A Friendly Chat: Michael K, Web Entrepreneur, Blogger, Pottymouth

Michael K runs and writes the website Dlisted, which gives a rundown on the day’s celebrity comings and goings with crude humor that often verges on the vulgar (though he disputes this point). “I think the boundaries change each day. Some days I’m like, okay you’re not going to make fun of children, and some days its like, you’re not going to make fun of Michelle Williams because of the whole Heath Ledger thing. But then here are some stories you have to do whether or not you can make them funny. But there are some stories that if I can’t find any humor in it, I don’t touch it.”

Source: The Awl
Published: Jul 17, 2009
Length: 8 minutes (2,158 words)

Gates Is Right–and We’re Not Post-racial Until He’s Wrong

The relationship between black men and police forces is, in fact, the main thing keeping America from becoming “post-racial” in any sense.

Published: Jul 22, 2009
Length: 6 minutes (1,704 words)

Stand and Deliver Revisited

The untold story behind the famous rise — and shameful fall — of Jaime Escalante, America’s master math teacher.

Source: Reason
Published: Jul 28, 2002
Length: 14 minutes (3,570 words)

Why we say yes to drugs

Resistance to mind-altering substances is futile, according to a new “Secret History of Getting High in America”

Source: Salon
Published: Jul 20, 2009
Length: 7 minutes (1,891 words)

Speechless: Dilbert Creator’s Struggle to Regain His Voice

The rules dictated when and where Scott Adams, the chief engineer of the Dilbert comic empire, was allowed to speak. He could neither control them nor predict exactly when they’d go into effect. All he knew was that he’d woken up one morning and found that his voice had turned against him, imposing a set of bizarre restrictions.

Source: Wired
Published: Jul 20, 2009
Length: 19 minutes (4,762 words)

The Health-Care Wimps

Obama may be impervious to the demons of 1994, but his party is still haunted by the failure of Hillarycare.

Source: Daily Beast
Published: Jul 20, 2009
Length: 4 minutes (1,087 words)

The Last of Heath

When Heath Ledger died, he was deep into filming The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus with his friend and mentor, director Terry Gilliam. How the 28-year-old star’s last movie was rescued by a trio of friends: Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell.

Source: Vanity Fair
Published: Aug 1, 2009
Length: 37 minutes (9,273 words)

Cocksure

Banks, battles, and the psychology of overconfidence.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Jul 27, 2009
Length: 15 minutes (3,943 words)

The Cause of My Life

Inside the fight for universal health care.

Source: Newsweek
Published: Jul 18, 2009
Length: 13 minutes (3,342 words)

As Boom Times Sour in Vegas, Upward Mobility Goes Bust

Published: Jul 20, 2009
Length: 8 minutes (2,023 words)