Today's Stories

October 9-11, 2009

James Bovard
Eight Years of Big Lies on Afghanistan

October 8, 2009

Saul Landau
A Late September Morning With Fidel

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Dark Omens for the US in Afghanistan

Linn Washington, Jr.
Pot and Perversion: Judicial Antics Expose Drug War Insanity

Marshall Auerback
Neo-Classical Economics Misses What Matters

Dave Lindorff
A Nation of Snoops

David Rosen
Bankrupt Morality: the Staying Power of Republican Sinners

Chris Darimont / Misty MacDuffee
The Bear Essentials: New Thinking Needed to Save BC's Salmon and Grizzlies

John V. Walsh
Remembering Hinton's Fanshen

Stewart Lawrence
The Edwards / Hunter Affair Reconsidered

Charles R. Larson
Conservatives in the Sandbox

Website of the Day
Et Tu, Code Pink?

October 7, 2009

Brendan Cooney
Are Republicans Breaking US Law in Honduras?

Paul Craig Roberts
Dead Labor: Marx and Lenin Reconsidered

Dean Baker
Bernanke's Recovery: Unemployment Up, Wages Down (But the Banks Have Been Saved ... Sort Of)

Jonathan Cook
A Third Intifada?

John Stanton
HTS: Congress Rewards Failure, Puts Personnel in Harms Way

Joanne Mariner
Tortured Language

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Cherry Blossoms

Stephen Lendman
The Gaza War's Effect on Women

Sen. Russell Feingold
Time to Draw Down in Afghanistan

Mary Lynn Cramer
Doublespeak on Health Care

Website of the Day
How to Bag a Wolf by Aerial Assault

October 6, 2009

Mike Whitney
Dollar Hysteria: Is the Sky Really Falling?

Gareth Porter
The Iranian Rift in the IAEA: Leaked Paper Based on Disputed Intel

Jonathan Cook
How Israel Buried the UN's War Crime Probe

Boris Kagarlitsky
My Hour as Talking Head in Moscow

Iain Boal
The New Crisis at Pacifica

Ron Jacobs
Why Are We in Afghanistan?

John Ross
Wave of Anarchist Bombings Strikes Mexico

Michael Dickinson
Panic in Istanbul: Smoke, Mayhem and the World Bank

Stephen Fleischman
Beware the Predator

Ira Glunts
The Audacity of Nope

Missy Beattie
Outside Looking In

Website of the Day
Round Up the Usual Suspects

October 5, 2009

Pam Martens
Wall Street Titans Use Aliases to Foreclose on Families While Partnering with a Federal Agency

Mike Whitney
Dead Man Walking: Welcome to the US Economy

Paul Craig Roberts
How the Feds Imprison the Innocent

Harry Browne
Ireland Says, "Yes, Please"

Sara Mann
My Little Town: Nothin' But the Dead and Dyin'

Omar Barghouti
Dissolve the Palestinian Authority

Shamus Cooke
A Jobless Recovery?

Brenda Norrell
A Dirty New Low for Peabody Coal

Fred Gardner
Situation NORML: Reconciling Medical Pot Use and Legalization

Binoy Kampmark Copenhagen Blues: McChrystal and the Afghan Trap

Website of the Day
In Goldman Sachs We Trust?

October 2-4, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Geezer Renditions

Saul Landau
News From Raul Castro

Diana Johnstone
After the German Elections: Is Socialism Really Dead in Europe?

Greg Moses
Cramming for the Downside

William Blum
The Fall of the Berlin Wall: Another Cold War Myth

Brian Cloughley
Iran's Nuclear Program: Where's the Proof?

Russell Mokhiber
Welcome Back, Michael Moore

John Ross
Chomsky in Mexico

Ellen Brown
IMF Catapults From Shunned Agency to Global Central Bank

David Ker Thomson
Cop Shocks

David Macaray
The Audacity of Toyota

Gary Engler
Unions in a Rut

Robert Fantina
Meet the New Boss (Same as the Old Boss)

Lisa Stolarski / Naomi Archer
Pittsburgh: Still a (Coal) Company Town

Anthony Papa
Here is Your Chance to Help End the Failed War on Drugs

Joe Allen
The Good Wife: Bad View of a Corrupt System

Harry Browne
Tarantino Scalps His Audience

Ron Jacobs
Collective Fiction

Charles R. Larson
Cultural Warriors: Austrialian Aboriginal Art Triennial

David Yearsley
Hanns Eisler's Great National Anthem for East Germany is Available: Make It America's

