Take some time this weekend to delve a bit deeper and enjoy these long reads.
The Hazards of Growing Up Painlessly – Justin Heckert (New York Times Magazine)
At school, she was once asked if she was Superman. Could she feel a punch to the face? Could she walk across burning coals as if she were walking on grass? Would it hurt if she were stabbed in the arm? The answers are no, no, yes, no.
Is The Atlantic Making Us Stupid? – Pamela Erens (Los Angeles Review of Books)
The magazine so routinely reaches for the “you won’t believe this!” angle that McSweeney’s recently published a parody entitled “Counter-Intuitive Cover Stories in The Atlantic Magazine.”
How hairspray changed the world – Sara Phillips (ABC Environment)
The Montreal Protocol is an international environmental treaty that inspired the current climate change negotiations. Ironically, it is the failure of those negotiations that now imperils the Protocol.
Boomer Helter Skelter – Courteney Hocking (Limited News)
Like perpetual adolescents, they enjoy abdicating their responsibility whilst relishing the benefits – they cut wages and investment and ship jobs overseas so anyone ever wanting an answer about a bill or a product or a program or even their own money ends up talking to another pimply nineteen year old somewhere, who not only doesn’t have the answer but doesn’t have the power to do anything about it, either.
Totalitarianism, Famine and Us – Samuel Moyn (The Nation)
In late 1959, Chinese officials in the provinces began to investigate wild rumors that people were eating one another. Most of the officials must have already known that Mao Zedong’s call for a “Great Leap Forward,” a planned modernization meant to catapult the country into global economic leadership, had gone horribly wrong.
The Rise and Fall of the American Linguistic Empire -Paul Cohen (Dissent Magazine)
And just how global is the English that will allegedly suffice for America’s future? There is, of course, no question about its enormous reach. Estimates put the number of English-speakers (both as a native and a second tongue) at near five hundred million.
Live From the Inside: A Radio Show Run by Psychiatric Patients – Amelia Rachel Hokule’a Borofsky (The Atlantic)
Above their heads reads: “Radio Colifata,” which means “crazy lady” in the lunfardo prison slang developed in the late 19th century so guards would not understand the prisoners. The motto of Radio Colifata, the founder Dr. Alfredo Olivera explains, is “To create bridges where there are walls.”
Tony Blair and the protesters who keep trying to arrest him for war crimes – Oliver Laughland and Emine Saner (The Guardian)
John Rentoul, Blair biographer and longtime supporter of the ex-PM, concedes the tactics are taking their toll: “I know he hates it. It’s wounding for someone who was so popular and successful at persuading people to vote for him to find that he’s so disliked by such a large minority of people.”
Kill the Password: Why a String of Characters Can’t Protect Us Anymore – Mat Honan (Wired Magazine)
No matter how complex, no matter how unique, your passwords can no longer protect you.
North Korea Won’t Be Liberated in a Day – Mike Deri Smith (The Morning News)
And so I found myself, a few months later, ringing the doorbell at London’s North Korean embassy. I was prepared to demand justice, but my shaking hands betrayed my utter fear of what would happen when someone opened the door.
Treasure Island: Discovering Hawaii’s Big Island – Anthony Doerr (Conde Naste Traveller)
Guidebooks often say to skip this place. It’s too exposed, they argue, too hard to get to. Old-timers in Hilo say the sand here used to be more green—emerald green, Slytherin green—but that weathering and tourists have hauled too much away
Into the vault: the operation to rescue Manhattan’s drowned internet – Dante D’Orazio (The Verge)
A two-day pumping operation has left the cable vault mostly dry, but it doesn’t look right. Cable insulation has been stripped back in areas, cords are cut, chunks of cables lie on the ground, and splice boxes have been torn open.
Twitter is pivoting – Dalton Caldwell (daltoncaldwell.com)
In this paradigm, Twitter’s business model is to help brands “amplify their reach”. A brand participating in Twitter can certainly distribute their content for free and get free organic traffic, but if they want to increase their reach, they need to pay.
When the Nerds Go Marching In – Alexis Madrigal (The Atlantic)
Game day” was October 21. The election was still 17 days away, and this was a live action role playing (LARPing!) exercise that the campaign’s chief technology officer, Harper Reed, was inflicting on his team. “We worked through every possible disaster situation,” Reed said. “We did three actual all-day sessions of destroying everything we had built.”
Jumping the Dragon Gate: Life in Shaoyang – Nick Holdstock (Los Angeles Review of Books)
Guanxi has several meanings. It can simply refer to a person’s contacts, but can also indicate the way they were obtained. When used in this second sense, guanxi often connotes corruption.
Back to work in Myanmar – Thomas Kean (Inside Story)
But for Htun Aung Kyaw and many other Rakhine, there is another element to Obama’s six-hour stay. “I’m very glad he’s here and hope he can see personally the truth, the real situation, about the conflict in Rakhine State,” he says, referring to longstanding tension between Rakhine Buddhists and Muslims.
