In Which We Consider The Macabre Unpleasantness Of Roald Dahl

Everyone knows Roald Dahl’s last novel Matilda, his seemingly pro-female examination of a talented young girl oppressed by the provincialism of her parents. What they usually do not know is that the original draft of the book painted the protagonist as a devilish little hussy who only later becomes “clever”, perhaps because she found herself without very much to do after torturing her parents. Dahl’s editor Stephen Roxburgh completely revised Dahl’s last novel and, in doing so, turned it into his most popular book.

Source: This Recording
Published: Jun 2, 2011
Length: 17 minutes (4,281 words)

The Making of Anthony Weiner

It seemed to be yet another triumph of the Chuck Schumer school of politics on Sunday morning, when Anthony Weiner made it onto “Meet the Press.” Weiner, after all, is something of a Schumer protégé, a six-term congressman who started out as a lowly college intern in Schumer’s office all the way back in 1985, and who still hails the senator as “my singular influence.”

Published: Dec 1, 2010
Length: 7 minutes (1,809 words)

Doing Business in Argentina: A Constant Feeling of Crisis

On the day his country exploded, Santiago Bilinkis stayed at home and watched the riots on television with his wife and infant son. It was painful. In Buenos Aires, one of the world’s great cities, looters were attacking grocery stores. Bilinkis’s bank account—along with every other account in the country—had been frozen by executive decree three weeks earlier. Argentina was out of money. This was December 20, 2001, a Thursday. That afternoon, several people were killed by police in front of the executive office building, known as the Pink House, and President Fernando de la Rúa resigned and fled the capital in a helicopter. In the days that followed, Argentina would cycle through four more presidents and default on debts totaling $155 billion. Unemployment would soar to 25 percent, and local governments, unable to pay their workers, would simply invent and print their own currencies.

Source: Inc.
Published: May 31, 2011
Length: 21 minutes (5,298 words)

Can Bill Simmons Win the Big One?

Simmons is the most prominent sportswriter in America. He’s also a Boston fan. During his early years as a columnist in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he was sustained by the angst of backing losers, above all, the Red Sox. More recently, with Boston’s various sports franchises prospering, he has sought poetic inspiration in the teams he hates, and, with the exception of the Yankees, he hates no team more than the Lakers.

Published: May 31, 2011
Length: 18 minutes (4,629 words)

The Man Who Had HIV and Now Does Not

Four years ago, Timothy Brown underwent an innovative procedure. Since then, test after test has found absolutely no trace of the virus in his body. The bigger miracle, though, is how his case has experts again believing they just might find a cure for AIDS.

Published: May 31, 2011
Length: 15 minutes (3,798 words)

Basta Bunga Bunga

These days, you would have to possess an unusually pure mind to look at that pool full of young women without picturing the pool at Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s estate, Arcore, just outside Milan. Along with the basement disco and the upstairs bedrooms, the pool is featured almost daily in Italian newspapers as one of the sites where the Presidente reportedly hosted scores of orgies—or, as they have become known around the world, Bunga Bungas.

Author: Ariel Levy
Source: The New Yorker
Published: Jun 6, 2011
Length: 39 minutes (9,909 words)

SI Investigation Reveals Eight-Year Pattern of Violations Under Jim Tressel at Ohio State

The 58-year-old Tressel benefited from the fertile recruiting grounds of Ohio, but supporters always believed he got the most out of players because he was—as the title of a 2009 book about him declares—More Than a Coach. Under Tressel, the Buckeyes often sat together before meetings or at the start of practice for 10 minutes of “quiet time” to read about virtues such as humility, faith and gratitude. Tressel liked to say that his teams “play as hard as we can play” but also “respect as hard as we can respect.” Yet while Tressel’s admirable qualities have been trumpeted, something else essential to his success has gone largely undiscussed: his ignorance.

Published: May 30, 2011
Length: 25 minutes (6,300 words)

Making the Memorial

“It’s taken me years to be able to discuss the making of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, partly because I needed to move past it and partly because I had forgotten the process of getting it built. I would not discuss the controversy surrounding its construction and it wasn’t until I saw the documentary Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision that I was able to remember that time in my life. But I wrote the body of this essay just as the memorial was being completed—in the fall of 1982. Then I put it away…until now.”

Author: Maya Lin
Published: Nov 2, 2000
Length: 19 minutes (4,994 words)

A Serial Killer in Common

On Monday, May 2, a year and a day after Shannan disappeared, Mari Gilbert and four other women came together in Manhattan to meet, at my invitation. Until that day, the five women had been in touch only through Facebook or by phone; just two of the five had seen one another in person. In addition to Mari, there was Megan Waterman’s mother, Lorraine Ela; Amber Costello’s sister, Kimberly Overstreet; Melissa Barthelemy’s mother, Lynn; and Maureen Brainard-Barnes’s sister, Melissa Cann. The group makes up a kind of grim sorority: They are the sisters and mothers of those who appear to have been the victims of the most skillful and accomplished serial killer in New York since Joel Rifkin or David Berkowitz, the “Son of Sam.”

Published: May 30, 2011
Length: 26 minutes (6,513 words)

Liking Is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts.

To speak more generally, the ultimate goal of technology, the telos of techne, is to replace a natural world that’s indifferent to our wishes — a world of hurricanes and hardships and breakable hearts, a world of resistance — with a world so responsive to our wishes as to be, effectively, a mere extension of the self. Let me suggest, finally, that the world of techno-consumerism is therefore troubled by real love, and that it has no choice but to trouble love in turn.

A COUPLE of weeks ago, I replaced my three-year-old BlackBerry Pearl with a much more powerful BlackBerry Bold. Needless to say, I was impressed with…

Published: May 28, 2011
Length: 8 minutes (2,077 words)