Poets' Basement
Taylor, Gardner and Landau

Website of the Weekend
Wrongful Convictions of Youth

October 1, 2009

Andy Worthington
A Truly Shocking Gitmo Story

Carl Ginsburg
The Great Marginalization

Mary Lynn Cramer
Seniors on the Chopping Block

Col. Douglas Macgregor
The Bog of History in Afghanistan

Brian M. Downing
The Paradox of Financial Disorder

John V. Walsh
Mao's China at 60

Ramzy Baroud
The Big Diversion

Norman Solomon
Starting Another Year of War in Afghanistan

Dan Bacher
Undamming the Klamath

Brenda Norrell
Lazy Journalists are the Darlings of the Corporations

Website of the Day
Neoliberalism as Water Balloon

September 30, 2009

Vijay Prashad
McChrystal's Afghan Desolation

Gareth Porter
U.S. Story on Iran Nuke Facility Doesn't Add Up

Andy Thayer
The Fiasco Behind Chicago's Olympics Bid

Paul Craig Roberts
Another War in the Works

Dean Baker
Medicare Buy-In: What's Wrong With Giving People a Choice?

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Mission Impossible

Laura Flanders
Punch in the Streets, But Not in the Suites

Dave Lindorff
The Baucus Excuse

Seumas Milne
Why British Workers Are Angry

Martha Rosenberg
What Integrity Means to Pfizer

Website of the Day
Why You Should Boycott Hyatt Hotels

September 29, 2009

Marshall Auerback
A Neoliberal Hijacking

Alan Farago
Recovery Without Feeling

Jeff Sher
Shopping for Health Care

Bruce Jackson
60 Minutes and the General

Gareth Porter
Fears of Defeat in Afghanistan

Jonathan Cook
Palestinians in the Israeli Army

Bouthaina Shaaban
Arabs in the International Balance

Dave Lindorff
Looking Under the TARP

Stephen Soldz
Spreading Hysteria About Swine Flu "Hysteria"

Sara Mann
The Party of No Meets the Island of No

Website of the Day
Cosmos, Autotuned

September 28, 2009

Laura Carlsen
The Sound and Fury of the Honduran Coup

Anthony DiMaggio
The U.S., Iran and Nuclear Terror

Paul Craig Roberts
More Lies, More Deceptions

Neve Gordon
On Palestinian Civil Disobedience

Bill Quigley
Street Report From the G20

Harvey Wasserman
Obama's LBJ Moment

Nicola Nasser
Stuck Between Two Failures

Ben Rosenfeld Murder in New Orleans: Remembering Kirsten Brydum

Website of the Day
The Short March

September 25-7, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Ruin of His Presidency

Daniel Wolff
Speculating on Education

Rev. William E. Alberts
How "White Magic" Makes the Ism of Race Disappear

Mike Roselle
Send Lawyers, Guns and Money

Saul Landau
Covert Memories From Miami

Eshan Azari
Why Afghan Intellectuals Live in National Despair

Winslow T. Wheeler
The Pentagon Feedlot

Robert Jensen
Is Obama a Socialist?

Jonathan Cook
Sleeping with the Enemy

Nelson P Valdés
Cuba, Hurricanes and the Internet

David Michael Green
Dumping Dubya

Ramzy Baroud
The Goldstone Report and Israeli Impunity

John V. Whitbeck
The Partition Straightjacket

Andy Worthington
Gitmo Trial Delayed ... Again

David Ker Thomson
The Lady Vanishes

Seth Sandronsky
Obama and Race Management

Jim Goodman
Why are Farmers Afraid of Michael Pollen?

Charles R. Larson
From Oppression to Opportunity

David Yearsley
Froberger's Travels

Kim Nicolini
Hardcore Capitalism

Lorenzo Wolff
Transparent Pink

Website of the Weekend
An Emergency Appeal in the Fight Against Big Coal

September 24, 2009

Steven Higgs
Even in Indiana, Doctors Support National Health Insurance

Christopher Brauchli
Death Pays

Marshall Auerback
The Shortfall at the FDIC

Stephanie Westbrook
Italy's Fallen Soldiers

Nadia Hijab
Know Your Dictator

Sen. Russell Feingold
Fixing the Patriot Act, Restoring the Constitution

David Macaray
Goodbye "Norma Rae"

Binoy Kampmark
Curry Bashings in Oz

Joe Allen
Dancing With the Hammer

Website of the Day
The Most Corrupt Members of Congress

September 23, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
The Economy is a Lie, Too

Gabriel Kolko
The United States in Afghanistan: Eight Years Later

Uri Avnery
The Waldorf-Astoria Summit

Shamus Cooke
The First Shots of the Trade War

Missy Beattie
The Sound of Money

Gareth Porter
Taliban Rising

Mark Weisbrot
How Much Repression Will Hillary Clinton Support in Honduras?

Dr. Susan Block
The Murder of Annie Le

Norm Kent
Pot and the Right to Pursue Happiness

Richard Neville
Apocalypse Porno

Website of the Day
In Carver Country

September 22, 2009

Franklin C. Spinney The Huge Hole in Gen. McChrystal's Afghan Counterinsurgency Strategy

Russell Mokhiber
Who's the Pimp?

