Errol Morris, Forensic Epistemologist
A conversation on the “bedeviling sorts of indeterminacies one encounters the deeper one drills.”
Inside China's Star-Making Machine
On China’s pop music charm offensive.
How Collecting Opium Antiques Turned Me Into an Opium Addict
The evolution of an obsession.
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John Kennedy, New Yorker
A remembrance of JFK, Jr.
The League of Dangerous Mapmakers
“Redistricting today has become the most insidious practice in American politics—a way, as the opportunistic machinations following the 2010 census make evident, for our elected leaders to entrench themselves in 435 impregnable garrisons from which they can maintain political power while avoiding demographic realities.”
No Evidence of Disease
Stephanie had cancer, until she didn’t.
Portrait of the Artist as a Postman
A profile of Kermit Oliver, a reclusive, critically acclaimed artist who designs scarves for Hermès and works nights at the Waco post office.
Sex and the Superbug
The rise of drug-resistant gonorrhea.
Power, Pollution and the Internet
The environmental impact of server farms.
Ultimate Retreat to French Polynesia
Exploring remote atolls in the South Pacific.
The Lie Factory
The invention of political consulting.
May Doctors Help You to Die?
Debates surrounding physician-assisted dying in the U.S.
The Shocking Truth
The story of a device that delivers electric shocks to students at a school for special needs.
23 Reasons Why a Profile of Pete Carroll Does Not Appear in This Space
An attempt at writing about the football coach.
Eyes Wide Shut
What the wife of a ponzi schemer knew.
Rural Minorities Ponder The American Dream From The Bottom Rung Of The Economic Ladder
On the country’s poorest.
Indentured Servitude, Money Laundering, and Piles of Money: The Crazy Secrets of Internet Cam Girls (NSFW)
“If you think cam girls—those flirty naked characters that plague porn site pop-up ads—are raking in easy money, you’re right. If you think cam girls are bleakly stripping online out of desperation, you’re also right.”
Rethinking Robert Rubin
An assessment of the former Secretary of the Treasury.
Joe Arridy Was The Happiest Man On Death Row
Joe Arridy had an IQ of 46. In 1939, he was executed for a crime he neither understood nor committed.
The Inside Story of a Controversial New Text About Jesus
On the 1,600-year-old text that suggests that Jesus, long believed to be celibate, was a married man.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor at The Atlantic and author of The Beautiful Struggle.
"I was 24 when my son was born. People always say that kids get in the way, right? But actually it had the opposite effect on me. I feel like I could have spent my twenties doing all sorts of self-destructive things--that was my natural inclination--but having a kid suddenly makes that not OK ... The stakes of everything just went up. I think I'm the type of person where, for any reason, I only respond to pressure. That kid just so raised the pressure, for everything ... So I started writing for the Washington Monthly, and the Monthly pays shit, everybody knows that, right? They were paying ten cents a word at this point. But because they have these big-shots writing for them, nobody ever calls for the check! But I would say, 'no, I need you to send me that check. Yeah, I know it's only $150, but I actually need that check, you really need to send that check.'"
Neil Young Comes Clean
At 66, Young sobers up.
My Embed in Red
On a week spent immersed in right wing media.
Pink Slime
Inside the cluttered Los Angeles apartment of lo-fi auteur Ariel Pink.
