America’s Most Political Food

Maurice Bessinger founded a popular South Carolina barbecue restaurant called the Piggie Park that was “worth driving a hundred miles for.” He was also a Confederate flag-waving white supremacist. Civil rights groups led boycotts against the Piggie Park for decades, but after Bessinger died and his children put away the flags, people wondered whether it would ever be acceptable to eat there.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Apr 17, 2017
Length: 27 minutes (6,772 words)

The Handmaid’s Tale Is a Warning to Conservative Women

Hulu’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s novel lays bare the horrors of collusion with the patriarchy.

Published: Apr 20, 2017
Length: 6 minutes (1,685 words)

The Heart of Whiteness

Ijeoma Oluo traveled to Spokane, Washington to sit at a kitchen table with Rachel Dolezal, who is jobless and living in a month-to-month rental, hoping her new book will start something, anything, to get money coming in.

Source: The Stranger
Published: Apr 19, 2017
Length: 17 minutes (4,300 words)

What’s the Maker of Post-it Notes Doing in the Ankle Monitor Business? Struggling

When corrections agencies started using electronic ankle monitors to relieve overcrowded prisons, 3M capitalized on the market opportunity. Their products’ failures caused innocent people to suffer and challenged the company’s long-heald philosophy about design and innovation.

Published: Apr 6, 2017
Length: 13 minutes (3,311 words)

Doll in Shadow

Maria Browning reflects on the fact that while Alzheimer’s Disease has stolen her mother’s memory, it has also relieved her of the pain of her past — something that Browning is unable to forget.

Published: Mar 24, 2017
Length: 6 minutes (1,598 words)

The Demise of Tilt

A brash, charismatic CEO. Big funding rounds. The inevitable beer-pong-on-the-office-roof-deck. How could the “Facebook of money” fail?

Source: Fast Company
Published: Apr 18, 2017
Length: 19 minutes (4,870 words)

End Pain Forever

Steven Pete has a rare neurological condition that makes him unable to feel pain. Pam Costa has the opposite neurological condition — she feels pain constantly, as if her body is on fire. They both share a genetic link that has helped scientists understand why we experience pain and how to treat it.

Source: Wired
Published: Apr 18, 2017
Length: 19 minutes (4,961 words)

On Island: Journeying to Penal Colonies, from Rikers to Robben

On journeys to Rikers Island in New York City and Robben Island in South Africa, Roohi Choudhry examines issues of incarceration and racism, and envisions a day when the convicted are no longer exiled to penal colonies.

Source: Longreads
Published: Apr 19, 2017
Length: 14 minutes (3,556 words)

The “Girls” Finale is a Financial Fantasy

Girls is not remotely realistic about the earnings of a freelance writer — no one involved in the making of the show has ever been, or even bothered to talk to, one.

Source: The Billfold
Published: Apr 18, 2017
Length: 7 minutes (1,797 words)

In Spain, Secrets and a Possible Betrayal

When the New York Times asked authors to share stories of when love intersected with travel, Alexander Chee recalls a summer in Granada, Spain, with M. — his boyfriend at the time — who betrayed Chee at a local hammam. “He thought I wanted monogamy more than him, and I didn’t. And I couldn’t forgive that I didn’t get to choose.”

Published: Apr 19, 2017
Length: 7 minutes (1,803 words)