaps more culpable than the accused, it sure smells funny. The government’s most damning evidence came from a trip that Mehanna took to Yemen. His friends all claimed he went there for terrorist training. But he couldn’t have been that committed, he came back after two weeks and went back to college.

I talked to Mehanna’s friends, family and acquaintances at the mosque to get some idea of the real Tarek Mehanna. I reported the story for Latitude News and PRI’s The World.

Betty Ong

I moved to Cambridge in August, and my first project was a series of 9/11 portraits for Boston public radio station WBUR, which I co-produced with the talented Lisa Tobin. We produced more than a half-dozen segments, and this is the one that moved people the most. It’s the story of Betty Ong, a flight attendant on American Airlines flight 11 when it was hijacked. She was an unsung hero, to be sure, but the story turned out to be about more than that. It was also about her family’s search for the truth about her final minutes and how corporate and government bureaucracy, and, sadly, the press, stood in their way.

Here the story here.

Lt. Col. Dan Nash, left, and Col. Tim Duffy, in a WBUR studio (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

Here’s another story from the WBUR 9/11 series produced by myself and Lisa Tobin. The morning of Sept. 11, two pilots were on duty on the Eastern Seaboard, Lt. Col. Dan Nash and Col. Tim Duffy. Or, as known by their call signs, “Duff” and “Nasty.” They sped from their base on Cape Cod toward Manhattan, and arrived shortly after the planes hit. They were the only fighter pilots on the scene for much of the morning, and watched the towers fall from above. We mixed the story with actual sound from the NORAD communications.

Listen here.

Shareda Hosein

One of my favorites from the 9/11 series, produced by myself and Lisa Tobin. The subject is Shareda Hosein, a woman who aimed to be the first female Muslim chaplain in the U.S. military. She was at the seminary when the twin towers fell, and she recounts her complicated feelings after the tragedy, and how she was treated completely differently depending on which uniform she was wearing—that of a Muslim woman or U.S. soldier.

Listen to the story here.

Stephanie Galvani, with husband Jeff Gonksi and their son Tom (Courtesy of family)

This piece is part of a 9/11 series produced for WBUR by myself and Lisa Tobin. in 2002, Stephanie Galvani met her future husband. He was still grieving the death of his fiance , who was killed in the World Trade Center just months before. In this piece, Stephanie talks about dealing with her husband’s grief, and living beside the memory of another woman.

Listen here.

Daniel Johnson and Jessie Johnson. Photo by Alan Pogue.

I first heard about Daniel and Jessie from Alan Pogue, who has been documenting Texas prisons with his camera for decades. He had met the two inmates through his work as a prison advocate, and he introduced to me what may be one of the most unusual families in the state of Texas. You can read the story here in the Texas Observer or listen here on This American Life.

Texas is finally helping former prisoners. But can the smart-on-crime revolution survive budget cuts and a suspicious public?

Read the results of our six month investigation into what ex-offenders face when they get out here in the Texas Observer.

Photo by Lance Rosenfield

I first interviewed Barry Cooper in 2007 for Weekend America, when the ex-narcotics officer had released a series of DVDs called Never Get Busted that taught pot smokers how to hide their pot, trick drug dogs, grow marijuana outdoors and, in general, frustrate law enforcement’s efforts to catch them.  About a year ago, Barry called me to let me know he was starting a project he called “Kopbusters,” where he would set up sting operations to catch corrupt cops and then film it all going down for a reality show. Cooper should know better than anyone that you don’t mess with the police, but he went ahead, and, amazingly, cops fell for his traps (but, predictably, it didn’t end well). I produced a story for This American Life (press play below) and did a print version for the Texas Observer. Barry is a very fun character to interview, he’s outrageous but completely genuine. It really feels like he has nothing to hide and is completely certain of the righteousness of his own opinions and tactics (which makes it hard if you are looking for subtlety.)  He is also quite disarmingly trusting. At one point, I’d finished an interview with Barry at his house, and he had to run to make an appointment, so he left me alone in his house while I packed up my gear, and told me to lock the door on the way out.  Hope you enjoy the story of Barry’s exploits:

• \”Taking a Big Pink Eraser to the Thin Blue Line\” on This American Life
  

  Photo by Matt Wright-Steel

Shearwater, an indie rock band from Austin, has a new album called The Golden Archipelago. I met lead singer Jonathan Meiburg at his home in South Austin to talk about his experience working as an Ornithologist in South America, including visits to remote islands off the coast of Argentina. The conversation turned into a radio piece for WNYC’sStudio 360, and a print piece for The Texas Observer.

