Powerful, personal tales of people going public with their sexual orientation

The Longform Guide to Coming Out…

Powerful, personal tales of people going public with their sexual orientation.

Every weekend, Longform shares a collection of great stories from its archive with Slate. For daily picks of new and classic nonfiction, check out Longform or follow @longform on Twitter. Have an iPad? Download Longform’s app—on sale this week!—to read the latest picks, plus features from dozens of other magazines, including Slate.

This week’s collection was inspired by one of our most clicked stories over the last two weeks, an essay by Gabriel Arana about his time in “ex-gay therapy” that ran in American Prospect. It’s the first piece on this list, and while I certainly recommend reading the five that follow as well, you’ll notice a glaring absence of stories by and about women. Our archive was surprisingly empty on that front—if you’ve got recommendations of great stories about women coming out of the closet, please leave them in the comments or submit them through this form on Longform.org.

Read more HERE.

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MovieClips “MovieClips has movie trailers, previews, behind the scenes clips of old, new and upcoming films. Find videos of your favorite actors, actresses, scenes or watch clips of movies by producer, director or cast.”

Ping-pong is one of the most popular games in China, but it was not invented in China. It originated in Britain, where it is called table tennis. – Provided by RandomHistory.com

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The Ayatollah Under the Bed(sheets)

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, all politics may not be sexual, but all sex is political.

In the early years of the Iranian Revolution, an obscure cleric named Ayatollah Gilani became a sensation on state television by contemplating bizarre hypotheticals at the intersection of Islamic law and sexuality. One of his most outlandish scenarios — still mocked by Iranians three decades later — went like this:

Imagine you are a young man sleeping in your bedroom. In the bedroom directly below, your aunt lies asleep. Now imagine that an earthquake happens that collapses your floor, causing you to fall directly on top of her. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that you’re both nude, and you’re erect, and you land with such perfect precision on top of her that you unintentionally achieve intercourse. Is the child of such an encounter halalzadeh (legitimate) or haramzadeh (a bastard)?

Such tales of random ribaldry may sound anomalous in the seemingly austere, asexual Islamic Republic of Iran. But the “Gili Show,” as it came to be known, had quite the following among both the traditional classes, who were titillated by his taboo topics, and the Tehrani elite, who tuned in for comic relief. Gilani helped spawn what is now a virtual cottage industry of clerics and fundamentalists turned amateur sexologists offering incoherent advice on everything from quickies (“The man’s goal should be to lighten his load as soon as possible without arousing his woman”) to masturbation (“a grave, grave sin which causes scientific and medical harm”).

Read more HERE.

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Burger King said today that it will begin buying eggs only from farms that don’t cage their hens — and similarly, pork only from producers that don’t use gestation stalls to confine sows — with a plan to complete the transition by 2017. The decision is the first of its kind by a global fast food industry giant, and comes amid recent undercover investigations by animal rights activists and concessions from major companies.

“So many tens of thousands of animals will now be in better living conditions,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States. “Numerically this is significant because Burger King is such a big purchaser of these products.”

From: nydn

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Mystery Skin Ailment in Vietnam Prompts Appeal for Help

Vietnam’s health authorities have requested foreign assistance to help them figure out what is behind the deaths of 19 people suffering from an unidentified skin infection. In total, 171 people in the country’s central province of Quang Ngai are thought to be infected with the mysterious ailment, which begins as a rash on the hands and feet and can progress to liver problems and multiple organ failure. The illness was first reported in 2011 and reemerged last month. More …

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Quite possibly the very first sketch of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — drawn by co-creator Kevin Eastman — is up for auction. From Eastman:

“Late in November 1983, (co-creator) Peter Laird and I were sharing a studio (our living room) in Dover, New Hampshire. One work night, in an effort to make Peter laugh, I drew a sketch of this character I called a ‘Ninja Turtle’ and threw it onto Peter’s desk. He did laugh, and did a version of his own — to which I needed to take it one step further, and did a pencil sketch of four different Turtles, each holding a different weapon — and gave it to Peter, who wanted to ink it in — and when he did, he added ‘Teenage Mutant’ to the ‘Ninja Turtle’ part of the logo, and we both fell off our chairs!

The next day, we both looked at the drawing, and decided that we really needed to come up with a story about how these characters came to be — and began to hammer out the story details. Deciding to make it an homage/parody to some of our heroes and inspirations (and dedicating it to them) we worked through the winter of 1983-84 and, after finding a local New England printer, we borrowed money from my Uncle Quentin and we printed the first 3,000 copies — premiering the book at a local Portsmouth comic convention May 5, 1984.

“From that day forward, and for the next 30 years, the TMNTs became a worldwide phenomenon (cartoons, toys, and movies) that even to this day we still try to completely understand — and it all started with this drawing.”

Bidding, which starts at $6,000, ends May 10.

