Happy Wednesday, Lunch Club! Today’s lineup swings from reverence to reckoning.

Start with a portrait of Ken Burns, the soft-spoken documentarian whose love for America might be the one thing this divided country can still agree on. Then dive into a harrowing HuffPost investigation into a “therapeutic” boarding school that turned out to be something far darker. Finally, The Guardian follows a philosopher inside a French courtroom as she tries to understand fifty men accused of an unthinkable crime.

For dessert: protein shakes that might be poisoning you, and a Mediterranean island that’s officially overrun by cats.

Happy reading,
Brett

Ken Burns Loves America—and You Can, Too

Ken Burns’s obsession with this country can be felt in all 234 hours of his roughly 40 films—including his latest mega-doc, The American Revolution. At a moment when we are once again arguing about the very definition of this place, Burns might be the one thing this 250-year-old nation of patriots can agree on.

www.gq.com/story/ken-burns-loves-america-and-you-can-too

An Isolated Boarding School Promised To Help Troubled Girls. Former Students Say They Were Abused.

One former student called the school’s founder, Jeannie Courtney, “the all-powerful cult leader — God.”

www.huffpost.com/entry/troubled-teens-spring-ridge-academy_n_68cc1b68e4b0df2833ccfa2c

‘These men think they’ve done nothing wrong’: the philosopher who tried to understand Gisèle Pelicot’s rapists

When 50 men went on trial in France, accused of raping a woman who had been drugged by her husband, Manon Garcia was in the courtroom – and in the prosecutors’ closing arguments. How does she make sense of what happened?

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/13/these-men-think-theyve-done-nothing-wrong-philosopher-tried-understand-gisele-pelicot-rapists

Interesting Stories

Protein Powders and Shakes Contain High Levels of Lead - Consumer Reports

CR tests of 23 popular protein powders and shakes found that most contain high levels of lead.

www.consumerreports.org/lead/protein-powders-and-shakes-contain-high-levels-of-lead-a4206364640

Cyprus has a cat problem: One feline for every resident

Cyprus has a cat problem. Officials estimate the small island nation in the Mediterranean has about one cat for every one of its approximately 1 million human population.

apnews.com/article/cyprus-cats-felines-population-sterilization-000eb683385513e6ff3761840714520a

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