“I Did Not Know It Was a Man”: The Surreal Story of How a Deadly Crash Upended South Dakota Politics

“The public and political reaction to the crash has been driven by a fundamental and, perhaps, ultimately unknowable question, one that will cast a shadow long after Ravnsborg emerges from the criminal and potential civil litigation: Was he really unaware that he hit another man?”

Author: Tom Kludt
Source: Vanity Fair
Published: Aug 25, 2021
Length: 21 minutes (5,386 words)

Death of a Storyteller

“Rare is the actor who can locate the specific in the universal and vice versa. Michael K. Williams was that actor.”

Source: Vulture
Published: Sep 7, 2021
Length: 13 minutes (3,450 words)

The Public Information Films That Scared Seventies Children for Life

“Public information films – or PIFs to the aficionado – still exist today. We have seen them recently with regards to Covid; government advice on washing our hands, wearing masks and being careful of hugging our friends.

But next to the PIFs of the heyday of the genre, these touchy-feely, nicey-nicey televised messages are like comparing the Teletubbies with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

 

 

Source: The Independent
Published: Aug 27, 2021
Length: 13 minutes (3,424 words)

From Watching Your Own Funeral to Induced Convulsing… Has The Wellness Industry Gone Too Far?

The weird, and often damaging treatments offered by unregulated wellness retreats.

Source: The Telegraph
Published: Aug 13, 2021
Length: 8 minutes (2,137 words)

Mourning the Dead, and Fighting for the Living

“New York was one of the states hit hardest by the pandemic in the United States. The hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants who live there suffered both the virus and its ravages: mass graves, widespread contagion, hunger, debt, overcrowded housing, unemployment—just some of the legacies of 2020. After years of struggle, many must start all over again.”

Source: El Faro
Published: Aug 27, 2021
Length: 31 minutes (7,800 words)

‘This Is Tough Country’

The people lost in the American wilderness, and the volunteers who won’t stop looking for them.

Published: Aug 29, 2021
Length: 19 minutes (4,900 words)

The Search For America’s Atlantis

“If one of Gusick’s core samples contains definitive evidence of a pre-Clovis settlement, it will be the biggest find in Paleoindian archaeology since Edgar Howard plucked his first projectile out of the New Mexican desert. It would tell us, perhaps once and for all, that the first Americans were people of the sea.”

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Sep 7, 2021
Length: 21 minutes (5,410 words)

Cases of Missing Trans People Are Rarely Solved. A Married Pair of Forensic Genealogists Is Hoping to Change That.

“Resolving any Doe case is, at its core, about restoring dignity to the dead. But that is especially pertinent in cases of trans and gender nonconforming people, who are routinely harassed, sexualized, overpoliced and dehumanized. The TDTF’s work is also about restoration, righting the historical wrongs of institutions that have overlooked trans people. It is not easy work, but the Redgraves consider it necessary. If we want to begin the process of undoing decades of harm that systemic transphobia has caused, they say, this is one painful but crucial place to begin.”

Source: Xtra Magazine
Published: Sep 1, 2021
Length: 14 minutes (3,645 words)

WeWork: The Millennial Start-Up Dream That Shattered Into Pieces

“Optics remained everything for a company that spent as much as it brought in – and usually more. The bills kept racking up: by late 2015, expenses were $414 million, and in the first half of 2016, it was losing $1 million a day, so Neumann tried to level off the losses by firing seven percent of his workforce. He couldn’t ask them to pack up their desks, obviously – that wouldn’t be WeWork. So instead he relayed the news at a company meeting as trays of tequila shots were handed out, and Darryl McDaniels of Run-DMC performed It’s Tricky to bewildered staff.”

Source: The Telegraph
Published: Jul 24, 2021
Length: 13 minutes (3,426 words)

The Mystery of 9/11 and Dementia

“Many first responders are experiencing alarming cognitive decline. Is their time at Ground Zero to blame?”

Published: Aug 30, 2021
Length: 18 minutes (4,711 words)