Here’s a collection of the best articles (mostly longform) I read in the past month:
Rugby Takes a Deeper Look at Concussions by EMMA STONEY WELLINGTON — Steve Devine knows all too well how debilitating the long-term effects of concussions can be. The 35-year-old former New Zealand, Blues and Auckland scrum-half was forced to retire from rugby in 2007 because of repeated concussions.
What’s a Monkey to Do in Tampa? by JON MOOALLEM The monkey appeared behind a Bennigan’s. The Bennigan’s was one in a row of free-standing, fast-casual joints in Clearwater, Fla., just outside Tampa, that also includes a Panda Express and a Chipotle.
Greg Ousley Is Sorry for Killing His Parents. Is That Enough? by Scott Anderson Greg Ousley, who is serving a 60-year sentence for murdering his parents at age 14. For 19 years, Greg Ousley has sought to make sense of the event that has haunted and dictated his life, but the answer, if such a simple thing exists, has remained forever beyond his grasp.
Planet of the apes by Stephen Cave Once upon a time, there was an ape that stood up. Why it stood up nobody knows, but once upright it found it could use its hands to fashion tools from sticks and stones. So it stayed standing up. And once it decided to stay standing up, its brain started to grow.
Me Translate Funny One Day by Jascha Hoffman Essay Me Translate Funny One Day Published: October 19, 2012 Last year, an Australian news anchor who was interviewing the Dalai Lama with the aid of an interpreter opened the exchange with a joke: “The Dalai Lama walks into a pizza shop and says, ‘Can you make me one with every
The Zany, the Cute, and the Interesting: On Ngai’s by Sianne Ngai Sianne Ngai’s Our Aesthetic Categories: Zany, Cute, Interesting is about aesthetic judgments: an inquiry into the terms and origins of taste.
Tupac Lane Welcomes You: The Street Names Of Las Vegas by Willy Staley When Tupac was riddled with bullets just off the Las Vegas Strip in 1996, yet another city was added to the long list of those that have claims on him: Baltimore, Oakland, New York, Los Angeles, Marin City.1 As the list’s last entry, Las Vegas became the one people would least like to remember.
Rich Man, Poor Man by Joan Acocella “Why you?” a man asked Francesco di Bernardone, known to us now as St. Francis of Assisi. Francis (1181/2-1226) was scrawny and plain-looking. He wore a filthy tunic, with a piece of rope as a belt, and no shoes.
On Friendship by Edward Hoagland “Let’s just be friends,” lovers proverbially say when breaking up, even if their empathy is shredding and they mainly mean to try not to sabotage each other by blabbing their secrets wholesale.
Seeing and Believing by SUSANNE KLINGENSTEIN In 1935, Ernst Gombrich, scion of a bourgeois Viennese Jewish family, and newly minted Ph.D. in art history, found himself out of work. Walter Neurath, a friend and publisher, asked him to look over an English history book for children and, if it was any good, to translate it into German.
Moon Man by Adam Gopnik Although Galileo and Shakespeare were both born in 1564, just coming up on a shared four-hundred-and-fiftieth birthday, Shakespeare never wrote a play about his contemporary. (Wise man that he was, Shakespeare never wrote a play about anyone who was alive to protest.
Ezra Klein: The Wise Boy A tale of striving and success in modern-day Washington by JULIA IOFFE The first time I interviewed Ezra Klein, the 28-year-old prince of D.C. media, he brought me a sandwich: prosciutto on a poppy-seed baguette. (Also, chips and a beverage.
‘Constant Drumbeat’ Sped the Pope’s Exit by RACHEL DONADIO VATICAN CITY — Just days after Pope Benedict XVI returned from a 2010 trip to Britain where he met the queen and mended fences with the Anglicans, prosecutors in Rome impounded $30 million from the Vatican Bank in an investigation linked to money laundering.
Autism Inc.: The Discredited Science, Shady Treatments and Rising Profits Behind Alternative Autism Treatments by Alex Hannaford The lowest point for Ann Dimick came in January 2012, when in the middle of the night she climbed out of bed, walked across her bedroom and into the closet, closed the door, sat cross-legged on the floor, and dissolved into tears.
Don’t be beguiled by Orwell: using plain and clear language is not always a moral virtue by Ed Smith Orwell season has led me back to his famous essay “Politics and the English Language”, first published in 1946. It is written with enviable clarity. But is it true? Orwell argues that “the great enemy of clear language is insincerity.
