#87: Get Rid of Homework?

Fruit lives on at The Highlighter. Last week it was muskmelons. This week, it’s bananas. When I taught U.S. History, my students loved learning about the (sordid, nasty, imperialist) history of the “American” banana. This article, an ode to biodiversity and an attack on consumer preferences, predicts its doom.

Over the past 15 years, hundreds of refugee children in Sweden — many of them Roma or Uyghur — have fallen into coma-like states, often for long periods of time, when finding out their families faced deportation. Called uppgivenhetssyndrom, or resignation syndrome (or, more loosely, apathy), this illness is specific to Sweden. Writer Rachel Aviv (also featured in #76) is excellent again in this haunting piece.

If you loved the first season of Serial but thought the second lost its way, and if you like This American Life, please check out S-Town, a 7-part podcast by Brian Reed. There’s a bit of everything in this: murder, gossip, intrigue, retribution, loneliness, mental illness, climate change, hidden treasure, Southern accents, and small-town America. (If you want more background, here’s a smart review, and another one.)

Many of you may already subscribe to The Daily, starring Michael Barbaro at the New York Times. If you don’t, I highly recommend it. It’s how I start my day. Published weekdays, each episode lasts 20 minutes, during which Mr. Barbaro takes a key news story and adds background or color, either by interviewing a Times reporter or a regular American. (Mr. Barbaro makes sure you know how to pronounce his last name correctly.)