"Aside from the two black storage lockers full of pungent weed and an excellent security team, the nuts and bolts of running the Green Cross weren't that different from any other small business. [Kevin] Reed used QuickBooks accounting software, held power meetings in the mornings next to an employee schedule color-coded by name, and kept an inspirational calendar on the office wall with such phrases as "Have great dreams and dare to live them" written in cursive above a rocky coastline. He maintained liability insurance and paid himself modestly ($35,000 in 2005); he even kept the sidewalk swept on his corner. Last year, he paid almost $200,000 in sales and payroll taxes to the state. Although he continually feared a raid and arrest by federal authorities (neither happened), as far as local matters were concerned he believed he was operating by the book...Reed just hadn't counted on grief from the neighbors: "Of course they all voted for Prop. 215, and they all believe [medical marijuana] should be legal -- but only for them!" he says, his drawl growing stronger."



Same Sex Family Values
Salon cover story and winner of the national GLAAD Outstanding Digital Journalism Award.

"Though Jean and Toby Adams didn't move to Auburn with their 3-year-old daughter Kalen to make a political statement, in the year they've lived here their very presence has done it for them. They weren't married legally -- there are no states that officially recognize same-sex marriage -- but in their daily lives they still live quietly and openly as wife and wife: at church, in the neighborhood they live in, at the preschool attended by their little girl. In many ways the Adamses are the all-American family -- Toby, 37, a software project manager, and Jean, 30, a remedial writing teacher for adults -- and if one of them were a man, their neighbors would probably regard them as model parents. Instead, people who've lived in the town all their lives are planning to move now that a same-sex couple lives down the block; others cheer the women on. As for the majority, they just don't know what to make of the Adamses yet -- but as time goes on, they're going to have to decide."



Understanding Kim Jong Il
Salon cover story

"Kim Jong Il likes Daffy Duck and fast cars, and before he became North Korea's dictator he wanted to be a film producer. He was born on the peak of a sacred mountain, he says, and his birth was attended by thunder and lightning. In 1978 he had spies kidnap his favorite South Korean actress in order to improve North Korean cinema. His agents were implicated in the 1987 bombing of a Korean Air flight, killing 135 passengers, intended to scare away tourists from the 1988 Seoul Olympics. While his famine-starved people eat tree bark to ease their hunger, he dines on steak and cognac in the company of the "Pleasure Squad" -- a variety pack of imported blondes and Asian beauties.

He's also in charge of North Korea's nuclear missile program. And when his minions revealed the nation had restarted its nuclear weapons program late last year, and expelled arms inspectors, the unexpected provocation had U.S. diplomats asking a vexing question: How do you negotiate with a madman?"

Til Death Do Us Part
California Lawyer magazine cover story about the longest marriage on California's Death Row.

"'Hide his chains behind your bouquet,' said the guard taking the wedding photo."



Millions Die, Bush Is Silent
Salon News/Politics cover story

"In the eastern part of Congo there is a town run by children, an uncontrollable army playing soldiers with Kalashnikovs. In the city of Bunia, men machete men, and underground there are diamonds and bones. At night the women hide in the forest because it is safer than in their homes, but they desperately hush their infants lest the noise bring looters who rape and sometimes kill."



The INS Runaround
Salon News/Politics cover story

"When the office computer at the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) crashed during Mohsen Hashemi's interview on the afternoon of Dec. 16, 2002 -- two days after he'd first heard of a new program that, he thought, required him to register with the agency -- he was annoyed but unconcerned. He'd been a taxpaying Texan for the past 10 years, and he was not afraid to register. He was here legally, on "humanitarian parole" from Iran, and contributing to his community. The Italian restaurant he owned in Round Rock was small but surviving, and his daughters, 2 1/2 and 5, had been learning to speak Southern from birth. His wife, a Russian immigrant, had started studying for the U.S. citizenship exam that year. It was a good life, he thought, and he was grateful to the government who had allowed him to escape harm in Iran.

So when the INS told him it had grown close to closing time that day and he would have to come back on Dec. 19, he didn't mind. He minded a little more when the computer connection to D.C. went down on that second visit too and he was again told to make the hour-and-a-half drive to return. For a routine process, this was taking a long time, he thought, but he willingly complied. And although on his third visit the computer did not crash, everything else in his world did."



What Would Mohammed Do?
Salon Life cover story

"Two weeks ago, a Nigerian fashion writer's throwaway remark -- that Mohammed would have approved of the Miss World pageant and probably would have chosen a wife from among the contestants -- sparked riots that killed 220 people, left thousands homeless and earned the author, Isioma Daniel, a fatwa.
By and large, the West found this imbroglio baffling, and many immediately blamed Islam. But the religion, to those who know it, is anything but strait-laced."



The Salon Interview: Al Franken

"Al Franken got the glad tidings while vacationing in Italy. He had fallen asleep reading "The Tipping Point" and mulling marketing ideas for his forthcoming "Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," when a friend staying in the villa walked into his bedroom and woke him up. "Al!" he said. "You're being sued by Fox!" After a second-and-a-half of considering this, Franken responded: "Good!" Then he fell back asleep."



The Salon Interview: Molly Ivins