How Napoleon Chagnon Became Our Most Controversial Anthropologist by Emily Eakin Among the hazards Napoleon Chagnon encountered in the Venezuelan jungle were a jaguar that would have mauled him had it not become confused by his mosquito net and a 15-foot anaconda that lunged from a stream over which he bent to drink.
When A 10-Year-Old Kills His Nazi Father, Who’s To Blame? by Natasha Vargas-Cooper Two flags dangle from a banister into the middle of a living room in a modest two-story suburban home in Riverside — one of the far-flung exurbs of Southern California, about 60 miles east of Los Angeles.
Smart on Crime
Being tough on criminals hasn’t worked, but neither has being lenient. Here’s how to prevent—and punish—crime the right way. When I was young and irresponsible, I met with the domestic policy team of a Democratic presidential nominee.
As Views Shift on Guns, Reid Corrals Senate by JENNIFER STEINHAUER WASHINGTON — It was, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada ebulliently proclaimed, a “happy day for me” as he stood with Wayne LaPierre, the head of the National Rifle Association, in 2010 at a new shooting range in Las Vegas made possible by federal money secured by Mr. Reid.
On Being Catholic by GARY GUTTING An old friend and mentor of mine, Ernan McMullin, was a philosopher of science widely respected in his discipline. He was also a Catholic priest.
California Bill Seeks Campus Credit for Online Study by TAMAR LEWIN Legislation will be introduced in the California Senate on Wednesday that could reshape higher education by requiring the state’s public colleges and universities to give credit for faculty-approved online courses taken by students unable to register for oversubscribed classes on campus.
Living With Less. A Lot Less. by GRAHAM HILL I LIVE in a 420-square-foot studio. I sleep in a bed that folds down from the wall. I have six dress shirts. I have 10 shallow bowls that I use for salads and main dishes. When people come over for dinner, I pull out my extendable dining room table.
How to Lighten the Crush of E-Mail by JENNA WORTHAM E-mail is the worst. Between alerts from Facebook, newsletters from Groupon, reply-all e-mail chains, work brainstorming sessions and social coordinating, the in-box becomes a daunting pit of quicksand. At a certain point, even the most dogged among us give up. I certainly did.
The Origins of Religion, Beginning With the Big Bang by ALAN WOLFE In October 1963, the sociologist Robert N. Bellah gave a lecture at the University of Chicago on the subject of “religious evolution.” Clifford Geertz, the widely respected American anthropologist, was only partially impressed.
Lunch with the FT by Edward Luce A youthful 60, with mildly thinning hair, Michael Sandel is dressed in the garb of the academic: slacks, light blue shirt, drab jacket and no tie.
Silicon Valley’s Start-Up Machine by Nathaniel Rich Michelle Crosby, an energetic 37-year-old lawyer in Boise, Idaho, applied for a loan last November from a local bank, Western Capital. She proposed to use the money, $10,000, to help start a new business, Wevorce, which could be described most reductively as an H&R Block for divorces.
The Quarrels of Others: On Anti-Semitism | The Nation by David Nirenberg. With Anti-Judaism, David Nirenberg has recast the debate about the origins and nature of anti-Semitism in Western thought. “In sooth, I know not why I am so sad,” Antonio wonders at the outset of The Merchant of Venice.
Kircher’s Cosmos: On Athanasius Kircher | The Nation by John Glassie. In 1680, a small procession of Jesuits ascended a winding path to the mountaintop shrine of Mentorella, some thirty miles east of Rome.
What Do Scientific Studies Show? by GARY GUTTING As any regular reader of news will know, popular media report “scientific results” nearly every day.
Depression’s Upside - NYTimes.com by JONAH LEHRER The Victorians had many names for depression, and Charles Darwin used them all. There were his “fits” brought on by “excitements,” “flurries” leading to an “uncomfortable palpitation of the heart” and “air fatigues” that triggered his “head symptoms.
The Social Center: Why Writing Centers Need Twitter by Mike Shapiro Mike Shapiro is a graduate student and the online coordinator of the University of Wisconsin–Madison Writing Center.
Some of My Best Friends Are Germs by MICHAEL POLLAN I can tell you the exact date that I began to think of myself in the first-person plural — as a superorganism, that is, rather than a plain old individual human being. It happened on March 7.
The Gay Guide to Wedded Bliss by Liza Mundy Research finds that same-sex unions are happier than heterosexual marriages.