Greg Grandin
Zelaya's Brazilian Gambit

Nikolas Kozloff
Salvaging Democracy in Honduras Will Be Tricky

John Ross
Mexico Convulsed by Paranoia

Ron Jacobs
Gen. McChrystal's Salespitch

Tariq Ali
The Afghan Folly

Dave Lindorff
NYT Trashes Single-Payer

Harvey Wasserman
Tom Friedman's Idiocy Atomique

Vijay Prashad
Is Anything Better Than Nothing?

Kareem Shora
After the CIA Torture Report

Website of the Day
Did a State Dept Official Sell Nuclear Secrets?

September 21, 2009

JoAnn Wypijewski
Will Trumka or the Steelworkers Push Labor Into Battle?

Carl Finamore
Backstage at the AFL-CIO Convention

Uri Avnery
Sliming Goldstone and His Report

Nikolas Kozloff
Joe Wilson's Immigration Hypocrisy

Paul Simpson, M.D.
Why Your Doctor May Have PTSD

Alan Nasser
New Deal Liberalism Writes Its Obituary

Ray McGovern
CIA Torturers Running Scared

Dave Lindorff
Thoughts on Saving an Old Barn

Lina Thorne
Women, War and Afghanistan

Jeb Sprague
Confronting the G20

Website of the Day
Petition: Save the Yellowstone Grizzly

September 18-20, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
When Gossip Came Back and Our Modern Age was Born

Russell Mokhiber
Meet the Real Death Panels

Mike Whitney
The Post-Bubble Malaise

David Michael Green
Can America be Salvaged?

Jonathan Cook
Boycott Derails Jerusalem Rail Line

Nadia Hijab
Sinking the Goldstone Report

Mark Weisbrot
Recession, Recovery and Reform: Will Anything Change?

Michael Winship
Let's Make a Deal, Beltway Edition

Michael Leonardi
The Nuclear Dump in the Mediterranean Sea

Andy Worthington
The Kuwaiti Who Met Bin Laden

Fred Gardner
The Prohibitionists' Manifesto

David Macaray
What Happens in Congress Stays in Congress

David Rosen
System Failure and the Garrido Case

Jason Mark
Hacking the Sky

Mike Ferner
In Praise of Senator Baucus

Farzana Versey
The Great Indian Rope Trick

Ron Jacobs
Dr. Guillotin and Dr. Faustus: an Interview with Marc Estrin

elin o'Hara slavick
Flags for Hiroshima: Artist's Statement

Gilad Aztmon
Vengeance, Barbarism and Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds

David Yearsley
Mendelssohn as Organ Maestro

Charles R. Larson
Darkness, Dignity and Hope in Liberia

Lorenzo Wolff
Dialing Up The Clash

Website of the Weekend
Meet Your Conservative Movement

September 17, 2009

Joshua Frank
Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler

Brenda Norrell
Cry Me a River: Uranium and Genocide in Indian Country

Robert Weissman
The Financial Crisis, One Year Later

Pam Martens
The Filmmakers vs. the Capitalists

Franklin Lamb
Palestinian Camps Are Ready to Erupt

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Cuban Five: An Insult to Humanity

Jed Bickman
Drone War Over Pakistan

Alan Farago
The Mayor of Coconut Creek Gets Butterflies

Website of the Day
C.R.O.C.

September 16, 2009

Ray McGovern
Torture and Accountability

Stephen Green
America's Strange Health Care Debate

Andy Worthington
Is Bagram Obama's New Secret Prison?

Dean Baker
Short Sellers: the Unsung Heroes of the Financial Crisis

Anthony DiMaggio
Killing the Messenger

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Cuban Five: The Unheard Call

Benjamin Dangl
Justice Follows Direct Action

Robin Willoughby
The World Seed Conference: Good for Farmers?

Eric Walberg
EuroPeace, the Sounds of Silence

James Ridgeway
Bring That "Boy" Down

Website of the Day
Baucus' Bogus Bill

September 15, 2009

Mike Whitney
The Real Lesson of Lehman's Fall

Mutadhar al-Zaidi
The Story of My Shoe

Marshall Auerback
Government Spending is the Solution--Not the Problem

Afshin Rattansi
The Deal That Led to the Srebrenica Massacre: Former UN Spokeswoman Fingers Holbrooke and the Clinton Administration

Jonathan Cook
How US Tax Breaks Fund Israeli Settlers

Gareth Porter:
Niger Redux? IAEA Conceals Evidence Iran Nuke Docs Were Forged

Dave Lindorff
Congress Needs More Catcalls

Winslow T. Wheeler
Obama and Pentagon Pork

Franklin Spinney
Bin Laden's Latest Message and the Nuttiness of the War on Terror

