There have been plenty of great restaurant scenes on film. Think of Meg Ryan faking an orgasm at a Manhattan delicatessen in When Harry Met Sally, or Al Pacino shooting a rival gangster and crooked cop in a Bronx Italian in The Godfather, or even Jack Nicholson’s attempt to persuade an obstinate waitress to give him a side order of toast in Five Easy Pieces.

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 brand-new app.

This piece is reprinted from Travel + Leisure.

“The Last, Best Hope for Conservatives: Gingrich says that’s him. Then why is Santorum riding high?” by John Dickerson. After winning Missouri, Colorado, and Minnesota, John Dickerson says that Rick Santorum is a conservative voter’s best hope to beat Mitt Romney to the nomination. And he says Santorum is “the lonely warrior who has triumphed without playing a soundtrack of self-regard, without the ready millions of Gingrich's gambling-magnate patron, and despite more derision from the elite media than Gingrich has faced.”

The man who would be U.S. senator is running late. Just 15 minutes or so. Nobody’s panicking. Richard Mourdock just refused to take a taxi from Reagan National Airport, and his arrival at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) depends on the whims of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. “He’s cheap!” says Diane Hubbard, Mourdock’s grassroots director. “This is how he is. It’s one of the reasons I work for him.”

After a backlash from Catholics, President Obama on Friday softened his stance on contraceptive coverage in health insurance plans for the employees of religiously affiliated universities and hospitals. Have prohibitions on birth control always been part of Christian dogma?

Such is the power of Freaks and Geeks that, even though I was in my early 30s when it first aired, its young cast feels to me a decade later like people I knew and loved in high school. There’s an absurd rush of “Hey, I knew them when!” pride whenever one of the kids from that show finds a measure of success in his or her career. Unfortunately, the “hims” have found a lot more of that success than the “hers.”The entire male “freak” contingent (James Franco, Jason Segel, Seth Rogen) has gone on to stardom and the creative freedom that comes with it, while the equally talented female freaks, Busy Phillips and Linda Cardellini, have kept working without ever quite getting the chance to bust out that they deserve. (The “geeks” would require another column entirely: I for one will not rest until Martin Starr, Samm Levine, and John Francis Daly all headline their own comedies in the same programming block.)

Dr. Barbara Reynolds is an ordained minister, author of six books and lecturer in various seminaries and universities. Her column appears occasionally on The RootDC.

Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced governor of New York, spent thousands of dollars committing adultery with prostitutes on company time. He resigned, apologized for his scandalous behavior and was hired to anchor a talk show on CNN.

In the July/August 2001 issue of the late, great magazine Lingua Franca, James Ryerson published an enthralling article about an anonymous benefactor who was paying professors huge sums of money to review a strange 60-page philosophical manuscript. Slate editor David Plotz talked about “The Mystery of the Millionaire Metaphysician” on this week’s Political Gabfest, citing it as one of his favorite magazine articles of all time. Ryerson gave Slate permission to republish the story in full. 

Here are this week's top must-read stories from #MuckReads, ProPublica's ongoing collection of the best watchdog journalism. Anyone can contribute by tweeting a link to a story and just including the hashtag #MuckReads or by sending an email to MuckReads@ProPublica.org. The best submissions are selected by ProPublica's editors and reporters and then featured on the website and @ProPublica.

Become a fan of the Political Gabfest on Facebook. We post to the Facebook page throughout the week, so keep the conversation going by joining us there.

When the world heard of the tragic passing of Don Cornelius, we had different reactions. Some were in disbelief, others paid homage to the legend with a “Soul Train line” in Times Square, while many reflected on his immense impact on society.

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But one thing most people either chose not to accept or simply did not want to accept was the fact that Don Cornelius was dealing with serious internal issues; so much so that he took his own life. No matter what the root cause, poor mental health is a dangerous issue that people unfortunately do not address – especially in our community. And yet it continues to destroy the lives of those suffering from it (and of their loved ones).