Katrina’s Hidden Race War | The Nation by A.C. Thompson White vigilante justice tore through New Orleans after the storm. But no official investigation has shed light on the violence. A.C. Thompson’s reporting on New Orleans was directed and underwritten by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.
The Secret Library of Hope | The Nation by Rebecca Solnit Hope is an orientation, a way of scanning the wall for cracks—or building ladders—rather than staring at its obdurate expanse.
How Do Physicians and Non-Physicians Want to Die? by Lisa Wade We’re celebrating the end of the year with our most popular posts from 2013, plus a few of our favorites tossed in. Enjoy! A recent RadioLab podcast, titled The Bitter End, identified an interesting paradox.
History Detected by Theresa Johnston In the 1986 comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Ben Stein famously plays a high school teacher who drones on about the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act while his students slump at their desks in a collective stupor.
The best magazine issue you’ll see this year
In most regions of Afghanistan, women can’t practice the arts. Religious and political restrictions bring beatings or worse for singing, acting, writing, or reciting works. You likely know this much or you could have guessed it.
John Gray’s ‘Silence of Animals’ by Thomas Nagel John Gray’s “Silence of Animals” is an attack on humanism. He condemns this widely accepted secular faith as a form of delusional self-flattery. 228 pp. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $26.
What Is Nostalgia Good For? Quite a Bit, Research Shows by JOHN TIERNEY SOUTHAMPTON, England — Not long after moving to the University of Southampton, Constantine Sedikides had lunch with a colleague in the psychology department and described some unusual symptoms he’d been feeling.
After Late Start, Runner Is Speeding Through Records by BARRY BEARAK Kathy Martin (9) competing in the 3,000 meters in January at the Armory in Manhattan. The crowd, small but noisy, fixed eyes on Kathy Martin, the woman in last place. Early on, she was fifth in a pack of 11 runners, calmly moving in heavy traffic.
How Companies Learn Your Secrets by CHARLES DUHIGG Andrew Pole had just started working as a statistician for Target in 2002, when two colleagues from the marketing department stopped by his desk to ask an odd question: “If we wanted to figure out if a customer is pregnant, even if she didn’t want us to know, can you do that? ”
How we all went Dutch by Simon Kuper I’m not Dutch but, in 1976, my family moved to the Netherlands. Though my new classmates were only seven, most cycled to school alone. Later our town got “coffee shops” that sold dope legally.
Revealed: Qatar’s World Cup ‘slaves’ by Pete Pattisson in Kathmandu and Doha Dozens of Nepalese migrant labourers have died in Qatar in recent weeks and thousands more are enduring appalling labour abuses, a Guardian investigation has found, raising serious questions about Qatar’s preparations to host the 2022 World Cup.
A Rayo of hope? by Phil Ball As you trudge gamely up the gradual slope of Albuferas in the district of Vallecas, past chain shops, cheap shops, cell-phone accessory shops, boarded-up shops, gaming parlours, and dozens of small bars and cafes, you pick up that narrower sense of what it really feels like to live in a capital cit
In ‘Flipped’ Classrooms, a Method for Mastery by TINA ROSENBERG In traditional schooling, time is a constant and understanding is a variable. A fifth-grade class will spend a set number of days on prime factorization and then move on to study greatest common factors — whether or not every student is ready.
Lamberto Boranga — the 70-year-old goalkeeper, doctor and poet by Michael Yokhin As part of Parma’s centenary celebrations, president Tommaso Ghirardi arranged an outstanding event last week. He invited a score of the club’s former stars from years gone by for a nostalgic meeting and kick around at the Ennio Tardini stadium.
Nick Brown Smelled Bull by Vinnie Rotondaro It was autumn of 2011. Sitting in a dimly lit London classroom, taking notes from a teacher’s slides, Nick Brown could not believe his eyes.
The Man Who Would Teach Machines to Think by James Somers Douglas Hofstadter, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Gödel, Escher, Bach, thinks we’ve lost sight of what artificial intelligence really means. His stubborn quest to replicate the human mind. “It depends on what you mean by artificial intelligence.
George W. Romney by Dobbs George Wilcken Romney (July 8, 1907 – July 26, 1995) was an American businessman and Republican Party politician.
The Intelligent Plant by Michael Pollan In 1973, a book claiming that plants were sentient beings that feel emotions, prefer classical music to rock and roll, and can respond to the unspoken thoughts of humans hundreds of miles away landed on the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction.
