Ghost Stories

Over half a century after WWII, a generation of Germans still struggles to come to terms with their ancestors’ atrocities. They are kriegskinder, the children of war. Guilt and spirits haunt them.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Sep 12, 2016
Length: 34 minutes (8,647 words)

Why She’s Suing Fox News

Conservative commentator Andrea Tantaros, a former co-host of “The Five” and “Outnumbered” on Fox News, speaks out about the experiences that prompted her sexual harassment suit against the organization and its former CEO, Roger Ailes.

Source: Esquire
Published: Sep 21, 2016
Length: 16 minutes (4,228 words)

Are You Ready to Meet Your Fixer Uppers?

Home renovation shows package the American dream from anxiety-riddled nightmare to easily-digestible entertainment. In this profile of Chip and Joanna Gaines, the stars of HGTV’s “Fixer Upper,” Taffy Brodesser-Akner goes long on how the couple works together and how they’ve managed to rebrand Waco, Texas as a place not of tragedy, but of shiplap and dreams.

Source: Texas Monthly
Published: Sep 21, 2016
Length: 36 minutes (9,143 words)

I Used to Be a Human Being

Retired Daily Dish blogger Andrew Sullivan’s meditation on the epidemic of digital distraction addiction—and his attempt to cure himself of it at a 10-day silent meditation retreat he attended after famously ending his 15-year blogging career.

Published: Sep 18, 2016
Length: 28 minutes (7,077 words)

Space Art Propelled Scientific Exploration of the Cosmos—But Its Star is Fading Fast

The huge, hidden cost to severing the bond between art and science.

Source: Atlas Obscura
Published: Sep 20, 2016
Length: 17 minutes (4,425 words)

What I Pledge Allegiance To

“I am a black Mississippian. I am a black American. I pledge to never be passive, patriotic, or grateful in the face of American abuse. I pledge to always thoughtfully bite the self-righteous American hand that thinks it’s feeding us. I pledge to perpetually reckon with the possibility that there will never be any liberty, peace, and justice for all unless we accept that America, like Mississippi, is not clean. Nor is it great. Nor is it innocent.”

Source: Fader
Published: Sep 19, 2016
Length: 13 minutes (3,323 words)

How I Rewired My Brain to Become Fluent in Math

Even though repetition and memorization have fallen out of favor in many schools, one scholar argues that those, not active discussion or creative approaches, are the most effective ways for students to learn math.

Source: Nautilus
Published: Sep 15, 2016
Length: 12 minutes (3,010 words)

We Need to Talk About Money: Seven Stories About Personal Finance

Honest discussions about income, rent, budgets, taxes—all that stuff—force us to reckon with our privilege. For so long, conversations about money were considered gauche. With every essay and podcast episode, that taboo is broken down.

Source: Longreads
Published: Sep 20, 2016

Patagonia’s Philosopher-King

Nick Paumgarten’s profile of Yvon Chouinard, the eco-conscious and anti-corporate co-founder of Patagonia. Chouinard was a close friend of, and co-adventurer with, Doug Tompkins, the late founder of the North Face.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Sep 12, 2016
Length: 34 minutes (8,672 words)

We Need To Talk About Cultural Appropriation: Why Lionel Shriver’s Speech Touched A Nerve

Convery gets help from a variety of interviewed authors in addressing author Lionel Shriver’s controversial keynote speech at the Brisbane Writers’ Festival—during which Shriver dismissed complaints about cultural appropriation by white writers, while wearing a sombrero.

Source: The Guardian
Published: Sep 16, 2016
Length: 8 minutes (2,161 words)