The Whistleblower (Part 1)

First in a series on John Bolenbaugh, an oil cleanup worker who said he was fired for refusing to cover up oil from a spill that put millions of gallons of tar sands crude into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River. Complicating matters is his personality and his own criminal record:

“Armed with a digital camera and a machine-gun delivery of baiting, rhetorical questions, usually directed at cleanup workers (‘What do you think of Enbridge covering up oil? Who do you think should pay for killing our fish and poisoning our river?’), Bolenbaugh’s caustic style has made him a divisive figure among locals — a selfless hero to some, a self-aggrandizing crusader to others. Enbridge claims that Bolenbaugh has had no effect on its cleanup efforts, but his picture (square-jawed with wild blue eyes and wearing an orange vest) hung for months inside the security box at the entrance to the Enbridge staging site under the heading: ‘All Personnel Be Alert.’

“Even after countless conversations, I sometimes find it hard to tell whether Bolenbaugh is a legitimate whistleblower who refuses to look the other way or, as his critics deride him, a wack-job whose motor-mouth finally got him fired.”

Source: OnEarth
Published: Apr 12, 2012
Length: 25 minutes (6,287 words)

Escanaba’s Magic Hour: Movies, Robot Deer, and the American Small Town

An essay from Bissell’s book Magic Hours: A film crew and actor Jeff Daniels arrive in the author’s Michigan hometown to shoot a movie:

“As the sun sets behind the thick pine stand that perimeters the football field, the lack of extras begins to become a problem. To appreciate how crucial extras are to tonight’s filming, one must know several things about Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. First, citizens of the Upper Peninsula are known as ‘Yoopers,’ an inelegant transliteration of ‘U. P.,’ as this underpopulated and fearsomely bleak stretch of land is known. The U. P. is separated from the rest of Michigan culturally and geographically, connected only by the Mackinac Bridge, an architectural marvel built as recently as 1957. The U. P. might be the most rural part of the country, as well as its least familiar. Some maps neglect to include the border separating the U. P. from Wisconsin, an accidental annexation that, if made official, would please the vast majority of Yoopers, who feel a stronger cultural identification with Wisconsin anyway. Finally—and in light of tonight’s scene, not to mention the whole film, this is a key point—for Yoopers, deer hunting has near religious significance. The first day of deer season is actually a school holiday—Deer Day, it is called—and the entire place is a hotbed of gun crazies and gun-craziness.”

Source: McSweeney’s
Published: Apr 12, 2012
Length: 34 minutes (8,653 words)

The Crisis in American Walking

How did pedestrians become an endangered species in the United States—and why is the word “pedestrian” wrong anyway? First in a four-part series:

“A few years ago, at a highway safety conference in Savannah, Ga., I drifted into a conference room where a sign told me a ‘Pedestrian Safety’ panel was being held.

“The speaker was Michael Ronkin, a French-born, Swiss-raised, Oregon-based transportation planner whose firm, as his website notes, ‘specializes in creating walkable and bikeable streets.’ Ronkin began with a simple observation that has stayed with me since. Taking stock of the event—one of the few focused on walking, which gets scant attention at traffic safety conferences—he wondered about that inescapable word: pedestrian. If we were to find ourselves out hiking on a forest trail and spied someone approaching at a distance, he wanted to know, would we think to ourselves, ‘Here comes a pedestrian’?”

Source: Slate
Published: Apr 10, 2012
Length: 10 minutes (2,618 words)

My So-Called Ex-Gay Life

One man’s personal account of going through “ex-gay” therapy as a teen—and how the movements associated with such practices have fallen apart:

“After our initial meeting, I spoke with Nicolosi weekly by phone for more than three years, from the time I was 14 until I graduated high school. Like a rabbi instructing his student in understanding the Torah, Nicolosi encouraged me to interpret my daily life through the lens of his theories. I read in one of Nicolosi’s books, Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality, that he tries to position himself as a supportive father figure, typifying the sort of relationship that he believes his patients never had with their own father. I indeed came to see him this way.

“We mostly talked about how my damaged masculine identity manifested itself in my attractions to other boys. Nicolosi would ask me about my crushes at school and what I liked about them. Whether the trait was someone’s build, good looks, popularity, or confidence, these conversations always ended with a redirect: Did I wish I had these traits? What might it feel like to be hugged by one of these guys? Did I want them to like and accept me?”

Published: Apr 12, 2012
Length: 22 minutes (5,652 words)

Scars

[National Magazine Awards Finalist] [Fiction] A tattoo artist meets a middle-aged mom:

“The woman stood in the doorway, twisting her head at odd angles like a goddamn owl to see our designs on the walls, before walking up to the counter.

“‘Sure you’re in the right place?,’ I asked. ‘This ain’t no nail salon.’

“‘Is Nate here?’

“‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘what’s up?’