Karen Korenoski /
Michael Yates
Up in Wood Smoke: Boulder's Dirty Little Secret

David Macaray
Government Cheese

Susie Day
President Mao-bama's Little Red Primer

Website of the Day
The Cotton Pickin' Truth: the Persistance of Slavery in Mississippi

September 14, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
The Health Care Deceit

M. G. Piety
The Danes Do It (Health Care) Better

Shamus Cooke
Wall Street Under Obama: Bigger and Riskier

Bouthaina Shaaban
Three Faces and a Homeland

Alvaro Huerta
In Defense of the Undocumented: Immigrants and Health Care

John Ross
Mexico Loses Its History

Harvey Wasserman
The Supreme Court and Corporate Money

Adam Federman
The Plight of the Bumblebee

Stephen Fleischman
The Federal Twist

Robert Jensen
Can Journalism Schools be Relevant in a World on the Brink?

Website of the Day
The Origin of Sex Offender Registries

September 11-13, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Obama's Big Speech: Math Trumps Rhetoric

JoAnn Wypijewski
Trumka Takes Over AFL-CIO

Carl Ginsburg
The Patient as Profit Center

Leonard Peltier
I am Barack Obama's Political Prisoner Now

Franklin Lamb
Ted Kennedy's Changing Take on Israel

Benjamin Dangl
Throwing Bullets at Failed Policies

Mike Whitney
How to Fight Deflation

John Berger
In Search of Antonello

Saul Landau
Watergate and Modern Scandals

Russell Mokhiber
Disgraceful Democrats

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Pryor's Judgment

Felice Pace
NPR's Linda Gradstein Has Done It Again on Gaza

Jordan Flaherty
The Battle Over Discriminatory Housing Laws in New Orleans

Ron Jacobs
It's Time to be Impolite About Afghanistan

David Macaray
The Utility of Boycotts

David Correia
Welcome to the Business-Friendly Carpenter's Union

Robert Bryce
Wind Turbines and Bird Kills

Christopher Brauchli
Defenders of the Classroom

Paul Krassner
Aha! A Few Words About the 9/11 Truth Movement

Charles R. Larson
Deracination

Kim Nicolini
"Extract:" An Exercise in Economic Realism

David Yearsley
Tall Buildings: the Sound and the Silence

Lorenzo Wolff
In Defense of the One Hit Wonder

Poets' Basement
McEnteer and Corseri

Website of the Weekend
Pizarchik: the Wrong Choice

September 10, 2009

Joshua Frank
Inside Hanford's B Reactor: a Tour of the World's Most Toxic Nuclear Site

Dean Baker
Bernanke's Bad Money

Brian M. Downing
The State of U.S. National Security

Franklin C. Spinney
Portrait of an Afghan Firefight: Up Close and Personal

Andy Worthington
No Escape From Guantánamo

Chase Madar
Samantha Power and the Weaponization of Human Rights

Farzana Versey
A Tale of Two Slums

Ronnie Cummins
Whole Foods, Fair Trade and Organics

Binoy Kampmark
Health Care, Obama and the System

Timothy Lebrón
The Conservative Case for Health Care Reform

Charles R. Larson
A Solution to the Health Care Dilemma

Website of the Day
The Debtor's Revolt Begins!

September 9, 2009

Richard Neville
Trigger-Happy in Afghanistan

Melissa Checker
Double Jeopardy: Carbon Offsets and Human Rights Abuses

Nadia Hijab
Settling for ... Settlements?

Robert Weissman
The Stakes at the Supreme Court

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Arabs Call for General Strike

Russell Mokhiber
Pollan, Mackey, Whole Foods and Single Payer

James Ridgeway
The Dotty Factor: Will Demented Geezers Wreck the Economy?

Richard W. Behan
Obama's Imperative in Afghanistan

James McEnteer
The Photo and the Secretary: How to Appall Robert Gates

Martha Rosenberg
Hatchery Horrors

Website of the Day
Belmondo Verité

September 8, 2009

Henry A. Giroux
The Corporate Stranglehold on Education

Stephen Soldz
Psychologist Accused of War Crimes Opposes Investigations

John Ross
Rituals of the Absurd

Jeff Leys
Health Care vs. Warfare: the Future of the Afghan War

Mike Whitney Ashcroft: Repugnant to the Constitution

Shamus Cooke
Obama's Empty Labor Day Speech

Ellen Brown
Did Lehman Brothers Fall or Was It Pushed?

Norman Solomon Men With Guns: In Kabul and Washington

Deepak Tripathi
The Axis of Evil and the Great Satan

Laray Polk
Personality Cults, Indoctrination and Inculcation

Charles R. Larson
Just Who Does He Think He Is?

