This week: Stan Lee’s final days / Women in difficult situations / The growing sex recession / Lost trust in a journalist / The history of the balloon whisk
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1. Stan Lee’s Final Year Marked by Chaos and Betrayal
By Gary Baum | The Hollywood Reporter | November 2018
“After the death of wife Joan in 2017, the Marvel Comics icon’s inner circle imploded in a sordid power struggle from which he never fully recovered.”
2. Russia’s Perpetual Geopolitics
By Stephen Kotkin | Foreign Affairs | November 2018
“Beginning with the reign of Ivan the Terrible in the sixteenth century, Russia managed to expand at an average rate of 50 square miles per day for hundreds of years, eventually covering one-sixth of the earth’s landmass. By 1900, it was the world’s fourth- or fifth-largest industrial power and the largest agricultural producer in Europe.”
3. But That’s What Happened
This American Life | November 2018
“Stories of women in unsettling situations. When they try to explain what’s wrong, they’re told that they don’t understand — that there’s nothing unsettling about it.”
4. Why Are Young People Having So Little Sex?
By Kate Julian | The Atlantic | December 2018
“Despite the easing of taboos and the rise of hookup apps, Americans are in the midst of a sex recession.”
5. Heather Havrilesky: Digging for Something Real
By Mickie Meinhardt | Guernica | November 2018
“The author of “What If This Were Enough?” on honest writing, raising kids with social media, and the growing pains of a constantly-wired culture.”
6. Broken trust at the Houston Chronicle
By Alexandria Neason | Columbia Journalism Review | November 2018
“The researchers on the case couldn’t find a number of people cited in Ward’s recent stories; when Barnes asked Ward for his notes, he said they’d been destroyed.”
7. How a Difficult, Racist, Stubborn President Was Removed From Power — If Not From Office
By David Priess | Politico Magazine | November 2018
“Members of Congress and some in Andrew Johnson’s own Cabinet wanted him gone. They did the next best thing.”
8. Poisoning Daddy
By Skip Hollandsworth | Texas Monthly | July 1996
“How a loving daughter and star student stole barium acetate from her high school chemistry lab, put it in her father’s refried beans, and almost got away with murder.”
9. The balloon whisk: a stirring history
By Sybil Kapoor | 1843 :: The Economist | November 2018
“In 19th-century America, the fashion for muffins and meringues led to an ‘egg-beater bubble’ ”
10. Sophie is 16 in America. Here’s what scares her.
By Masuma Ahuja | Girlhood Around the World :: The Lily | October 2018
“In her diary entries, Sophie writes about the end of a summer trip spent with family, the ever-relatable end-of-vacation road trip home, her love for books, her struggles with mental illness, and her aspirations and apprehensions about college.”
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