Collecting water from a truck in the West Bank village of Qarawat Bani Zeid. Photo by Michael May.

In the often tense relationship between Israelis and Palestinians there are many underlying issues: land, settlement rights… and water. Michael May reports for Marketplace.

Jason Fialkoff and Chalo Colina at HONK in Boston.

It’s never too late to run away with the circus, and sometimes you don’t have to go far. That thought was running through my head as I played a gypsy waltz under I-35 in downtown Austin with the Minor Mishap Marching Band. It was a Sunday afternoon, and we were dressed in our bright yellow and black uniforms. I was strumming a chunky upbeat rhythm on the banjo. Trombones poked at the sky. Snares rattled the sidewalk. A tuba groove kept us moving forward. As we stepped under the overpass, the sound came bouncing back at us, the clarinets’ soulful whine swirling up and around like swallows at dusk. The band slowed and jammed, enjoying the accidental amphitheater. And all around us was our captive audience, dozens of people in cars waiting for the light to change, some unrolling their windows to grin and wonder how the hell a highway intersection can also be a party.
Texas Observer

Act One. Neighborhood Watch.

A couple in Texas find a seemingly abandoned car and think they’ve stumbled across a crime scene. And they’re right…but not in the way they imagined. Michael May tells the story for This American Life. Michael is the Books and Culture editor at The Texas Observer.

Autotune

In the back room of a studio in North Austin lit only by the glow of computer screens, a producer and singer who calls himself Madd Creole lets out a string of gospel-inflected vocal improvisations. As his voice wavers and slides from note to note, it’s shadowed by a ghostly shimmer from the speakers, giving his soulful crooning a shiny, robotic skin. “It keeps taking my voice to these strange minor notes,” he says afterward. “It’s killing me, almost like having two drummers play at once, but it’s also giving me some new ideas.”
Texas Observer

In the back room of a studio in North Austin lit only by the glow of computer screens, a producer and singer who calls himself Madd Creole lets out a string of gospel-inflected vocal improvisations. As his voice wavers and slides from note to note, it’s shadowed by a ghostly shimmer from the speakers, giving his soulful crooning a shiny, robotic skin. “It keeps taking my voice to these strange minor notes,” he says afterward. “It’s killing me, almost like having two drummers play at once, but it’s also giving me some new ideas.”
Texas Observer

Brandon Darby was a self-described revolutionary and one of the founders of the post-Katrina relief organization Common Ground. Michael May reports for This American Life on Darby’s transformation into an informant working with the FBI to spy on protesters at the 2008 Republican National Convention.

Weekend America
Biloxi’s Luck
Michael May

Friday was the third anniversary of one of the nation’s worst disasters: Hurricane Katrina. The damage to flooding and botched response to the flooding in New Orleans has gotten the most attention. But it was actually Mississippi that received the full brunt of Katrina’s 120 mile-per- hour wind and 27-foot storm surge.. In Biloxi, Mississippi, the casinos that sat on huge barges in the bay were washed inland and destroyed. But the coastal casinos are now making record profits, more than $1 billion in revenue last year. As part of our summer travel series, Weekend America’s Michael May left his home in Austin: Biloxi or bust. He headed to the craps tables to roll some bones, and see if Biloxi is really as lucky as some would have you believe.

