Life Advice For Young Men That Went Viral in the 1850s – Slate
“This anonymous list of advice for young men was a mid-nineteenth-century viral sensation, appearing in at least 28 newspapers, Northern and Southern, with datelines between 1851 and 1860. The list even made it all the way to Hawaii, and was published twice in Honolulu’s The Polynesian.”
The Death Dealer – The Verge
“Many had spent more than $10,000 to be there, in what Ray called his “sweat lodge.” It culminated five days with the self-proclaimed “catalyst for personal transformation” at Angel Valley Spiritual Retreat, a ranch near Sedona, Arizona. During his “Spiritual Warrior” program, he’d asked participants to shave their heads, spend 36 hours in the desert meditating without food or water, and play the “Samurai Game,” in which a white-robed Ray, playing “God,” declared people dead, forcing them to remain motionless on the ground.”
The Man Who Duped Millionaires Into Paying Big Bucks for Fake Wine – NPR
“Rudy Kurniawan was once the toast of the fine-wine world, renowned for his ability to find some of the rarest — and priciest — wines in the world. He was also, prosecutors alleged, a fraud who duped some of the country’s wealthiest wine purchasers with counterfeit bottles of wine that he manufactured in his home laboratory.”
What Happened to Civilian Oversight of the RCMP? – The Walrus
“Today’s RCMP sits in the eye of a vicious storm, the result of more than a decade of public relations disasters, including the G20. Without an aggressive program for governance renewal, it will likely pitch from one crisis to another until the public eventually demands that the government pull the plug. Based on the weight of opinion behind the proposed board, the scuppering will hinder efforts to raise the force above its tarnished reputation, while unravelling the mystery of what happened to civilian oversight helps explain how it got that reputation in the first place.”
The Trouble With the Snooze Button – The New Yorker
“It may seem like you’re giving yourself a few extra minutes to collect your thoughts. But what you’re actually doing is making the wake-up process more difficult and drawn out. If you manage to drift off again, you are likely plunging your brain back into the beginning of the sleep cycle, which is the worst point to be woken up—and the harder we feel it is for us to wake up, the worse we think we’ve slept.”
The Terrible Twos Who Stay Terrible – The New York Times
“To understand the violent criminal, says Richard E. Tremblay, imagine a 2-year-old boy doing the things that make the terrible twos terrible — grabbing, kicking, pushing, punching, biting. Now imagine him doing all this with the body and resources of an 18-year-old.”
The Case for Filth – The New York Times
“You may have had this argument yourself: Should housework be measured by the time spent on the task, or by effectiveness? What is necessary work and what is puttering? Should work that is physically taxing, like yard work, count more than work that isn’t, like the dishes? Questionnaires and housework diaries generally deal only in repetitive tasks like sweeping, doing the dishes and mowing the lawn. What about planning summer vacations? What about figuring out which washer to buy? And what about that far more important but far vaguer business of caring? We all know families that are held together because a woman knows who likes what in their sandwiches, who can or cannot read on a road trip, who needs cuddles after a hard day at school.”
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Photo courtesy of Stefano Corso.
