Stories by Tony Bartelme

Tracking an arsonist By Tony Bartelme tbartelme@postandcourier.com Monday, October 3, 2011 It's 3 a.m. on Bogard and Ashe streets, dead center in the arsonist's hunting zone. It's quiet except for the hum of air conditioners and a distant voice. I move closer and see a young man on a porch. He's talking on his cell phone and smoking a cigarette. Ahead, a fan of palmetto fronds blocks the glow from a street lamp; I walk into its shadow, my footsteps scrape the sidewalk. An arsonist has walked these same blocks, perhaps for as many as ten years. He passed the porches of these tightly packed wooden homes, some of which date to the Civil War. He moved through this same time of stillness, a time after the bars close and before the delivery trucks roll and early risers rise. At some point, his footsteps turned toward the porches of these homes and crossed that invisible line between public and private. Then came the sound of a match or the click of a ligh...

     Meditations on Uncertainty                                               For the past twenty years, I’ve written stories for newspapers. This can be a heady job; you meet famous people, go to interesting places, paint the first brushstrokes of history. Best of all, it’s a continuing education in how we handle moments of uncertainty: What will the governor do now that he’s been caught with his Argentine mistress? [i] Will a burned-out neurosurgeon stick to his predictable career path or risk everything to teach in the African bush? [ii] The rise of the Internet and other external economic and social factors have fueled doubts about the viability of narrative and investigative journalism, but I suspect that demand for well-told stories will survive...

Thoughts about being named a Pulitzer finalist: What a thrill! And what great recognition for narrative writing in small- and medium-sized papers!   The Post and Courier put together   “One Brain at a Time” during a period of intense financial pressure. The publisher, Bill Hawkins, could have said, “What are you crazy? You want to go to Africa?” In fact, it was Hawkins who first suggested I look into this doctor’s work. The paper then gave me the time and expense account to do a story that allows readers to experience a compelling story about an important issue that affects billions of people – the shortage of skilled doctors in low-income countries. I’m deeply grateful for the Pulitzer judges’ recognition of our work.

Discovering Peru Lost Incan city site of recently uncovered white stone llamas BY TONY BARTELME The Post and Courier Sunday, August 8, 2010 CHOQUEQUIRAO, Peru -- As the blistering afternoon sun lit up the ruins of an abandoned Incan city, we plunged into the cloud forest in search of llamas. We found them a half-hour later, down a twisting, knee-crushing trail: At least 24 llamas made of white stones set in the walls of terraces that spill like a waterfall down the flanks of a near-vertical mountainside. Photo Gallery Choquequirao, Peru Machu Picchu is one of the world's wonders, but Peru is filled with other less famous but equally important Inca sites, including the lost city of Choquequirao. Like Machu Picchu, Choquequirao was a key religious and economic center before it was abandoned to the Andean cloud forest in the 1500s. Unlike its more famous twin, Choquequirao is difficult to reach, a two-day hike through spectacular mountains, so only a handful of tourists per day explor...

A chorus of hope: Will a doctor's mission take hold here and in Africa?   BY TONY BARTELME The Post and Courier Wednesday, July 28, 2010 Here's where ideas come from: Somewhere inside your brain, a signal shoots through a neuron at 200 mph toward a sac of molecules. Bam! When the signal hits that sac, it pushes the molecules out of the neuron, like a gust punching through an unlatched door. These molecules are on a mission now and fasten quickly to a nearby neuron, which sends the signal toward other neurons, over and over, until you think of a good place to get pizza or remember a funny joke or daydream as a choir sings softly in Swahili deep in the African bush. Provided by Brennan Wesley MUSC Dilan Ellegala (left) a neurosurgeon from MUSC, assists Emmanuel Nuwas, a Tanzanian doctor, during rounds at Haydom Lutheran Hospital in April 2010. It's late April 2010, end of the rainy season in Tanzania, and the choir sounds like velvet inside Haydom...