My brother Daniel and I inch along in bumper-to-bumper traffic along Coastal Highway 90 heading into Biloxi. The tourists are here, but the white sand beaches are as empty as the Sahara. It’s unbearably hot and humid outside, but it’s always cool in the beachfront casinos. The Hard Rock is sold out, so my brother Daniel and I head to the Imperial Palace, an older casino that’s rebranded itself as simply IP. As soon as we get to the room, Daniel starts plotting. “I think our strategy tonight,” he says, “is to drink as many free drinks as possible while losing as little as possible.”
We hit the craps table, and Daniel starts rolling strong. But three hours later, we’re back in the room, $200 lighter.
“Damn,” he says. “They just kept losing,” I reply.
“Well,” he says. “I figure this is my contribution to the hurricane recovery fund. You know, I just wanted to help them get back on their feet.”
Daniel’s being sarcastic, but it’s closer than you might think to the official story of Biloxi’s recovery. After Katrina, the city legalized gambling on land, so the casinos wouldn’t have to sit on barges in the sea. They started buying up property and expanding, and are now making more money then before the storm. But I wonder what life’s like away from all these blinking lights and spinning wheels.
Katrina’s 30-foot storm surge destroyed almost everything within a half mile of the gulf. Now new hotels and condos dot the coast. But as soon as you turn off the main thoroughfare, you find streets pockmarked with empty lots and boarded up houses. In East Biloxi, I meet Betty Davis, who rolls around her FEMA trailer in a wheelchair. “Here we are,” she says. “Almost three years later. Still waiting.”
Betty lives on the lot where her home once stood, but attempts to rebuild have been, Kafkaesque. She and her husband had insurance, but the company said it didn’t cover flood damage. “You have flashbacks of what was,” she says. “You look back where your house used to be. It’s a sinking feeling. I don’t like to talk about it too much because I start to cry, and I don’t want to do that.”
A representative from the nonprofit East Biloxi Hope Center heard about Betty’s situation, and started to wade through the red tape for her. She’s hoping to move in to a new home by Thanksgiving. “I can’t wait. I can’t wait,” she says. “I’m going to go out on the porch and drink my coffee in the afternoon. Yeah.”
In the afternoon, I drive west, and came across a FEMA trailer park just a short walk from the beach. I meet Hazel Raley who used to live in East Biloxi. Inside her trailer, cockroaches crawl on every surface, and a bucket sits on the floor to catch water leaking through the roof. “I wouldn’t know where to go to start over again,” she says. “For young kids in their 20s, they would enjoy it. But I’ve got so many aches and pains. I’m here until I die.”
Congress gave Mississippi $3 billion for housing, and put Republican Governor Haley Barbour in charge of
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distributing the funds. Casinos and hotels took advantage of post-Katrina tax breaks, while the money designated to help low-income residents like Hazel is still being parceled out. She says it’s been an eye- opening experience. “Well, it’s made more aware of city and state leaders,” she says. “I have no use for this mayor. If you don’t own a casino, then he doesn’t care. And the governor has put the money that was supposed to help us out into a rainy day fund? Excuse me, the rainy day is here.”
While we’re talking, a friend from the trailer park named Kathleen Lepner drops by. She was renting an apartment before the storm, and things have gone from bad to horrible. She says she was kicked out her apartment so they could raise the rates. Almost all of the help offered by the state is going to homeowners, while rents have almost doubled since the hurricane. She says she ended up in a leaky FEMA trailer full of toxic black mold with her 14-year-old daughter. “I’m going to put my little girl in with friends or family,” she says. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do. But as long as she’s safe, that’s all that matters.”
I headed inland towards the highway. On the way, I passed the IP casino on the back bay and thought of all that money I’d tossed on the craps table. Then I headed west on Interstate 10. It’s the fastest way back home.

Weekend America
Schuyler’s Monster
Michael May

Just because eight-year-old Schuyler Rummel-Hudson can’t speak doesn’t mean she doesn’t have something to say. That’s clear immediately, just from the way she’s dressed on this rainy Saturday: bright bottle-red hair, pink camouflage headscarf, flower-print tee shirt pulled over a long-sleeved black shirt. She’s got attitude to spare. And as soon as I walk in the door, she grabs my microphone and starts chattering away.

