Sober Traveling: AA Roadside Assistance for a Recovering Alcoholic

My goal for this trip in the winter of 2008 is to drive from California to a conference in Florida and back, attend AA meetings in seven states and see how they differ — and how they don’t. I have two fears: that a low-budget camping trip is dangerous for a lone woman and that I’ll end up hating the AA I find outside my local group. Without the one place I’ve felt most at home the last 28 years, where would I be?

Author: Kathy P.
Published: Jan 2, 2011
Length: 21 minutes (5,301 words)

The Squid Hunter

Steve O’Shea, a marine biologist from New Zealand, is one of the hunters—but his approach is radically different. He is not trying to find a mature giant squid; rather, he is scouring the ocean for a baby, called a paralarva, which he can grow in captivity. This year, he told me, he would venture out during the summer nights of the Southern Hemisphere, when giant squid released their babies. “Come on down, mate,” he said. “We’ll see if we can’t find the bloody thing and make history.”

Source: The New Yorker
Published: May 24, 2004
Length: 45 minutes (11,298 words)

The Man Behind Bin Laden

Last March, a band of horsemen journeyed through the province of Paktika, in Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border. Predator drones were circling the skies and American troops were sweeping through the mountains. The war had begun six months earlier, and by now the fighting had narrowed down to the ragged eastern edge of the country. Regional warlords had been bought off, the borders supposedly sealed. For twelve days, American and coalition forces had been bombing the nearby Shah-e-Kot Valley and systematically destroying the cave complexes in the Al Qaeda stronghold. And yet the horsemen were riding unhindered toward Pakistan. #Sept11

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Sep 16, 2002
Length: 87 minutes (21,897 words)

India’s New Generation of Caste Busters

Misal embodies the type of person who will truly transform India: not an engineer or a financier, but an average person who refuses to be satisfied with the status he was born to. Umred rioted because its people had somehow acquired the courage of their own dissatisfaction. But what kind of India will they build?

Published: Dec 31, 2010
Length: 19 minutes (4,768 words)

The Incredible True Story of the Collar Bomb Heist

The most perplexing and intriguing pieces of evidence, though, were the handwritten notes that investigators found inside Wells’ car. Addressed to the “Bomb Hostage,” the notes instructed Wells to rob the bank of $250,000, then follow a set of complex instructions to find various keys and combination codes hidden throughout Erie. It contained drawings, threats, and detailed maps. If Wells did as he was told, the instructions promised, he’d wind up with the keys and the combination required to free him from the bomb. Failure or disobedience would result in certain death.

Source: Wired
Published: Dec 27, 2010
Length: 19 minutes (4,809 words)

Ryan Seacrest: ‘Dark Lord of Hosts’

Napping is for mortals. The Angel of the Bottomless Pit has souls to harvest, a mission demanding as much science as art. Seacrest’s voice — full of wiseass pep — has worked on radio for more than half his present incarnation, dating to his high school days in suburban Atlanta. It is not a versatile or interesting voice — expunged of all traces of any but the most generic middle-American accent, it is the aural equivalent of a bag of fast-food fries — but it is quick and, in a familiar sort of way, engaging.

Author: Scott Raab
Source: Esquire
Published: Jul 1, 2006
Length: 15 minutes (3,902 words)

‘What It Takes’: The Book that Defined Modern Campaign Reporting

Richard Ben Cramer’s “What It Takes” is now widely considered the greatest modern presidential campaign book. But the judgments of Washington’s elite come late to Maryland’s remote Eastern Shore, and the book’s place in political writing has dawned only very late on its author. When it came out in the heat of the 1992 campaign, the tome dropped with a heavy thud. It was viewed as eccentric, affected, too long for its boring subject. Who, four years after he lost, wanted to read 100 pages on Dick Gephardt’s childhood?

Author: Ben Smith
Source: Politico
Published: Dec 30, 2010
Length: 8 minutes (2,233 words)

Charged for Battle: How Nissan & GM Went Electric

In his small office deep inside GM’s Vehicle Engineering Center in suburban Detroit, Posawatz pulls out some books on the history of electric vehicles, which date back to 1881 and outsold gasoline-powered cars in the early days. Henry Ford’s wife drove one. Posawatz points to a 1910 ad for the Baker Electric. Beneath a drawing of a woman at the wheel, the ad copy boasts of the “quietest and most refined electric car.” Back then, he says, electric carmakers like Baker, Detroit Electric, and Waverly Electric targeted women, who wouldn’t have to crank a starter or tolerate the noise and soot of gas-powered cars.

Source: Businessweek
Published: Dec 30, 2010
Length: 22 minutes (5,617 words)

The Gene Machine: Building the Personal DNA Decoder

Have we mentioned the ifs? Like all potentially disruptive innovations, gene sequencers could fizzle. Their success depends on unpredictable events: how fast the technology improves, how quickly researchers can make medical discoveries based on the new machines and–most critically–whether drugs can be developed to treat diseases. Gene test prices could drop, becoming a low-margin commodity like medical blood tests (cholesterol, blood sugar and so on), which, at a few bucks a pop, are a $40 billion business. Ultimately Rothberg’s machine may not win. Like the Commodore 64 home computer that dominated in the 1980s and disappeared soon after, the PGM could be quickly eclipsed.

Source: Forbes
Published: Dec 30, 2010
Length: 16 minutes (4,125 words)

In Haiti, a Relationship Built on Adversity

An American journalist is drawn into a friendship with a Haitian deported from the U.S. years ago. Each time a catastrophe strikes, Jean is there to help him. But life between the big-news disasters is another level of tragedy.

Published: Dec 30, 2010
Length: 10 minutes (2,521 words)