Greed is Groupon: Can Anyone Save the Company from Itself?

Groupon’s quick rise has been overshadowed poor management and shady accounting. Can the company repair its reputation?

“Everyone The Verge spoke with who has worked directly with Mason says he’s not the clown that became his persona in the media. ‘He was an incredibly focused and hard-working guy,’ says Sennett. But in crafting his image as a goofball, Mason painted himself into a corner. ‘I don’t think Eric used Andrew, or that Andrew didn’t go in with his eyes wide open. But yes, the cynical interpretation is that Eric saw how useful Andrew could be, first as the charming, boyish entrepreneur, then as the fall guy for Groupon’s public plunge.'”

Author: Ben Popper
Source: The Verge
Published: Mar 13, 2013
Length: 14 minutes (3,561 words)

Desert Renewal

[ASJA Award Winner for First Person Story] A writer learns to cope with her husband’s brain injury:

“The low point for me came a few months after the accident, just shy of our 24th anniversary — the night I realized life would never be the same again. I had been chopping root vegetables to roast for dinner. Kevin was leaning against the refrigerator, keeping me company, and we were laughing for what seemed like the first time in a long time. Then in that instant, he did not know my name and had no idea who I was.

“After more than a quarter of a century of constant togetherness — running our own business together and sharing an office in our house — he could not remember my name. When I saw the look of puzzlement and pain flicker in his dark eyes as his mind searched his now flawed data banks, I rushed to help him.

“‘Echo, my name’s Echo,’ I said gently.”

Published: Nov 24, 2012
Length: 10 minutes (2,679 words)

2013 American Society of Journalists and Authors Award Winners

The ASJA Awards Committee has announced its winners for 2013.

Source: ASJA
Published: Mar 12, 2013

De Nimes

A history of blue jeans:

“Initially, jeans were proletarian western work-wear, but wealthy easterners inevitably ventured out in search of rugged cowboy authenticity. In 1928, a Vogue writer returned East from a Wyoming dude ranch with a snapshot of herself, ‘impossibly attired in blue jeans… and a smile that couldn’t be found on all Manhattan Island.’ In June 1935, the magazine ran an article titled ‘Dude Dressing,’ possibly one of the first fashion pieces to instruct readers in the art of DIY denim distressing: ‘What she does is to hurry down to the ranch store and ask for a pair of blue jeans, which she secretly floats the ensuing night in a bathtub of water—the oftener a pair of jeans is laundered, the higher its value, especially if it shrinks to the “high-water” mark. Another innovation—and a most recent one, if I may judge—also goes on in the dead of night, and undoubtedly behind locked doors—an intentional rip here and there in the back of the jeans.'”

Source: Vice Magazine
Published: Mar 11, 2013
Length: 8 minutes (2,244 words)

Regrettable

What happened when the author re-reported Bob Woodward’s book on John Belushi:

“Of all the people I interviewed, SNL writer and current Sen. Al Franken, referencing his late comedy partner Tom Davis, offered the most apt description of Woodward’s one-sided approach to the drug use in Belushi’s story: ‘Tom Davis said the best thing about Wired,’ Franken told me. ‘He said it’s as if someone wrote a book about your college years and called it Puked. And all it was about was who puked, when they puked, what they ate before they puked and what they puked up. No one read Dostoevsky, no one studied math, no one fell in love, and nothing happened but people puking.'”

Source: Slate
Published: Mar 12, 2013
Length: 13 minutes (3,279 words)

How I Lost $500,000 for Love

A writer looks back on her costly mistakes—blowing a generous book advance while pursuing a relationship with a married man:

“I was 27 the year my first novel sold for half a million dollars. During the three years I spent writing the book, I’d gotten by on next to nothing, eating ramen noodles for dinner and living in a rented apartment in Colorado over what may or may not have been a meth lab. I had $10,000 in credit card debt and $30,000 in student loans, and the most I’d ever earned in a single year was $15,000. Half a million dollars, I remember thinking, was more money than I could spend in a lifetime.