Schuyler has polymicrogyria. It’s a rare genetic brain disorder that makes it impossible for her to form hard consonants. So she sounds about the same as she did when she was two years old. And the disorder also affects her motor coordination, making writing and sign language difficult. She uses an electronic device to form sentences.
But communication is still a constant struggle. She starts playing with her collection of toy mermaids, monsters and dinosaurs and then turns to her parents Robert and Julie Rummel-Hudson. For several minutes, her parents think Schuyler is trying to say “I am green.” Finally she types it out on her speech device. “I am queen.”
“I think of all the things she’s tried to tell us over the years that are lost,” says Robert. “But right now it’s a little like having a foreign exchange student in the house. One who speaks a little English but not enough to get the big things across.”
When Schuyler was born, Robert started blogging about his newborn daughter. At that time, everything appeared normal. “So for a long time I was writing about Schuyler as a baby,” he says, “and it was this typical befuddled dad type of writing: I don’t know what I’m doing, but let’s figure this out.”
Robert wrote about changing diapers, losing sleep: new dad stuff. But when Schuyler was one-and-a-half, it become obvious that she wasn’t developing the ability to speak.
“As Schuyler’s issues became more apparent,” Robert says, “there became an urgency to my writing.”
Robert changed the blog’s name from “Citizen Rob” to “Schuyler’s Monster.” And more and more people started following Robert and Julie’s quest to find out was wrong with their daughter. Doctors spent weeks testing Schuyler’s hearing. It was fine. Then a team of doctors at Yale diagnosed Schuyler with autism. But that didn’t seem to fit either. Robert says the stress and confusion started to weigh on his relationship with his wife.
“I think we were both so caught up in our fear that we almost resented each other for that,” says Robert. “We wanted someone who would sympathize and give us answers. Instead we had another person in the house that was just as grumpy as we were and just as scared as we were. I don’t think we coped at all, now that I look back on it.”
He asks Schuyler to go into the next room to play. And then Robert starts to tell me about just how bad it got. He and Julie started to pull away from each other. They both started having affairs. And as a father, he felt like he was failing his daughter. He wanted to fix her.
“And there was a period where I considered suicide,” he says. “It made perfect sense at the time. This idea that Schuyler would be better off with the memory of a father who could turn into whatever she wanted from him. As opposed to the reality of me — this lost, cheating, sad father that was no help at all to her.”
Schuyler had everything to do with pulling Robert back from the brink. It all came to a head when his wife Julie got fed up.
“She actually moved out, for about a week,” says Robert. “But when she left, she left Schuyler with me.”
Julie chimes in. “I needed to get myself together,” she says. “I’m crying at work. I’m crying in the car. I said to myself, ‘You need to step away. Regroup.’ It was a moment of clarity.”
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And Robert was forced to take care of himself, and Schuyler. “It was one of the best weeks of my life,” says Robert. “Not because Julie wasn’t there, but because I was able to reconnect to this purpose. No matter how bad things got, there was Schuyler. And Schuyler needed to be fed, and Schuyler needed to be taken care of. And I realized, you know, I can do this.”
Julie was thinking the same thing. “And I came back and realized that it could be so much worse,” she says. “And I said, ‘OK, we’re going to deal with it. We’re going to work through it for Schuyler, because she needs both of us.’”
Robert decided to share these painful moments on his blog in hopes of making people in similar situations feel less alone. And Robert got something back, something even more tangible. Insurance wouldn’t cover the cost of Schuyler’s speech device. So Robert added a fundraising page on his site. In just over a month, they raised $10,000 to pay for it.
Now communication has gotten easier. Not just with Schuyler, but between Robert and his wife.
“One of the standard pieces of relationship advice is that you shouldn’t stay together just for the kids,” he says. “I’m not sure that’s true, at least not initially. We have this partnership with Schuyler at the core, and it’s become really strong.”
And with that, Robert and Julie head into Schuyler’s room to play with her monster. It’s purple and stuffed with cotton.