Website of the Day
The President is Not a Guidance Counselor

September 7, 2009

Vicente Navarro
Obama's Mistakes in Health Care Reform

Bouthaina Shaaban
In Praise of Admiral Mullen

David Macaray
Obama's Labor Day Report Card

Paul Craig Roberts
Indefensible Nation

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Ads Warn Against Marrying Non-Jews

Conn Hallinan
Brazil Flexes Its Muscles

Walter Brasch
The Origins of Labor Day, the Unknown Holiday

Mark Weisbrot
IMF Gives Honduran Government $175 Million

Carl Finamore
China's Birthday Stimulation

C. G. Estabrook
Advance Text of Obama's Big Speech

Website of the Day
One Down, 20,000 to Go

September 4-6, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Deeper Into the Tunnel

Carl Ginsburg
Saving New Orleans' Charity Hospital

Jonathan Cook
The Missing Link in Israeli Organ Theft?

George Wuerthner
The Unintended Consequences of Wolf Hunting

Marc Levy
The Bling They Curse and Carry

Ray McGovern
Holbrooke's Afghan Benchmark

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
It Happened in Miami

Joe Paff
Organizing the Mission

Gareth Porter
Taliban's Tank-Killing Bombs Came From CIA, Not Iran

Devin Beaulieu
Scaremongering About Bolivia and Islam

Anthony Papa
Why Leslie Crocker Snyder Should Not Become New York City's New DA

David Ker Thomson
Love and Dekes in Utopia

Don Fitz
The Case of the Biodevastation 7: What the Police Won't Apologize For

Lee Sustar /
S. Sepehri
The Fallout From Iran's Elections

Jim Goodman
Why Honor Organized Labor?

Wajahat Ali
Domestic Crusaders: Making Muslim American Theater

Ron Jacobs
Agitator Journalism: Remembering Ramparts

Helen Redmond
The Lion Sleeps Tonight: the Crimes and Misdemeanors of Teddy Kennedy

John V. Walsh
Obama to Cindy Sheehan: Get Lost

Charles R. Larson
Mandanipour's Masterpiece: Censoring an Iranian Love Story

Mark Scaramella
Ho-Bleeping-Hum: a Few Well-Chosen Words About Valerie Plame's Book

David Yearsley
Cameron Carpenter's Amazing Organ Transplants

Ben Sonnenberg
Hooking, Breaking Friendships, Cross-Dressing and, Above All, Delphine Seyrig

Poets' Basement
Davies, Orloski and Bready

Website of the Weekend
Architectural Semiotics with Glenn Beck

September 3, 2009

Marcus Rediker
Inside Auburn Prison

Ron Jacobs
Embedded With the Taliban

Mike Whitney
How Bad Will It Get?

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Untold Story of the Cuban Five: Indictment À La Carte

Saul Landau
Moby Dick and Asian Typhoons

Anat Matar
Israeli Academics Must Pay a Price to End Occupation

Tanya Golash-Boza
How Immigration Enforcement is Weakening National Security

Dave Lindorff
Which Side Are You On?

Andy Worthington
The Story of Gitmo's Two Syrians

Website of the Day
Plundering Appalachia

September 2, 2009

John Ross
Mexico's Plagues

Vijay Prashad
Hey Ram, the Things the Financial Times Group Does!

Rev. Jim Rigby
Why is Universal Health Care "Un-American"?

Joanne Mariner
What the Inspector General Found

Missy Beattie
Hejira: At Martha's Vineyard with Cindy Sheehan

Soren Ambrose
Multilateral Money

Diane Farsetta
Water: the Newest Wave of Corporate "Social Responsibility"

Nadia Hijab
Mulling Mullen's Message

Shamus Cooke
How to Lower the Deficit Without Killing Social Security

Charles R. Larson
Is Dick Cheney Running Scared?

Website of the Day
Inside the Egg Hatchery

September 1, 2009

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Wolf at Trout Creek

Paul Craig Roberts
Why Not Sanctions for Israel?

Mark T. Harris
The Whole Foods Boycott: It's About More Than CEO Hypocrisy

Dean Baker
Bank Profits Are Up: Did You Hear Anyone Say, "Thank You"?

Jeffrey Buchanan
Ending the Human Rights Crisis in KatrinaRitaVille

Robin Mittenthal
A Sea of Monocrops: Old MacDonald Never Had a Farm Like This

Ellen Brown
Mercury Mischief

Martha Rosenberg
Vytorin Marketing is Back

Website of the Day
Crazy Town Hall Protester Interviews

Weekend Edition
October 9-11, 2009

Art of the Scam

Getting Burned (Part One)

By JAMES T. PHILLIPS

“Lawrence B. Salander was arrested for the second time in four months for his role in what Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau called the biggest art fraud in New York history.”

