This week’s top 5 long reads

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Investigating a heinous (and despicable) crime. Let’s take a look into the enthusiastic world of cheerleading. A visit to the world’s creepiest motel. An empathetic perspective on assisted dying. And the real global cost of your beloved cat. This week’s favorites handpicked by our editors.

Andy Mannix | Star Tribune | June 2, 2023 | 10,330 words

There is a warning at the beginning of this investigative feature that says, “Read at your own discretion,” and I have to say the same thing here. What follows is a very upsetting story about the suspicious death of a woman who was part of the BDSM community in the Minneapolis area. Heather Meyer was found naked and hanging from a chain around her neck. She was bruised and bruised and had the words “Daddy Knows Best” carved into her arm. Although police ruled her death a suicide, case investigators and Mayer’s mother soon suspected that her daughter had been killed by “controller” Ethan Karam, with whom she had an affair. However, the idea was never accepted. Andy Mannix does some wonderfully sensitive work interrogating the lines between sex and violence, pleasure and pain, consent and coercion. Many people here (including members of law enforcement) are talking about BDSM practitioners, and men like Callum who knowingly and frequently crossed the line at the physical and emotional cost of their partners. There is no room for judgment, except for the dangerous beliefs we hold. —SD

Jana G. Pruden | Globe and Mail | June 7, 2023 | 3,231 words

Jana G. Pruden’s gloves and mail Piece is a masterclass in long-form journalism. Pruden takes you behind the scenes at the Canadian Cheer National Championships in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and introduces you to the hardcore, competitive subculture known as cheer. Pruden’s original laser focus on detail gives you a front row seat to this raucous, high-energy competition, and before you know it, you’re performing your pre-game routine, nail-biting. Moreover, you will be rooting for these tough athletes. Judges with sharp eyes. “When Fryer then spun a pirouette over his teammate’s raised hand, he momentarily lost his balance,” she wrote. “It was the last moment of the last stunt, the last few seconds of the routine.” Don’t be surprised if she reads this and feels as high as a cheer flyer in action. —K.S.

Andrew Chummings New Line Magazine | May 19, 2023 | 2,786 words

The Clown Motel, built to commemorate a collection of male clowns killed in a mine fire in 1911, is not at the top of my must-see list. Andrew Chummings seems equally bewildered, but braves his way through a lobby filled with clown memorabilia and stays in a room themed after Elvis the Clown (Clownvis). The small American town of Tonopah, home to clowns, has a tragic past. In the early 1900s, a mysterious disease known as Death Harvest decimated the population, and the motel is located across the street from the cemetery where many of its victims are buried. Tombs attract more tourists than clowns. As Chummings explains, “America…has strangely and uniquely fetishized its brutal past.” The American West has long had a special fascination, and the more gruesome the stories, the more so. It will increase. Chummings, a British man, ponders the cultural differences between England and England. In England, “every inch of the soil has been fought over, killed, harvested, bought and sold a hundred times, from the Druids to the Romans to the Gauls to the present day.”[;]’ and concluded that this vastness was the reason why the British did not have the same interest in historical tragedy. I agree. I’m pretty sure we had a picnic over the Black Death Pit when I lived in London. The hole is located under some unmarked green space. As long as you have a decent sandwich, who cares about the skeleton underneath? As Chummings eloquently puts it, “The carnage of America’s manifest destiny is fresher, the bloodstains still drying in the sand.” There are some interesting reports. —C.W.

Jason Warwick | CBC News | June 4, 2023 | 4,312 words

In Canada, the government has been criticized for a proposed expansion of the Medical Assisted Dying (MAiD) program to potentially include people with mental illnesses and disabilities, but the program was originally intended to provide dignity and dignity to Canadians with terminal illnesses. It was about recognizing the right to die. their own conditions. Saskatoon artist Janet Rodien, 87, wants Canadians to “understand the reality of medically assisted dying.” She and her family gave unrestricted access to CBC News reporter Jason Warwick and videographer Don Summers in the weeks before and after her death, revealing how giving up her life would teach us all. She allowed us to share an intimate portrait of a vibrant woman who reminds us of who she is. live. “Thank you, I thought. Thank you,” Roden says. “Enough is enough. I’ve lived a long life. I’m 87 years old. I have a wonderful family who supports me and I love them forever. I don’t have to suffer anymore, even if I go It was such a liberating feeling to know it was going to be okay.” —KS

carrie arnold | Noema | June 6, 2023 | 3,186 words

Let me preface this by saying that I am a cat person. and dog person That said, cats are idiots. Are you okay! That’s part of their charm. Sure, they’re loving, but they’re also arrogant and destructive, and they don’t care half as much about your feelings or possessions.Carrie Arnold is just as forgiving when it comes to revealing her true inner cat lover Noema piece.Still, still sheA woman who calls cats “the only phenomenon on earth that can tempt me out of bed before sunrise” was shocked to learn of the havoc cats wreak on the natural world. In the United States alone, 80 million homeless cats (and their 20 million domestic cats kept outdoors) pose a legitimate existential threat to birds, plants, and other wildlife. Although the story has an essayistic bent, it also focuses on the rift between conservationists and cat advocates, and the hypocrisy in how we think about outdoor cats. We avoid the peaceful “free dogs” of India, but we don’t care about cats with birds in their mouths (and all the mouth birds we see They also don’t realize that many birds have their eyesight destroyed). But as Arnold points out, “The cat problem has nothing to do with cats. This problem is fundamentally a human problem.” We’re too busy defending our territory to control our pets. They don’t seem to think about responsibility. Bob Barker was right all along. —PR

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