Bullies

They can be stopped, but it takes a village.

Source: Slate
Published: Aug 11, 2009
Length: 11 minutes (2,926 words)

Is It Now a Crime to Be Poor?

It’s too bad so many people are falling into poverty at a time when it’s almost illegal to be poor. You won’t be arrested for shopping in a Dollar Store, but if you are truly, deeply, in-the-streets poor, you’re well advised not to engage in any of the biological necessities of life — like sitting, sleeping, lying down or loitering.

Published: Aug 8, 2009
Length: 7 minutes (1,804 words)

Cattle rustling on the rise again in Texas

An Old West crime becomes new again, partly in response to the recession. One disgusted Texas Ranger says rustlers ‘disgrace the cowboy name.’

Published: Aug 11, 2009
Length: 6 minutes (1,538 words)

Don and Betty’s Paradise Lost

On Mad Men creator (and former Sopranos writer) Matthew Weiner, the casting of Jon Hamm and January Jones as Don and Betty Draper, and the obsession that fuels each episode.

Source: Vanity Fair
Published: Sep 1, 2009
Length: 32 minutes (8,231 words)

What’s a Big City Without a Newspaper?

Now down to a besieged two, Philadelphia is a particularly good place to observe what appears to be big-city journalism’s last stand, when many of America’s metropolitan newspapers must quickly figure out how to become profitable again or face likely extinction.

Published: Aug 6, 2009
Length: 23 minutes (5,824 words)

Wilder Women

The mother and daughter behind the Little House stories.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Aug 10, 2009
Length: 19 minutes (4,765 words)

The Art of Letting Employees Go

Author: Eli Saslow
Source: Washington Post
Published: Aug 9, 2009
Length: 13 minutes (3,324 words)

The Last Abortion Doctor

For thirty-six years, Warren Hern has been one of the few doctors in America to specialize in late abortions. George Tiller was another. And when Dr. Tiller was murdered that Sunday in church, Warren Hern became the only one left.

Source: Esquire
Published: Aug 1, 2009
Length: 68 minutes (17,214 words)

Cinema: Well, Hello Molly Ringwald!

Source: Time
Published: May 26, 1986
Length: 16 minutes (4,249 words)

American Football

Seattle is leading the charge to make soccer into an American sport. If “we” don’t do it, who will?

Source: The Stranger
Published: Aug 4, 2009
Length: 11 minutes (2,757 words)