The Wealth Detective Who Finds the Hidden Money of the Super Rich

“Thirty-two-year-old French economist Gabriel Zucman scours spreadsheets to find secret offshore accounts.”

Published: May 23, 2019
Length: 15 minutes (3,754 words)

When a Fatal Grizzly Mauling Goes Viral

“[W]hile strangers on the internet accused Valérie of being irresponsible for bringing her baby into bear country, every parent in Whitehorse knows that a bear could wander across their driveway or through their yard someday. Our whole lives are lived in bear country.”

Source: Outside
Published: May 23, 2019
Length: 11 minutes (2,782 words)

The Stories We Tell Our Sons About Becoming Men

A mother struggles to raise a son who embodies the values she has fought for as a feminist.

Source: LitHub
Published: Apr 29, 2019
Length: 10 minutes (2,682 words)

Abolish the Priesthood

A one-time Catholic priest argues that the clergy is a fundamentally secretive, sexually repressed, misogynistic system, and that dismantling it is the only way to save what is beneficial about the Catholic church, and the only way to protect children from sexual abuse.

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Jun 1, 2019
Length: 31 minutes (7,991 words)

In a Town Shaped By Water, the River Is Winning

When we think about climate change and communities threatened by water, we think about coastal cities. But inland flooding happens daily in the U.S., as Ellicott City, Maryland — trying to recover after devastating flooding in 2016 and 2018 — knows all too well.

Author: Linda Poon
Source: CityLab
Published: May 24, 2019
Length: 24 minutes (6,180 words)

How Many Bones Would You Break to Get Laid?

‘“Incels” are going under the knife to reshape their faces, and their dating prospects.’ What they’re discovering after the swelling goes down is that the work they need to get done is on the inside: no plastic surgery can fix a poor self image or a skewed world view that dictates that life’s problems and roadblocks will magically evaporate with a surgically enhanced jawline.

Source: The Cut
Published: May 28, 2019
Length: 26 minutes (6,644 words)

At Transformation

A personal essay in which, on the cusp of a life-changing procedure, Jane Rideau Demuth makes peace with the paths that brought her here, and the obstacles she had to wrestle with along the way.

Source: Longreads
Published: May 28, 2019
Length: 23 minutes (5,756 words)

Canada’s Saddest Grow-op: My Humiliating Adventures in Growing Marijuana

“When Ian Brown was tasked with cultivating some home-grown pot, he did what any eager, if inept, gardener would do: he borrowed a state-of-the-art weed machine and hoped for the best. But as he discovered, growing good cannabis is way harder than it looks.”

Author: Ian Brown
Published: May 19, 2019
Length: 17 minutes (4,396 words)

How Brands Get their Names, Explained By a Professional Namer

This is a very interesting conversation about how companies pay experts to shape their images, and it’s one that this professional namer might describe this interview’s title as descriptive rather than disruptive, because it “is tied to an expected functional benefit of the product.”

Source: Vox
Published: May 16, 2019
Length: 10 minutes (2,578 words)

‘The Hills’ Made Reality TV What It Is. Now It’s Back.

Catch up with Brody, Heidi, and (most of) the rest — plus, somehow, Mischa Barton?

Published: May 23, 2019
Length: 12 minutes (3,000 words)