Occupy Wall Street protest posters
(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)​

This week, we’re sharing stories from John Lanchester, Bethany Barnes, Stephen Kearse, Warren Ellis, and Soraya Roberts.

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1. After the Fall

John Lanchester | London Review of Books | June 27, 2018 | 30 minutes (7,694 words)

It’s been 10 years since the 2008 financial crisis and we’re still living with the fallout: financial institutions have seen few major regulatory changes, the poor and middle class have carried the burden of austerity measures and have responded with a sharp rise in populism, and life expectancy has stagnated.

2. Targeted: A Family and the Quest to Stop the Next School Shooter

Bethany Barnes | The Oregonian | June 24, 2018 | 21 minutes (5,275 words)

“What if the system created the very thing it was trying to prevent?”

3. What the Rise of XXXTentacion Says About Being a Fan Today

Stephen Kearse | Pitchfork | June 25, 2018 | 6 minutes (1,727 words)

Critic and reporter Stephen Kearse considers the tragic life and death of young rapper XXXTentacion, and the nature of fandom.

4. A Compendium of Tides

Warren Ellis | Spirits of Place | June 26, 2018 | 18 minutes (4,595 words)

“The spirits of place are the echoes of people, of events, of ideas which have become imprinted upon a location, for better or for worse.” Warren Ellis takes us to his, the Thames Estuary.

5. The Fred Rogers We Know

Soraya Roberts | Hazlitt | June 26, 2018 | 14 minutes (3,537 words)

Soraya Roberts mines the CBC archives to view the first images of Fred Rogers on television in 1963 — hosting Misterogers, a fifteen-minute black-and-white children’s program made in Canada — to get a deeper sense of the man who made it ok for people to be valued and loved, exactly as they are.