A Speck in the Sea by PAUL TOUGH Looking back, John Aldridge knew it was a stupid move. When you’re alone on the deck of a lobster boat in the middle of the night, 40 miles off the tip of Long Island, you don’t take chances.
by John Hodgman Look, I never want to tell stories about my children, because it always seems a little lazy. Children tend to be sort of dumb, and, in the end, the stories are always the same: children say hilarious things, and I am old and dying.
Editing Your Life’s Stories Can Create Happier Endings by Tim Wilson It was a rainy night in October when my nephew Lewis passed the Frankenstein statue standing in front of a toy store. The 2 1/2-year-old boy didn’t see the monster at first, and when he turned around, he was only inches from Frankenstein’s green face, bloodshot eyes and stitched-up skin.
Is the United States a ‘Racial Democracy’? by JASON STANLEY, VESLA WEAVER Plato’s “Republic” is the wellspring from which all subsequent Western philosophy flows, and political philosophy is no exception. According to Plato, liberty is democracy’s greatest good; it is that which “in a democratic city you will hear … is the most precious of all possessions.
Essay : George Herter, the Oddball Know-It-All by Paul Collins It’s a little-known fact that the Virgin Mary was fond of creamed spinach.
‘Men are stuck’ in gender roles, data suggest by Emily Alpert Reyes Brent Kroeger pores over nasty online comments about stay-at-home dads, wondering if his friends think those things about him. The Rowland Heights father remembers high school classmates laughing when he said he wanted to be a “house husband.” He avoids mentioning it on Facebook.
Peace in our time by Simon Kuper When war broke out in August 1914, crowds in Trafalgar Square cheered. In Germany, even the liberal novelist Thomas Mann exulted, “War! We felt a cleansing, a liberation.” The “world of peace” had bored him. His words show how far we have come since.
Another Word by Rebecca Steffy Couch Rebecca is in her third year teaching for the UW-Madison Writing Center, and she is writing a dissertation on recent American poetics through the lens of community discourse and spatial theory in the English Literary Studies program at UW-Madison.
Love this characterization of how scarcity affects creativity by Patrick Adam Gopnik writes in a recent New Yorker about two new books, one about Duke Ellington and the other about the Beatles. The whole piece, as with almost any Gopnik article, is wonderfully thoughtful and engaging, capturing complex arguments with ease.
How to save France by Simon Kuper France has lots going for it. I’ve been here 12 years, and it’s a beautiful, fairly well-off country with good food and a life expectancy of 82. Yet as the therapists would say, it’s “not in a good place right now”.
Driven to act: How I got through racial hazing and how what I learned can help Madison
After reading Rev.
How to save the UK by Simon Kuper After I wrote a column making eight suggestions to “save France” (February 8/9), many French readers accused me of “France-bashing”. Today I’m offering eight suggestions to save the UK. The French can dismiss this as Britain-bashing but, again, I’m only trying to help.
Brazil, 100 days away by Wright Thompson SAO PAULO – We landed in Brazil 102 days before the first game of the World Cup, and nobody cared. Well, we cared, because we’re from an American television network and paid to notice these things, but nobody else did.
‘The Divide,’ by Matt Taibbi by Timothy Noah “Low-class people do low-class things.” What’s notable in this reflexive dismissal of those with modest means are not the words themselves.
Neon Trees, The Mormon Band Who Made It Big, On Honesty by NPR Staff In the audio of this story, we give an incomplete name for the band members’ church. It is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Why Europe works by Simon Kuper Some days, I drop my children at school in Paris at 8.30am, and before noon I’m having coffee in London. This sort of experience is becoming quite normal in Europe.
A portrait of Europe’s white working class by Simon Kuper Sixty-odd years ago, May Snowden moved into the comfortable, green, working-class neighbourhood of Higher Blackley, in north Manchester. She had two sons and, after her husband died, she raised them herself. She used to know everyone in the neighbourhood.
Bowe Bergdahl Faces Desertion, Misbehavior Charges by Michael Hastings In June 2012, fearless Rolling Stone contributing editor Michael Hastings wrote the definitive first account of Bowe Bergdahl — the young American soldier who was captured by the Taliban and became the last American prisoner of war.
Confessions of a Drone Warrior by Matthew Power Editor’s Note: On March 10, 2014, journalist Matthew Power lost his life pursuing a story along the Nile River in Uganda. He left behind a body of work as diverse and compelling as the adventures, tragedies, and passions of his subjects.