--Philip Boroff and Lindsay Pollock, Bloomberg.org, July 2009

“At exactly what point Larry Salander may have crossed the line and begun to deceive his clients, as they allege, is hard to say for certain, but by the end of 2004, there were signs of trouble.”

--The Art of the Steal by Suzanna Andrews, Portfolio.com, April 2008.

I knew Larry Salander was trouble years before others began to have suspicions about his credibility. I fired Salander-O’Reilly Galleries in 1989 when they refused to make a deal that would benefit my employer Brenda Kuhn, the daughter of American modernist Walt Kuhn (1877-1949). There were previous opportunities to cancel the contract between Salander and Brenda, and pursue justice due to perceived fraudulent sales of artworks, but appealing to a jury for satisfaction never entered my mind. I didn’t talk to prosecutors. Larry Salander wasn’t the only art dealer who had pissed me off, then walked away from the heat of my anger and the judgment of a jury. I’d been there and done that. I was a habitual defender of Brenda Kuhn.

In 1983, I was representing the Estate of Walt Kuhn during contract negotiations with Lawrence Fleischman, president of Kennedy Galleries. When Fleischman failed to honor his word, I decided it was time to end the long relationship between Kennedy Galleries and Brenda Kuhn. I advised Brenda to cancel the contract. We held discussions with a few gallery owners based in New York, considered the various offers, then selected Larry Salander as the new dealer of artworks by Walt Kuhn. I realized right away that Larry was a hustler, but didn’t know he was a crook until after I helped Brenda climb out of the Kennedy Galleries skillet, and into the fire that was Salander-O’Reilly Galleries. For more than four years, until 1989, Brenda did earn a lot of money. Yet, in the end, the Estate of Walt Kuhn got burned. Perhaps the current crop of alleged victims also harbored doubts about Larry Salander, but held back any accusations until friends became adversaries and profits had turned to ashes.

The trial of Larry Salander will be a media circus, a Technicolor self-portrait of the defendant -- framed, in gilt -- dramatized in a New York courtroom designed to look like a Hollywood movie version of the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. The participants will tell their stories to an audience of twelve critics, hoping for good reviews. The proceedings will feature a Salander portraying a Gecko, and an actor (Robert DiNero, plaintiff, and former client of Salander-O”Reilly Galleries) performing in the witness chair, repeatedly snarling “You talkin’ to me” in response to questions by defense attorneys. If Walt Kuhn was still alive, he would be the appropriate choice for courtroom artist: Kuhn loved painting clowns.

My stories about the art world during the decade of greed (1980’s) read like the plot of a B-movie Film Noir. They are included in a book manuscript written in 2002, when I was living in Macedonia during the coldest winter on record in that small Balkan republic. The manuscript was promptly placed on a shelf, unread and unpublished, and I continued on with the my new career as a war reporter. The only landscapes I cared about were the ones I photographed, from Baghdad to Bosnia to Kosovo. I was thousands of miles, and years removed, from the War of Art. I stayed away from the dangerous streets of New York, and ignored news stories about predatory art dealers and the scorched-earth tactics they practice. If I had suspected that Larry Salander was preying on other victims, publishing my stories earlier might have helped many people avoid the pain of losing friends and money, and the suffering of courtroom appearances and lawyer’s bills.

Five excerpts from the manuscript have been published on Counterpunch, but only one includes any mention of the art world. It is the story about how and when I met Brenda Kuhn, and what was happening to her in the State of Maine. The short version: I was riding horseback, meandering north from Maryland. Brenda Kuhn was an elderly and disabled woman living in squalor at her home in Cape Neddick Park. Brenda was being used and abused. We met in July 1979, one week after I arrived -- saddle sore -- in the Pine Tree State. She asked for my help and, except for two extended horseback rides, I worked for Brenda until she died in 1993. I knew nothing about the business (or pleasure) of art when I agreed to work for Brenda, but I studied hard, learning on the job as director of the Walt Kuhn Gallery at Cape Neddick Park.

More than four years would pass before I was ready to jump into the fire.

* * *

”I then fixed my sights on the people wearing suits - Brenda's lawyer, banker and art dealer - who not only ignored the abuse but also profited from it. They were the real bad guys. I got angry with the people who abused Brenda at her Park; I got ugly with the people who allowed it to happen.”

Riding to Maine by James T. Phillips, Counterpunch.org, September 2002

Robert Renwick was the trust officer at Maine National Bank responsible for managing Brenda Kuhn’s financial affairs in 1983. I had fired Bob’s boss (the previous bank representative) when I arrived in Maine in 1979. Bob and I worked together for four years, his task that of a brakeman, always trying to slow me down, complementing my figurative function as the engineer of a train barreling toward the end of the line. Bob believed I was from a far out planet, someone alien to his corporate world of spacious accommodations and plush decor. I trusted him, though. Bob Renwick was an honest man, always willing to listen. He was a banker, but talked like a human being. We were sitting in his corner office discussing a letter I wanted to send to Lawrence Fleischman, president of Kennedy Galleries. The letter was a legal necessity, required by the current contract between Brenda and the gallery, a notification of intent to end the agreement.

