Going Postal
A psychoanalytic reading of social media and the death drive.
Black Communities Have Known about Mutual Aid All Along
In the pandemic, “caremongering” has become a new term for an old—and joyous—practice
Magic Act: The Making Of Earvin Johnson, AIDS Saint
“His life with the virus would be his witness, his public testimony. Performance as life, and life as performance.”
Extreme Heat Is Here, And It’s Deadly
Gearing up for the fight against a new climate enemy.
How My Mother and I Became Chinese Propaganda
Immigrant struggles in America forged a bond that became even tighter after my mother’s A.L.S. diagnosis. Then, as COVID-19 threatened, Chinese nationalists began calling us traitors to our country.
Targeted
A Florida sheriff created a futuristic program to stop crime before it happens. It monitors and harasses families across the county.
Here Be Monsters
Three teenage boys decide to set sail after a night of drinking. They go missing for 51 days.
You Don’t Know Her
A profile of Mariah Carey.
Sent Home to Die
In New Orleans, hospitals sent patients infected with the coronavirus into hospice facilities or back to their families to die at home, in some cases discontinuing treatment even as relatives begged them to keep trying.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Smoke at the End of the World"
Construction work, measured in bad habits.
On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs
An essay on meaningless work.
The Little Cards That Tell Police 'Let's Forget This Ever Happened'
Some cops give their friends and family union-issued “courtesy cards” to help get them out of minor infractions. The cards embody everything wrong with modern policing.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is an author and journalist. He served as guest editor for the September issue of Vanity Fair, titled "The Great Fire."
“There’s this pressure to say something. Say something. The world’s burning, say something. But I try to stay where I’ve been or where I’ve tried to be in my career. ... Good things take time. You gotta let things cook. You can’t insta-bake something like this.”
Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode.
Can Greek Tragedy Get Us Through the Pandemic?
A theatre company has spent years bringing catharsis to the traumatized. In the coronavirus era, that’s all of us.
Michelle Remembers
In the 1980s some of the world’s most powerful institutions were taken in by stories, begun in Victoria B.C., of a global Satanic underground abducting and abusing thousands of children.
What Tyler Skaggs Left Behind
On the death of a major league pitcher and its aftermath.
The Inside Story of the $8 Million Heist from the Carnegie Library
How precious maps, books, and art vanished from the Pittsburgh archive over the course of 25 years.
On Witness and Respair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by Pandemic
On losing your Beloved in 2020.
The Egging of Frank Sinatra
In 1944, an eighteen year old boy became famous for throwing eggs at Frank Sinatra. Then he disappeared.
Back to School
Kim Kardashian West’s makeup artist launches a new line.
The Free and The Brave
A patriotic parade, a bloody brawl, and the origins of U.S. law enforcement’s war on the political left.
A New Orleans Chef Navigates Disaster
Nina Compton’s adopted city knows how to ride out a storm. The pandemic plays by different rules.
The Eco–Yogi Slumlords of Brooklyn
How did a couple who built an empire of yoga studios and homes with “living walls” end up as pandemic villains?
David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics
An interview with “one of the most influential data gurus” in electoral politics.
Breonna Taylor’s Life Was Changing. Then the Police Came to Her Door.
Interviews, documents and jailhouse recordings reveal a clearer picture of the life and death of the 26-year-old emergency room technician.