Book review: The transformation of the world by Jurgen Osterhammel by Samuel Moyn Stockport viaduct, 1845: faster transport connected the world in new ways. In the imagination of historians, the 19th century once reigned supreme.
One of a Kind by Seth Mnookin Matt Might and Cristina Casanova met in the spring of 2002, as twenty-year-old undergraduates at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Cristina was an industrial-design major with an interest in philosophy; Matt was a shy computer geek obsessed with “Star Trek.
Wrong Answer by Rachel Aviv One afternoon in the spring of 2006, Damany Lewis, a math teacher at Parks Middle School, in Atlanta, unlocked the room where standardized tests were kept.
Why Do Americans Stink at Math? by ELIZABETH GREEN When Akihiko Takahashi was a junior in college in 1978, he was like most of the other students at his university in suburban Tokyo. He had a vague sense of wanting to accomplish something but no clue what that something should be.
Our unrealistic views of death, through a doctor’s eyes by Craig Bowron I know where this phone call is going. I’m on the hospital wards, and a physician in the emergency room downstairs is talking to me about an elderly patient who needs to be admitted to the hospital.
Suzanne Sadedin’s answer to What is the evolutionary benefit or purpose of having periods?
I’m so glad you asked. Seriously. The answer to this question is one of the most illuminating and disturbing stories in human evolutionary biology, and almost nobody knows about it.
The People V. Football by Jeanne Marie Laskas She had no idea, back then, that he was sick. She had no idea he was losing his mind. Something neurological, the doctors are now saying, some kind of sludge blocking pathways in his brain. Would it have made a difference if she knew? Of course it would have. But you can’t think like that.
The Rise of Beefcake Yoga by Alex French A horde of screaming middle-aged wrestling fans gathered one Saturday evening in April at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans to celebrate professional wrestling’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
Inside the Dark, Lucrative World of Consumer Debt Collection by JAKE HALPERN One afternoon in October 2009, a former banking executive named Aaron Siegel waited impatiently in the master bedroom of a house in Buffalo that served as his office.
The Strange & Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel The hermit set out of camp at midnight, carrying his backpack and his bag of break-in tools, and threaded through the forest, rock to root to rock, every step memorized. Not a boot print left behind.
[Criticism] : The Soft-Kill Solution, by Ando Arike : Harper’s Magazine by Ando Arike Not long ago, viewers of CBS’s 60 Minutes were treated to an intriguing bit of political theater when, in a story called “The Pentagon’s Ray Gun,” a crowd of what seemed to be angry protesters confronted a Humvee with a sinister-looking dish antenna on its roof.
On Bigfoot’s Trail by Deanna Pan You’ve probably seen her before. Captured in grainy 16mm Kodachrome color film, she walks upstream along a sandbar on the opposite edge of a creek. It’s an easy gait, brisk yet casual. Her knees are bent; her elongated arms swing freely at her sides. In a moment suspended in time, she glances back.
What Killed My Sister? by Priscilla Long Susanne Long was my sister, three years younger. She was funny and savvy. She was creative and kind and curious. She had a master’s degree, and she taught English as a second language in Washington, D.C., and later in Seattle.
So You Think You’re Smarter Than A CIA Agent
The morning I met Elaine Rich, she was sitting at the kitchen table of her small town home in suburban Maryland trying to estimate refugee flows in Syria. Will North Korea launch a new multistage missile before May 10, 2014?
The Trip by John Whalen One morning in April 1962, Cary Grant swallowed four tiny blue pills of lysergic acid diethylamide — LSD. Incredibly, it was the 58-year-old actor’s 72nd acid trip under the supervision of a psychiatrist. Grant relaxed on a plush couch and sipped coffee as the drug began to take effect.
Rambo’s end: A shooting, a manhunt, decades of fallout
In the summer of 1987, police swarmed the woods around Wausau, on the hunt for a Michigan prison escapee accused of breaking into a cabin and shooting the owner. That fugitive, Steven K.
Exposing Hidden Bias at Google by FARHAD MANJOO Google, like many tech companies, is a man’s world. Started by a pair of men, its executive team is overwhelmingly male, and its work force is dominated by men. Over all, seven out of 10 people who work at Google are male.
