IT’S A DAY of rest, and you may be in the mood for a quiet corner and a comfy chair. We’ve hand-picked the week’s best reads for you to savour.
Dugan Arnett tells the shocking story of what happened to a 14-year-old girl in Maryville, who was found unconscious outside her family home. A case was brought against a boy who had sex with her, another who had sex with her friend (13) and a boy who filmed the whole thing. But the felony charges were dropped, causing outrage in the community.
(Kansas City Star – approx 24 minutes reading time, 4905 words)
Two days after discovering her daughter on the front porch, Coleman says, she got a phone call from another mother warning her that online threats were being levied against the Coleman children, including a suggestion that her sons would be beaten up in the school parking lot.
J David McSwane undertakes a special report into child sex trafficking, telling the story of Moe, a 17-year-old who was was sold to middle-age men for cash and drugs. In Sarasota, the crime was treated as trafficking, but due to Moe’s drug habit and prostitution, she was sent to a juvenile jail. What is the solution to such crimes?
(Herald Tribune – approx 31 minutes reading time, 6216 words)
The instinct to “lock down” or incarcerate such victims is pervasive. The reason is practical. Sex trafficking victims are notoriously unreliable and reluctant witnesses, but their testimony is usually the fulcrum of any prosecution.
Pic: Shutterstock
3. When perfection leads to drinking
Ann Dowsett Johnston writes about perfectionism, and its impact on mothers. After a long day of work, child-rearing and domestic duties, many women, she says, rely on some alcohol at night to help them relax. But could this be the slippery slope into a drinking problem?
(The Atlantic – approx 23 minutes reading time, 4708 words)
Within a few minutes, I would be standing at the cutting board, phone cradled on my shoulder while I sipped and chopped and chatted, often to my friend Judith or my sister, Cate. Nicholas, my son, would be upstairs, doing homework, and dinner would be in process. Sip, chop, sip, chat, exhale, relax. Breathe. With two parents who had their own serious troubles with alcohol, alarm bells should have been ringing.
Denise Grady meets women in Uganda who have breast cancer – women who are fighting for their lives due to difficulties in accessing treatment. Women in Africa tend to face long delays before diagnosis, due to corruption and poverty, making their situations all the more perilous.
(New York Times – approx 18 minutes reading time, 3788 words)
The breast cancer rate in Africa seems to be increasing, though cervical cancer kills more women in the sub-Saharan regions. It is not clear whether breast cancer is actually becoming more common, or is just being detected and reported more often, but physicians consider it a looming threat. Compared with breast cancer patients in developed countries, those in Africa tend to be younger, and they are more likely to die, in large part because of late diagnosis and inadequate treatment.
Pic: Shutterstock
J Freedom du Lac brings us the story of a house fire that turned into an inferno; an incident in a vacant house that nearly led to the deaths of two volunteer firefighters. He revisits the day it all happened, meeting the two men who nearly gave their lives – and are left with lifelong scars.
(Washington Post – approx 22 minutes reading time, 4534 words)
Less than three minutes had passed since the alarm was sounded. Flames were shooting out of windows in the walk-out basement, which was on the back side of the house. Unusually strong winds were pushing thick smoke into the street in front of the house, according to the firefighters and investigators.
Mark Johnson meets medical students on their first day of anatomy, the day when they will dissect a human body. Some are nervous, some excited, and some just don’t want to pass out. He also meets the family of one woman who donated her body to be dissected.
(Journal Sentinel – approx 19 minutes reading time, 3842 words)
They unpack scalpels. They leave most of the towels draped over the cadaver, which lies face down. Only the back, where dissection begins, is uncovered. The skin is beige and wrinkly, more like a leather couch than someone’s back. The students look at each other, then at the steel table. Who will make the first cut?
…AND ONE FROM THE ARCHIVES…
Pic: AP Photo/Eric Risberg
In 2003, Tad Friend spoke to people who had tried to take their own lives by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge. From those who wanted to make a political statement to those who wanted to escape certain situations, he asked them what they discovered through these incidents. Their words make for sobering reading.
(New Yorker – approx 26 minutes reading time, 5225 words)
On the bridge, Baldwin counted to ten and stayed frozen. He counted to ten again, then vaulted over. “I still see my hands coming off the railing,” he said. As he crossed the chord in flight, Baldwin recalls, “I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was totally fixable—except for having just jumped.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say