Because mental health and depression are such significant and critical issues, it’s only right to enlist the expertise of someone qualified to speak on the subject. That’s why, this week, I’m honored to have Terrie Williams, clinical therapist and veteran public relations counselor give us her words of wisdom:

We are all mourning the loss this week of Soul Train creator and cultural icon, Don Cornelius.  An American success story, Don left us with a 35-year history lesson in business acumen, cultural exportation, and community uplift.  That’s all good. We should take some time to measure and celebrate Don’s legacy.  That’s easy.  What’s not easy is to discuss how and why he died.  Yes, he hid his demons well. But clearly they were there because this 75-year old icon with a body of work most of us will never achieve chose to end his own life with a gunshot to the head.

By all accounts, Don was a very private man. True to form, he didn’t leave a note so we don’t know what moved him to end his life. What we do know is that we did not have to lose Don this way. This silence about depression is now killing us.  It is real. It is deadly. And, it does not discriminate. According to the World Health Organizations, by the year 2020, depression will be the second leading cause of death behind heart disease for everyone.

As a veteran public relations counselor and clinical therapist who manages her own depression, I know for sure we all need to learn to identify its symptoms – what it looks like, sounds like and feels like — and get help for those that need it. We must take care of our mental health… and get a “check-up from the neck up.”

My heartfelt love and prayers go out to Don’s family, friends.

Terrie M. Williams is the author of Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We’re Not Hurting and the co-founder of The Stay Strong Foundation.  You can follow her at twitter.com/terriewilliams or visit http://www.storiesthatheal.samhsa.gov or www.thestaystrongfoundation.org.

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Rick Santorum, the GOP presidential candidate from Pennsylvania, is known—as you’ve probably heard by now—for wearing a sweater vest. That sweater vest now has its own Twitter account, Facebook page, YouTube video, and fundraising campaign. The vest is everybody’s favorite fun fact about Santorum—but nobody seems to agree on what it’s actually doing for the politician (besides, perhaps, helping him to associate some new search terms with his blighted name). The range of responses to Santorum’s knitwear has been wide. Scarlett Johansson, who just declared the vest “so sad,” associates the look with her father. Griffin Perry, son of Rick Perry, tweeted that the vest reminded him of infamous sweater-vest-wearing football coach Jim Tressel. The Hartford Courant declared, perhaps prematurely, that Santorum had single-handedly transitioned the sweater vest from a neutral political status to a “right-wing vestment.” The New York Times positions the vest as grandfatherly; the LA Times prefers “avuncular.” Meanwhile, the Boston Herald went out on a limb and accused Santorum of “looking like a McDonald’s trainee.”

I am single, living alone and originally from Los Angeles. When I moved to the Washington area after accepting a job at the University of Maryland, I had some basic questions about where I wanted to live: Should I settle in a urban neighborhood filled with single people like me or opt for the suburban family scene?

CAMBRIDGE, Ohio— Police say an Ohio man who stuck his 3-year-old son in a clothes dryer as punishment and then turned it on is facing child endangerment charges.

The Zanesville Times Recorder reports that 40-year-old Jamial Bayly is scheduled for a video arraignment Thursday in Cambridge Municipal Court.

Guernsey County Sheriff Michael McCauley says deputies went to the Cambridge home Sunday after getting a tip from family members.

The sheriff says the father acknowledged putting the boy in the dryer earlier in the day. Deputies didn’t see any visible injuries on him. McCauley says he doesn’t know how long the boy had been in the dryer.

The sheriff says the boy was released to his mother, who wasn’t home when deputies arrived.

Cambridge Municipal Court records don’t list an attorney for Bayly.

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BUFFALO-Twelve white firefighters were awarded a combined $2.5 million from the Buffalo Fire Department in a racial discrimination case after it was ruled that they were passed up on promotions in order to promote Black firefighters.

In addition to the settlement each of the firefighters were also awarded between $20,000 and $30,000 for emotionless damages,

Buffalo 12 reports:

A State Supreme Court judge has ordered the Buffalo Fire Department and City of Buffalo to pay more than $2.5 million dollars to 12 firefighters in a discrimination case.

The firefighters awards were based on how far their promotions would have taken them.

Read More At Buffalo 12

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First Lady Hits Road For “Let’s Move” Anniversary

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