“‘Marion,’ she said, reaching her hand over the counter. I took it and shook. ‘You came highly recommended by my niece, Janice. You tattooed a rose on her hip.’

“She looked at me like she expected me to remember. Shit, if I could remember every rose I tattooed on some girl’s hip, I’d be in the Guinness World Records for the best fuckin’ memory.”

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Aug 1, 2011
Length: 19 minutes (4,759 words)

Why Noah Went to the Woods

Retracing the steps of a Marine who went missing in the Montana wilderness. Family, friends and fellow Iraq veterans struggle to understand what happened to 30-year-old Noah Pippin:

“Pierce remembers the stranger as none too friendly. Pippin kept his back turned when Pierce started asking questions and said curtly that he’d hiked in from Hungry Horse. Seeing the fatigues, Pierce asked if he was military, and Noah told him he was a vet.

“‘You been over in Iraq?’

“‘Got back a little while ago.’

“‘I was in Vietnam,’ said Pierce, hoping to break the ice. ‘Navy.’

“Noah didn’t answer.

“‘If you’re going hiking in these parts, you need a gun,’ said Pierce. ‘Do you have one?’

“‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘Just a .38.’

“‘That ain’t much to stuff in the face of a grizzly when he’s chewing on your foot.’

“‘It’s all I got.'”

Source: Outside
Published: Apr 9, 2012
Length: 44 minutes (11,100 words)

Ultimate Fighting vs. Math: No Holds Barred

How the introduction of stats into MMA (mixed martial arts) will change how the matches are fought:

“For all that enthusiasm, however, the sport has had a weak spot: It can be surprisingly difficult to say with any specificity what makes a mixed martial artist great, or what makes one fighter better than another. In baseball, there are home run tallies and RBIs and countless more obscure measures of a player’s skills. In MMA, fans find it easy to call someone a force of nature, but historically, it’s been impossible to back it up with data. In some cases, it is frustratingly hard to tell who is even winning a match.

“That uncertainty can be traced back to the sport’s origins. When the Ultimate Fighting Championship was created in the early 1990s, the point was to give pairs of tough, bloodthirsty fighters an open venue in which to attack each other in whatever way they pleased. There were no standard measures of anything. There were barely any rules at all, and the only statistic anyone kept track of was who was still standing at the end.”

Source: Boston Globe
Published: Apr 9, 2012
Length: 8 minutes (2,138 words)

Hollywood’s Vial Bodies

More actors, filmmakers and execs are using human growth hormone (H.G.H.) in an attempt to reverse the aging process. But is it really doing what its Beverly Hills evangelists are claiming?

“He has been giving himself H.G.H. injections for more than 20 years. And he does look terrific, with smooth skin and a lean body. And, by the way, H.G.H. needles are extremely thin, like those used by diabetics or acupuncturists. H.G.H. therapy, doctors say, is virtually painless.

“There’s just one catch. The vast majority of endocrinologists, when asked about the widespread treatment for H.G.H. deficiency, agree.

“It’s baloney.”

Author: Ned Zeman
Source: Vanity Fair
Published: Mar 1, 2012
Length: 16 minutes (4,063 words)

What’s Eating the NYPD?

Life as a cop in 2012, from the officers’ perspective. How Commissioner Ray Kelly and the legendary CompStat system have changed New York’s police department, both for better (dropping crime rates) and worse (increasing pressure on officers to make the numbers):

“The disaffection from the public and anger at the department aren’t universal, but they are widespread, stretching across boroughs and ranks—and cops say that the acrimony is a by-product of the numbers-­obsessed systems that Kelly has perfected. The commissioner inherited CompStat, the innovative marriage of computer-analyzed crime stats and grilling of field commanders. But in the Kelly era, CompStat has filtered through every facet of the department, and making a good show at those meetings has become an obsession. Few cops talk openly about the NYPD’s troubles: Some are wary of the media, some fear punishment from the department. ‘The job is getting smaller all the time—more demands, less autonomy, less respect,’ a recently retired Bronx detective says mournfully. ‘The aggressive management culture has been really effective, but it’s also extremely aggravating.'”

Published: Apr 9, 2012
Length: 23 minutes (5,925 words)

Tiny Little Laws

[National Magazine Awards finalist, Public Interest] An investigation of rampant sexual violence that goes unpunished at a Sioux reservation:

“Kim reported the rape, and Mike was arrested and jailed. As soon as she returned to the reservation, his family began threatening her, calling her a liar and a bitch. Whenever they saw her on the street, they told her they would beat her up and make sure her son was taken away from her if she didn’t drop the charges. Kim believed they could do it, since some of Mike’s family members worked in the tribal court. ‘I was getting threats right and left, and I wasn’t scared. I was going to go through with it—they had him in jail, and it was all going to work out. But then they let him out,’ Kim said. ‘Nobody would do anything. He just walked around town.'”

Published: Feb 1, 2011
Length: 32 minutes (8,136 words)