This is the third set of longform readings I have come across in 2018. they cover a wide range of topics, yet all are interesting and well worth the time investment required to read them.
The FBI Tried to Use the #MeToo Moment to Pressure an Environmental Activist Into Becoming an Informant
By Alleen Brown,John Knefel
Univision Is A Fucking Mess
By Kate Conger, David Uberti, and Laura Wagner
This is the story of how corporate raiding, complacency, excess, and incompetence are gutting a media company that matters to tens of millions of people.
Al Qaeda Won
By Stephen Marche
Seventeen years after the 9/11 attacks, the terrorists have definitively won the battle for the American mind.
She reported her 2006 rape. Then, nothing happened. In the #metoo era, what do we owe her?
By Elizabeth Bruenig in Arlington, Texas.
Twelve years ago, Amber Wyatt reported her rape. Few believed her. Her hometown turned against her. The authorities failed her.
What do we owe her now?
A giant crawling brain: the jaw-dropping world of termites
by Lisa Margonelli
At least half of termite studies used to be about how to kill them. But science is discovering their extraordinary usefulness
‘They was killing black people’
By DeNeen L. Brown
In Tulsa, one of the worst episodes of racial violence in U.S. history still haunts the city with unresolved questions, even as ‘Black Wall Street’ gentrifies
Uncontrolled sand mining led to Kerala floods. This is only waiting to happen again
By Damayanti Datta
And it’s not just Kerala. Almost each of India’s 400-plus rivers is in the grip of the sand mining mafia.
‘This guy doesn’t know anything’: the inside story of Trump’s shambolic transition team
By Michael Lewis
The author of Moneyball and The Big Short reveals how Trump’s bungled presidential transition set the template for his time in the White House
How We Know Kavanaugh Is Lying
by Nathan J. Robinson
This man should not serve another day as any kind of judge…
Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father
By David Barstow, Susanne Craig, and Russ Buettner
The president has long sold himself as a self-made billionaire, but a Times investigation found that he received at least $413 million in today’s dollars from his father’s real estate empire, much of it through tax dodges in the 1990s.
When The Times Kept Female Reporters Upstairs
By Amanda Svachula
What One Devastated Community Can Teach the World About Mental Health
By Matt Simon
As the anniversary of the massive wildfires in Northern California arrives, researchers are trying to pinpoint the best ways to treat the anxiety, depression, and trauma left in the disaster’s wake.
How 20 years of stop and search has widened America’s racial divide
By James Forman Jr.
A police push to seize guns from cars ended in disproportionate numbers of black people getting arrested for minor crimes.
Analyse this: what Freud can teach us about Trumpism
By Gary Greenberg
As a psychotherapist, here’s what I’ve learned in the two years since Donald Trump moved into the White House.
The Ghosts of the Glacier
By Sean Flynn
What happens when climate changes quickly in a previously frozen place, when the earth heats up and the mountains melt? In the high Swiss Alps, here’s what happens: The ice gives up the bodies—and the secrets—of the past.
Invasion of the ‘frankenbees’: the danger of building a better bee
By Bernhard Warner
Beekeepers are sounding the alarm about the latest developments in genetically modified pollinators.
What the media aren’t telling you about Jamal Khashoggi
By John R. Bradley
The dissident’s fate says a lot about Saudi Arabia and the rise of the mobster state
Big in Japan
By Tejal Rao
The story of how Kit Kats, once a British chocolate export, became a booming business from Hokkaido to Tokyo — and changed expectations about what a candy bar could be.
Tommy Robinson and the far right’s new playbook
By Daniel Trilling
The former EDL leader is one of a new breed of entrepreneurial activists who are bringing extremist myths into the mainstream – while also claiming they are being silenced.
China’s hidden camps
By John Sudworth
What’s happened to the vanished Uighurs of Xinjiang?
How A Massive ICE Raid Changed Life In One Small American Town
By Hamed Aleaziz
O’Neill, Nebraska, had become a refuge for scores of Central Americans fleeing poverty and unrest. An ICE raid changed all that.
America’s Selective Outrage
By Mohit Priyadarshi
The murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi has rightly caused anger in the West, but why are western journalists quiet about the brutal war Saudi Arabia wages in Yemen with America’s help?
‘You descend into hell by coming here’: how Texas shut the door on refugees
By Justine van der Leun
At the US-Mexico border, asylum seekers are trapped in a hostile environment.
‘A wall built to keep people out’: the cruel, bureaucratic maze of children’s services
By Jake Anderson
In a system cut to the bone, gaining access to the support we had been promised for our daughter’s special educational needs was an exhausting, soul-sapping battle.
Why ‘Predator’ Is A Subversive Masterpiece
By zhyxtheman
Most people don’t think ‘art’ when discussing Predator. The 1987 science fiction classic is fondly remembered for spectacular action, quotable dialogue, and a monster who has joined the ranks of Frankenstein and Dracula as a cultural icon. However, many overlook some of the film’s more subtle underpinnings. Though at a glance the film is just another entry into the 80s cycle of action films, it actually serves as the ultimate rebuke to the genre’s most popular conventions.
Church of secrets
By Timothy Sawa, Lynette Fortune, and Bob McKeown
Iglesia Ni Cristo has thousands of followers in Canada, but in the Philippines, some devotees have been accused of kidnapping and murder. This is the story of a Canadian man who ran up against members of the church and ended up dead.
Time to Expose the Women Still Celebrating the Confederacy
By Kali Holloway
‘Their name is on all their monuments, but maybe because those plaques are rusty and faded people don’t realize the UDC is still a functioning organization.’
Your Children’s Yellowstone Will Be Radically Different
Written by Marguerite Holloway. Photographs and time-lapse video by Josh Haner. Map by Derek Watkins.
They went to America’s oldest national park to capture how climate change is altering the landscape and ecosystem.
The Second Half of Watergate Was Bigger, Worse, and Forgotten By the Public
By David Montero
Watergate revealed that multinational corporations, including some of the most prestigious American brands, had been making bribes to politicians not only at home but in foreign countries.
Ancient Industrial Machinery & Modern Christian Mythology
by Richard Carrier
Christians like to deny the Dark Ages existed, and instead reimagine them as a glorious age of knowledge and progress. That’s just not true.
The Insect Apocalypse Is Here
By Brooke Jarvis
What does it mean for the rest of life on Earth?
Targeted Advertising Is Ruining the Internet and Breaking the World
By Dr. Nathalie Maréchal
Surveillance capitalism and targeted advertising have become the norm on the internet, and it’s hurting all of us.
Bowel movement: the push to change the way you poo
By Alex Blasdel
Are you sitting comfortably? Many people are not – and they insist that the way we’ve been going to the toilet is all wrong.
I don’t think I’m going to continue making this list. I will still be reading a variety of longform writing, but making these posts take up a lot of time. I don’t really have a desire to keep track of and share them anymore. I guess a story about shit is as good as any to stop.