“Bob,” I said, “we have to send the letter.”

“I understand how you feel, Terry,” responded Bob. “But, don’t you think we should meet with Fleischman? He wants to discuss a new contract. We should listen to what he has to say.”

I agreed to go to New York, but wasn’t thrilled about attending a meeting with Lawrence Fleischman, unsure if I could hold back the words of contempt that needed to be expressed. Kennedy Galleries had represented the Estate of Walt Kuhn for more than a decade, and Fleischman considered himself a friend of Brenda Kuhn. I understood that Kennedy Galleries provided her with an income from the sale of Walt Kuhn artworks (after lopping off fifty percent for the gallery), but ignoring Brenda during the years she suffered from neglect and abuse was disgraceful, and getting paid for it was vile. I didn’t think it was right for Fleischman to have taken his cut off the top whilst Brenda lived at the bottom of the pile. Brenda’s life changed dramatically when I lost my temper in Maine, but I knew I had to keep my cool in New York. I promised to behave.

West 57th Street was crowded with people moving in packs along the sidewalks like automobiles on a busy Interstate, entering and exiting upscale shops and restaurants, deftly swerving to avoided bumping into wide-eyed visitors standing still amidst the rush. The neighborhood was tidy and clean. Business was booming. The pimps, prostitutes and drug users that infested other areas of the city were undetectable. The streets walkers in this area of New York flashed money, not thighs. A few pickpockets, though. did ply their trade in the corridors of high-rise buildings. They were the dealers on a dirty boulevard. Kennedy Galleries is located on West 57th Street.

Bob Renwick and I met with Lawrence Fleischman in his large, art-filled office deep in the bowels of the gallery. Fleischman sat behind a cluttered desk. He resembled Henry Kissinger, without the charm. Bob and I sat down in comfortable chairs. The desk and dealer sat atop an elevated platform, a perch that forced his visitors to look up to the icon of American art. Fleischman gazed briefly in my direction, then turned his attention to Bob the banker, asking the first question about the Estate of Walt Kuhn. Bob hesitated, then deferred to me. I was calm, unperturbed, never raising my voice in anger. I wanted answers from Lawrence Fleischman, not questions. For the next hour, I did the talking. Fleischman did not glance at Bob for the remainder of the meeting. The years spent studying the Walt Kuhn collection, the art market, and the man sitting in front of me were worth the effort. During previous negotiations Fleischman had rolled over the Estate representatives, but he didn’t know how to deal with a long-haired hippie who wasn’t horsing around. By the end of our discussion Fleischman accepted all of my demands, agreeing to a long-term contract with annual guarantees. We only haggled over the numbers.

“You did a good job,’ said Bob Renwick as we left the gallery. “I’m impressed.”

“Far out,” I said. “Thanks.”

Unfortunately, Fleischman wasn’t forced to sign on the dotted line when I painted him into a corner. Bob and I only had a verbal agreement when we left New York. Lawrence Fleischman’s subsequent actions didn’t match his words, and I wasn’t surprised (or worried) when he didn’t respond to several requests for a draft of the new deal. Fleischman’s delaying tactics provided me with the opportunity to continue talking with other art dealers and, as the deadline approached for sending the letter of intent, I met with the owners of Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, a new art venture that just opened in New York. We had already held a few preliminary discussions about what would be included in a contract between Brenda Kuhn and the gallery. Larry Salander and Bill O’Reilly were young and enthusiastic, and excited about the possibility of representing the Estate. Walt Kuhn would be their star attraction.

Cutting Fleischman loose was risky, though. He was one of the most powerful art dealers in New York. In addition to his position as president of Kennedy Galleries, Fleischman helped create the Archives of American Art, and his many friends and clients throughout the United States were influential in the art world. The difference between Kennedy Galleries and Salander-O’Reilly Galleries was akin to the disparity of talent between Pablo Picasso and a university art professor: Fleischman knew how to sell major works of art, and Salander could talk about it, at length, at a very high decibel level. Nevertheless, a few months after the meeting with Fleischman, and only days before the deadline, I advised Brenda Kuhn to sever ties with Kennedy Galleries.

I telephoned Larry Salander and asked if he wanted to represent the Estate of Walt Kuhn. Larry’s answer was an emphatic “yes”.

I then spoke with Bob Renwick in Portland, Maine. “Bob,” I said. “Send the letter.”

