The Taste Makers

The secret world of the flavor factory: the consumption of food flavorings is one of the modern era’s most profound collective acts of submission to illusion.

Source: New Yorker
Published: Nov 23, 2009
Length: 41 minutes (10,254 words)

“I am of both countries, and I feel sanctuary in neither”

“I slowly recognized a kind of balance here: the country I increasingly could not recognize could not, for the moment, recognize me.” Laurel Fantauzzo reflects on fear, family, and the two countries that made her: the United States and the Philippines.

Source: CNN Philippines
Published: Nov 4, 2016
Length: 8 minutes (2,240 words)

Stop Calling the United States a Banana Republic

“But looking at the history behind the term reveals something else: ‘banana republics’ like Honduras and Guatemala were troubled in no small part because American capitalism and imperialism wanted them that way.”

Source: The Baffler
Published: Nov 7, 2016
Length: 8 minutes (2,206 words)

Venezuela, a Failing State

Once the richest country in South America, it now has the world’s highest inflation rate and is plagued by hunger and violent crime. How did this happen?

Source: New Yorker
Published: Nov 7, 2016
Length: 42 minutes (10,608 words)

Latina Hotel Workers Harness Force of Labor and of Politics in Las Vegas

A look into the lives of Culinary Union members ─ the 57,000 largely Latino workers who clean Vegas hotel rooms ─ who are an increasingly powerful Democratic force.

Author: Dan Barry
Published: Nov 6, 2016
Length: 6 minutes (1,551 words)

The Story of ‘Ella and Louis,’ 60 Years Later

A century-defining album’s improbable genesis.

Source: Longreads
Published: Nov 7, 2016
Length: 7 minutes (1,807 words)

‘Something is happening that is amazing,’ Trump said. He was right.

As America waits to see who will be our next President, one journalist traces Trump’s campaign from its comical beginnings to its revealing present, trying to make sense of the 170 Trump rallies she reported from to understand why people like Trump and answer the question: how did we get here?

Source: Washington Post
Published: Nov 7, 2016
Length: 12 minutes (3,204 words)

What It Took

An outstanding history of Hillary Clinton’s career — and the compromises and concessions she had to make along the way.

Source: Politico
Published: Nov 6, 2016
Length: 25 minutes (6,372 words)

The 20-Week Abortion Ban Bind

Increasingly, states are making it illegal for women to get an abortion after 20 weeks — which happens to be right around the time many women find out their pregnancies aren’t viable.

Source: Elle
Published: Nov 2, 2016
Length: 17 minutes (4,385 words)

Sex, Drugs, and Bestsellers: The Legend of the Literary Brat Pack

A look back at the “literary brat pack”—Jay McInerney, Bret Easton Ellis, Tama Janowitz and a group of other writers in the 1980s as famous for their coke-fueled late nights at the Odeon as they were for publishing celebrated novels before the age of 30.

Published: Nov 2, 2016
Length: 18 minutes (4,542 words)