President Donald Trump has obliterated any notion of off-time for round-the-clock journalists, but it was still a relief to see that the alt-weeklies I read for this installment in my regular reading list were starting off the new year strong. The Chico News & Review, whose work I have previously highlighted here, can be forgiven, […]
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Posted inBooks, History, Nonfiction, Story, Writing
Stalin’s Scheherazade
An opportunistic literary caper became a lifelong con — with no possibility of escape.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Here’s What War With North Korea Would Look Like
Analysts and military officials describe the many likely scenarios that would play out before and during a war between North Korea, South Korea and the U.S. Nerve gas, smallpox, yellow fever, preemptive nuclear strikes, all of these scenarios are horrifying, because even though North Korea would lose, the civilian death toll would always be high.
Posted inBooks, Essays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Story
The Wind Sometimes Feels in Error
Each year the balloon strained and strained against its cords.
Posted inCommentary, Current Events, Essays & Criticism, Story
The Classroom Origins of Toxic Masculinity
It’s a relatively new term for a concept as old as time.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The White Darkness
David Grann tells the story of Henry Worsley, a British military man and “apostle” of polar adventurer Ernest Shackleton. Worsley earned fame by retracing Shackleton’s failed expedition to reach the South Pole. He, along with two teammates reached their destination on January 9th, 2009. A case study in the art of story pacing, this piece […]
Posted inStory
On Truth and Lying in the Extra German Sense
What’s the German word for “the world’s most forthright people have deceit in their DNA”?
Posted inCrime, Quotes
When Forensic “Science” Is Anything But
Despite what “Law & Order: CSI” tells us, blood spatter patterns don’t necessarily hold all the keys to a crime scene.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
How Lobbyists Normalized the Use of Chemical Weapons on American Civilians
Or, how we learned to stop worrying and love the gas.
Posted inBooks, Business, History, Nonfiction, Story
The Second Half of Watergate Was Bigger, Worse, and Forgotten By the Public
Watergate revealed that multinational corporations, including some of the most prestigious American brands, had been making bribes to politicians not only at home but in foreign countries.