One month later, Lawrence Fleischman and Kennedy Galleries no longer represented the Estate of Walt Kuhn. Brenda Kuhn signed a contract with Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, and the artworks located in Kennedy’s elegant space on West 57th Street were transferred to Salander’s shabby digs on the eastside of Manhattan. The stark dissimilarity in appearance of the two galleries didn’t bother me. I was more concerned with the addendum in the new contract relating to the value of the individual artworks. Larry Salander believed Kennedy Galleries had been selling Kuhn’s for less than their true worth, so he decided to raise all of the prices, sometimes by more than 100%. At first, I was thrilled when reading through the pages of listed paintings and drawings by Walt Kuhn, comparing Salander’s individual valuations to the old Kennedy inventory. All the new prices had a few extra zeroes attached. After adding things up, I was baffled, wondering whether Larry Salander was a fool, Lawrence Fleischman a crook, or if zeroes appended to zeroes equaled nothing.

Not all of Walt Kuhn’s artworks were assigned to a public gallery. Brenda Kuhn rented space in a secure, multi-storied industrial warehouse in New York where many artists and performers stored their possessions, including Mick Jagger and Robert DiNero, Sr. A few weeks after signing the contract with Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, I traveled to New York to show the contents of the storeroom to Larry Salander and Bill O’Reilly. We met in front of the warehouse, gained entry from an attendant, then walked through dusty hallways until we arrived at the door leading to Brenda’s private gallery. Inside the large room, scattered amidst an extensive cache of memorabilia, were hundreds of paintings, drawings, etchings, and other works of art by Walt Kuhn. Larry was like a happy rabbit on speed, bouncing from stacks of paintings, to portfolios of drawings, to works of art by other artists. He admired Walt Kuhn’s easels and oil-spattered palettes, and rummaged through a box of old framed photographs. Larry’s joy was genuine as he stood in the middle of a treasure trove of American art and history. We spent hours looking through the storeroom.

I needed to beat the rush hour traffic on my way back to Maine, so I had to leave. Larry and Bill said they wanted to stay. Without any hesitation, I agreed, telling Larry to lock up when finished, reminding him not to take away anything until given permission. I explained that everything stays in the storeroom until a complete inventory was accomplished. Larry and Bill needed to see everything in the Estate, but I wanted to take care that nothing was removed without my approval. I rode the elevator down to ground level of the warehouse, walked to the garage where my Buick was parked, paid the outrageous fee, then drove into the core of a Big Apple traffic jam. I inhaled noxious fumes as my vehicle crept behind cars, trucks, and taxis. The grid locked vehicles moved slowly, about a block in fifteen minutes. The pedestrians were much faster, making better progress than the swearing and sweating drivers. Confident, athletic women passed by my window, skirts blowing in the wind, reminding me of street scenes in Edward Hopper’s paintings. In the background of the imagined view, I noticed two men huddled together. One man was large, slovenly dressed, and energetic. He was holding a small framed photograph in his hands. The other man was much smaller, dapper, and stood still as he gazed at the old photograph, an object that, a few minutes earlier, had been in a box in the Walt Kuhn storeroom. The men walked away, moving at a quicker pace than the vehicles in the roadway. Larry Salander and Bill O’Reilly turned a corner and vanished.

Larry and Bill didn’t stay for very long after I left the warehouse, and the traffic delay made it possible for me to watch as they absconded with a small souvenir. I swore out loud, angry and upset. I couldn’t get out of my car and chase them on foot, so I drove away, slowly, from the scene of the crime. I had plenty of time to calm down, counting to ten, again and again. I crossed over a bridge, and sped north until I pulled over at a rest area alongside the highway. I found a pay telephone and placed a call to Bob Renwick in Portland, Maine. Trucks rumbled down the road, crunching gears as they passed near the telephone booth, but Bob heard me just fine over the long-distance telephone line.

“I want to go back and cancel the contract,” I yelled.

“Hold on, Terry,” said Bob Renwick. “Are you certain you saw them carrying stuff from the storeroom?”

“No doubt at all,” I responded.

Bob was careful with his words, not wanting to argue about what had transpired in New York. He was more concerned about what could happen if I acted imprudently. Bob reminded me of the recent removal of Kennedy Galleries as the Estate art dealer, a more serious matter than the taking of a small photograph. Dumping Salander-O’Reilly Galleries so soon, he said, could produce serious consequences. I might have problems getting another dealer to represent the Estate of Walt Kuhn. Brenda Kuhn’s income would be jeopardized if I reacted recklessly. Bob wanted me to ignore what had just happened, telling me to use the incident as a warning to be more cautious in the future. I hung up the telephone, got into my Buick and continued driving north, back to Maine.

I agreed to keep my mouth shut and my eyes wide open.

James T. Phillips was director of Cape Neddick Park until 1990, then began a career as a reporter and photojournalist in 1991. He has covered wars in Iraq, Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Macedonia. His is a contributor to Imperial Crusades, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. He can be contacted at jamestphillips@yahoo.com.

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