
Been Down So Long It Looks Like Debt to Me
An American family’s struggle for student loan redemption.
Great articles, every Saturday.
An American family’s struggle for student loan redemption.
M.H. Miller The Baffler Jul 2018 20min Permalink
His verbal stumbles have voters worried about his mental fitness. Maybe they’d be more understanding if they knew he’s still fighting a stutter.
John Hendrickson The Atlantic Nov 2019 25min Permalink
On the moral responsibility to break unjust laws.
“There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’”
Martin Luther King Jr. Liberation May 1963 30min Permalink
When she was a 15-year-old runaway, the writer was nearly killed by a truck driver. Twenty-seven years later, she investigates whether her attacker was truck stop serial killer Robert Ben Rhoades, who often kept his victims chained in the back of his truck for weeks before killing and dumping them.
Vanessa Veselka GQ Oct 2012 30min Permalink
The Capitol was breached by Trump supporters who had been declaring, at rally after rally, that they would go to violent lengths to keep the President in power. A chronicle of an attack foretold.
Luke Mogelson New Yorker Jan 2021 50min Permalink
“I decided that if he would not tell us his story, then I would.”
Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah GQ Aug 2017 50min Permalink
The stories that sprung up around if not quite about Trump were as brutal and lazy as the man himself; they teased themselves endlessly from one episode to the next, building toward a brutal grand finale in which America’s heroes would murder its villains, on TV, at some time to-be-determined.
David Roth Defector Jan 2021 10min Permalink
Insane birthers and Glenn Beck-worshipping tea-partiers, proud racists and gun-toting antigovernment loons—they’re all here, and they’re all angry about something.
John Jeremiah Sullivan GQ Jan 2010 Permalink
Carried away by love—for risk and for each other—two of the world’s best freedivers went to the limits of their sport. Only one came back.
Gary Smith Sports Illustrated Jun 2003 35min Permalink
How John, a father of 14, lost Christmas.
George Saunders New Yorker Dec 2003 10min Permalink
Why did Christie Smythe upend her life and stability for Martin Shkreli, one of the least-liked men in the world?
Stephanie Clifford Elle Dec 2020 20min Permalink
A husband’s stroke, the Australian bushfires, and a trip to the Great Barrier Reef.
Robert Moor Outside Dec 2020 25min Permalink
Armed with a handgun, a fake ID card and disguises, Miriam Rodríguez was a one-woman detective squad, attempting to catch her daughter’s murderers in the border town of San Fernando.
Azam Ahmed New York Times Dec 2020 Permalink
And what it lost in the process.
Ed Yong The Atlantic Dec 2020 20min Permalink
The dark secret life of The Great Zucchini, Washington D.C.’s most sought after children’s birthday party entertainer.
Gene Weingarten Washington Post Jan 2006 25min Permalink
Years from now, we will look back in horror at the counterproductive ways we addressed the obesity epidemic and the barbaric ways we treated fat people—long after we knew there was a better path.
Michael Hobbes Huffington Post Highline Sep 2018 30min Permalink
An essay on understanding our character, worth, and limits.
Joan Didion Vogue Jun 1961 Permalink
How breakfast got served at the Flamingo hotel in Las Vegas.
Burkhard Bilger New Yorker Sep 2005 30min Permalink
Surviving a trip to see the family for Thanksgiving.
“How I envy people who enjoy the company of their parents without the aid of pharmaceuticals.”
Reprinted from Home for the Holidays and Other Calamities.
Chris Radant Boston Phoenix Nov 1990 10min Permalink
Henry Orenstein survived three years in concentration camps before creating Transformers and poker cameras.
Abigail Jones Newsweek Dec 2016 25min Permalink
A couple, a caregiver, and a promise.
Christopher Solomon GQ Nov 2020 20min Permalink
A 17,000-word exploration of the Sahara Desert, the hottest place on Earth.
William Langewiesche The Atlantic Nov 1991 1h10min Permalink
No house is private. It may be purchased, and thus legally private property, but it doesn’t stand alone. Through its extending wires, pipes, inputs and outputs, the house (with few off-grid exceptions) is tied up in the cyborg systems of the city and the supply chains and logistical inputs that extend around the globe.
Kelly Pendergrast Real Life Aug 2020 15min Permalink
Searching for Dave Chappelle ten years after he left his show.
Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah The Believer Oct 2013 35min Permalink
The author teaches a college class about what it means to be white in America, but interrogating that question as a black woman in the real world is much harder to do.
Claudia Rankine New York Times Magazine Jul 2019 25min Permalink