The writer stays with the Dominican Sisters of Houston and learns about the life they lead and the work they do: “‘I think a lot of them want some kind of sign,’ Pat says of the choice to wear the habit. ‘They want people to know.’ She also cites ‘that romanticism,’ as in (and this […]
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Posted inEditor's Pick
Justice’s Son
A profile of Ben Jealous, the president and CEO of the NAACP: “‘Governor,’ said Jealous. ‘You know the death penalty is used exclusively on poor people.’ “‘Yes.’ “‘You know it’s used disproportionately against blacks and Latinos.’ “‘Yes.’ “‘Well, Governor, this is what I want you to do: imagine the person you most worry about in […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
How Crazy Is Too Crazy to Be Executed?
A look at mental illness and the death penalty: “The doctor would later testify that Andre was ‘really mentally ill,’ as if to stress that this wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill crazy person. And then there was this detail from the physician’s records: “Thomas,” he wrote, “is psychotic. He thinks something like Holodeck on Star Trek […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
The Rise of Joan of Arc: How a Visionary Peasant Girl Defied a Dress Code and Challenged the Patriarchy
Following the guidance of the voices only she could hear, Joan, a peasant girl living in a world dominated by aristocrats and men, left her home to convince the dauphin—and many men along the way—that only she could save France and make him king.
Posted inBooks, Member Pick, Nonfiction
The Skies Belong to Us: How Hijackers Created an Airline Crisis in the 1970s
Brendan I. Koerner | The Skies Belong to Us | 2013 | 25 minutes (6,186 words) ‘There Is No Way to Tell a Hijacker by Looking At Him’ When the FAA’s antihijacking task force first convened in February 1969, its ten members knew they faced a daunting challenge—not only because of the severity of the […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
The Rise of Joan of Arc: How a Visionary Peasant Girl Defied a Dress Code and Challenged the Patriarchy
Following the guidance of the voices only she could hear, Joan, a peasant girl living in a world dominated by aristocrats and men, left her home to convince the dauphin—and many men along the way—that only she could save France and make him king.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Greg Ousley Is Sorry for Killing His Parents. Is That Enough?
Greg Ousley murdered his parents when he was 14, and is now serving a 60-year sentence. A look at the debate over how we should punish minors for committing violent crimes: “Today there are well more than 2,500 juveniles serving time in adult prisons in the United States — enough, in Indiana’s case, to fill […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Wrong Carlos: How Texas Sent an Innocent Man to His Death
Inside the groundbreaking investigation by Columbia professor James Liebman, on the case of Carlos DeLuna, who was executed in 1989 for a crime he didn’t commit: “At the trial, DeLuna’s defence team told the jury that Carlos Hernandez, not DeLuna, was the murderer. But the prosecutors ridiculed that suggestion. They told the jury that police […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
A Boy Learns to Brawl
[Part One of “Punched Out: The Life and Death of a Hockey Enforcer.”] But big-time hockey has a unique side entrance. Boogaard could fight his way there with his bare knuckles, his stick dropped, the game paused and the crowd on its feet. And he did, all the way until he became the Boogeyman, the […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
On the Death Sentence
Retired Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens on David Garland’s “Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition.” “Two years ago, quoting from an earlier opinion written by Justice White, I wrote that the death penalty represents ‘the pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or […]