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Prepare to lose some serious time if you’re fascinated by historic photos and/or New York City: The Department of Records has put 870,000 images online for the first time, some of them going back to the 1800s, reports AP. The collection is here,… More »

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United Negro College Fund Established (This day in 1944)

Founded in 1944 by Frederick D. Patterson and Mary McLeod Bethune, the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) provides college tuition for African-American students and scholarship funds for its approximately 40 member colleges. Many of its beneficiaries are the first in their families to attend college, and it counts many distinguished individuals among its alumni, including Martin Luther King, Jr. The UNCF motto is one of the most well known slogans in the history of advertising. What is it? More…

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Introducing the Sriracha lollipop, invented by fanatics of the ridiculously spicy Thai hot sauce who reason: “You may hurt our mouths, but we cannot quit you.” A dozen sets you back $24, or stock up with a case of 36 for $58.

In other consumer news, Anheuser-Busch has launched the Bud Lite Lime-A-Rita just in time for Cinco de Mayo. It’s an 8 percent ABV malt beverage inspired by drinkers’ existing habits of mixing Bud Light Lime into margaritas, available in 8-ounce and 24-ounce cans or 12-ounce bottles.

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The Economics of a Part-time Drug Dealer

Part I: The Basics

Jeff Winkler: So you’re a drug dealer?

Part-time Drug Dealer: Yes. [Sound of his lighter flicking].

What do you sell?

[Blows smoke] Marijuana.

That’s it?

Occasionally I arrange cocaine for friends. But I don’t really make money off of that. It’s basically an exchange.

How much money do you make a month selling weed?

There’s weeks I make $600 profit. But I’d say, on average, it’s about $1200 a month. $1200 is a good, rough figure.

MORE.

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New Racism Museum Reveals the Ugly Truth Behind Aunt Jemima

David Pilgrim has spent decades collecting racist pictures, signs, and knick-knacks. Now he’s sharing his collection with the world.

Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia

David Pilgrim was 12 years old when he bought his first racist object at a flea market: a saltshaker in the shape of a Mammy. As a young black boy growing up in Mobile, Alabama, he’d seen similar knick-knacks in the homes of friends and neighbors, and he instinctively hated them. As soon as he handed over his money, he threw his purchase to the ground and shattered it into pieces.

Pilgrim’s story brings to mind the young biblical Abraham, smashing idols in his father’s shop. But that Mammy was the only racist icon Pilgrim ever destroyed. Today he owns thousands of them: cereal boxes, statuettes, whites-only signs, and postcards of black men being whipped and hung. The public will soon be able to see his entire collection and more at the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, which opens April 26 at Ferris University in Michigan where Pilgrim spent years as a sociology professor.

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Scientists have made what they believe to be the first sighting of an adult white orca, or killer whale.

The adult male, which they have nicknamed Iceberg, was spotted off the coast of Kamchatka in eastern Russia.

It appears to be healthy and leading a normal life in its pod.

MORE.

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“Pickup Lines Of 13 Historical Figures”

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Is Chernobyl a Wild Kingdom or a Radioactive Den of Decay?

The pine trees framing the entrance to the forest appear to be normal. Unremarkable. But the crackling dosimeter says otherwise. On this freezing February afternoon, about 2 miles from the concrete sarcophagus that now entombs the number four reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Gennadi Milinevsky, a physicist from a university in Kiev, walks along a path carpeted with pine needles and patches of recent snow. The size of a transistor radio, the dosimeter emits a sharp click when it detects a radioactive particle. Milinevsky waves the instrument: Its digital readout indicates levels of radiation 120 times higher than normal. As he walks, the staccato popping gets faster as the levels climb to 250 times higher than normal. “It’s not good,” he says. He ventures toward a wide clearing littered with the trunks of dead trees. Milinevsky suggests stopping the tour here. On the far side of the clearing, he knows, the dosimeter will begin to make a sound no one wants to hear: a terrifying snowstorm of screeching white noise, indicating highly toxic levels of gamma radiation some 1,000 times above normal.

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‘Absolutely stunning’: A nude photograph of Madonna taken in 1990 is expected to fetch £5,000 at auction

via.

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ScienceDaily (Apr. 24, 2012) — According to the California Department of Motor Vehicles (CADMV), distracted driving is on the rise due to an increase in the use of cell phones and other electronic devices and the increasing importance of these devices in individuals’ lives. Studies have shown that phoning and driving increases the risk of crashes four-fold, with hands free and hand held devices equally dangerous. Texting increases this risk 8-16 times.

A team of experts from UC San Diego’s Trauma Epidemiology and Injury Prevention Research Center analyzed driving habits in college and university students in San Diego County.

“Distracted Driving is a highly prevalent behavior in college students who have misplaced confidence in their own driving skills and their ability to multitask,” said Linda Hill, MD, MPH, clinical professor in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine. “Despite the known dangers, distracted driving has become an accepted behavior.”

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Mein Kampf to appear in Germany