“I’d never had money before, and now that I did, I had no idea what I was supposed to do with it. I met with bankers and accountants, strangers in suits who helped me divvy my new money into the kinds of accounts I hadn’t known existed, for purposes I hadn’t ever thought about: a CD for the significant chunk I would owe in taxes; a health savings account (HSA) to cover the deductible on the medical-insurance policy I could finally afford; an IRA to protect a portion of the money for the unimaginable day when I would need it to live on. Afterward, they would shake my hand and congratulate me on my success: I was making such good choices with my money!”

Author: Aryn Kyle
Source: More Magazine
Published: Mar 12, 2013
Length: 7 minutes (1,790 words)

My Brother’s Life, Unraveled

The writer loses his brother to suicide—and the family is left to wonder how they could have prevented it:

“According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, at least 90 percent of people who kill themselves suffer from a treatable and diagnosable mental illness. Anthony didn’t see a psychiatrist and was never diagnosed, but he displayed symptoms of any number of them. These diseases can be triggered by genetic makeup, by experience, by a life situation, by family dynamics dating back to early childhood.

“Not long after his death my mother asked me why Anthony couldn’t just muddle through like the rest of us, why he was so fragile. It’s the question all of us who loved Anthony have to live with, how such a capable person could be so wrong about the biggest question there is and so many smaller ones. His death is hard to understand and harder to forgive. It goes against the human instinct to make what use of our talents we can, to breed, to survive.”

Source: Salon
Published: Mar 12, 2013
Length: 22 minutes (5,545 words)

Budd and Leni

Hollywood screenwriter Budd Schulberg’s unlikely collaboration with Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl, who was arrested and asked to provide evidence at Nuremberg against war criminals:

“In subsequent interviews he continued the story: ‘I had this warrant for her in my pocket. It was like burning a hole in my pocket … Finally I took the thing out and said, ‘Miss Riefenstahl, I’m sorry, but I have to take you to Nuremberg.’ And that’s when she screamed, “Puppi, Puppi … he’s arresting me.”‘ The little majordomo raced into the room, with Schulberg now realizing he was her husband. ‘I tried to reassure her,’ Schulberg continued. ‘I said, “Look, you’re not being put on trial with Goering and von Ribbentrop, but we do need you as a material witness.”‘ He took her outside, where his driver and his vehicle awaited. The trip from Kitzbühel to Nuremberg was roughly 150 miles. ‘She didn’t say anything on the way … She was very ticked off—very. And I guess scared.'”

Source: Tin House
Published: Mar 2, 2013
Length: 27 minutes (6,763 words)

Danse Macabre

A history of politics and betrayal at Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet—and an investigation into the acid attack on Bolshoi artistic director Sergei Filin:

“The liquid was sulfuric acid—the “oil of vitriol,” as medieval alchemists called it. Depending on the concentration, it can lay waste to human skin as quickly as in a horror movie. Scientists working with sulfuric acid wear protective goggles; even a small amount in the eyes can destroy the cornea and cause permanent blindness.

“Filin was in agony. The burning was immediate and severe. His vision turned to black. He could feel the scalding of his face and scalp, the pain intensifying all the time.

“‘In those first seconds, all I could think was, How can I relieve the pain?’ Filin told me later. ‘The burning was so awful. I tried to move. I fell face first into the snow. I started grabbing handfuls of snow and rubbing it into my face and eyes. I felt some small relief from the snow. I thought of how to get home. I was pretty close to my door. There’s an electronic code and a metal door, but I couldn’t punch in the numbers of the code. I couldn’t see them. When I understood that I couldn’t get into the building, I started shouting, “Help! Help! I need help!” But no one was around.'”

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Mar 11, 2013
Length: 43 minutes (10,917 words)

‘We Gained Hope.’ The Story of Lilly Grossman’s Genome

A couple has trouble finding a treatment for their 13-year-old daughter’s undiagnosed illness. Sequencing her genome provided a promising path to an answer:

“The family has a mantra: It’s a marathon not a sprint. They were battle-hardened from a long road of possible fixes and disappointments. ‘We thought: This is great but it’s probably just going to be another data point that we add to the binder,’ says Steve. ‘Lilly’s already had a lot of bad news in her life,’ says Gay. ‘Her biggest fear was that we wouldn’t find anything. Not knowing would be the worst thing.'”

Author: Ed Yong
Published: Mar 11, 2013
Length: 12 minutes (3,222 words)