The Woman Who Walked 10,000 Miles (No Exaggeration) in Three Years by ELIZABETH WEIL A hundred years ago, when Robert Falcon Scott set out for Antarctica on his Terra Nova expedition, his two primary goals were scientific discovery and reaching the geographic South Pole. Arguably, though, Scott was really chasing what contemporary observers call a sufferfest.
Father of History by JOSEPH EPSTEIN Herodotus, the first Greek and thereby the first Western historian, had bad press long before there was anything resembling a press. Aristotle referred to him as a “story-teller,” which was no honorific. What he meant was that Herodotus made things up, another word for which is “liar.
Deep into Green by Michael Gorra About twenty years ago I found myself in Washington’s National Gallery and looking for a way to slow down.
The Beggars of Lakewood by MARK OPPENHEIMER Once a year, Elimelech Ehrlich travels from Jerusalem to Lakewood, N.J., with a cash box and a wireless credit-card machine.
The Master by Marc Fisher When I was in high school, at Horace Mann, in the Bronx, in the nineteen-seventies, everyone took pride in the brilliant eccentricity of our teachers.
The Reckoning by Andrew Solomon In Peter Lanza’s new house, on a secluded private road in Fairfield County, Connecticut, is an attic room overflowing with shipping crates of what he calls “the stuff.
The Secrets of Color by Sebastian Smee At one end of our bathtub is a demolition derby of plastic ducks, a dinosaur, and a mermaid Barbie in a formfitting pink-and-blue outfit, her bright-blond hair streaked with red and blue.
The Curious Case of Jesus’s Wife by Joel Baden, Candida Moss Lab tests have suggested that a papyrus scrap mentioning Jesus’s wife is authentic. Why do most scholars believe it’s fake? For six days in September 2012, some 300 participants came together at Sapienza University, in Rome, for the 10th International Congress of Coptic Studies.
Why Innocent People Plead Guilty by Jed S. Rakoff The criminal justice system in the United States today bears little relationship to what the Founding Fathers contemplated, what the movies and television portray, or what the average American believes.
Roberto Saviano: My life under armed guard by ROBERTO SAVIANO As a young writer growing up in Caserta, a suburb of Naples, I felt myself getting more and more angry. There was a war going on between two mafia clans for control of the territory, and violence between them spilled into the streets.
‘Inverted Jenny’ Stamp On Auction Block
In 1918, stamp collector William Robey bought a sheet of 100 stamps for $24 at a Washington D.C., post office. The sheet featured what turned out to be a very valuable mistake. He sold the “Inverted Jenny” — named for the upside-down biplane — stamps for $15,000.
Open access: six myths to put to rest by Peter Suber Open access to academic research has never been a hotter topic. But it’s still held back by myths and misunderstandings repeated by people who should know better. The good news is that open access has been successful enough to attract comment from beyond its circle of pioneers and experts.
Tony Judt’s ‘When the Facts Change’ by SAMUEL MOYN “The arc is down,” is how Jennifer Homans, the widow of Tony Judt and an eminent dance critic and historian, describes the age of cruel disappointment that followed the end of the Cold War.
The Fire on the 57 Bus in Oakland by DASHKA SLATER It was close to 5 o’clock on the afternoon of Nov. 4, 2013, and Sasha Fleischman was riding the 57 bus home from school. An 18-year-old senior at a small private high school, Sasha wore a T-shirt, a black fleece jacket, a gray newsboy cap and a gauzy white skirt.
What happened when I confronted my cruellest troll by Lindy West For the past three years or so, at least one stranger has sought me out pretty much every day to call me a fat bitch (or some pithy variation thereof). I’m a writer and a woman and a feminist, and I write about big, fat, bitchy things that make people uncomfortable.
How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life by Jon Ronson As she made the long journey from New York to South Africa, to visit family during the holidays in 2013, Justine Sacco, 30 years old and the senior director of corporate communications at IAC, began tweeting acerbic little jokes about the indignities of travel.
A City of Two Tales
Cleveland is becoming a city defined by its collective impatience. Nearly three months have passed since a white Cleveland police officer shot and killed Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old black boy wielding an air gun in a city park.
The Pigeon King and the Ponzi Scheme That Shook Canada by JON MOOALLEM The Pigeon King delivered his closing statement to the jury dressed in his only suit. His name was Arlan Galbraith, and he was representing himself.
Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton - review by Lawrence Wright The novels of Graham Greene are full of reluctant Christians, men and women who would like to be rid of God but find themselves stuck with him like some lethal addiction.