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The Inequality That Matters

The Inequality That Matters

Hosed: The FDNY's Black Firefighter Problem

Hosed: The FDNY’s Black Firefighter Problem

Rich Ziade: My Top 5 Longreads of 2010

Rich Ziade is partner and lead strategist at Arc90, notable for many things including creation of the wondrous Readability app.

(Ed. note: We know: One of the stories below is from 2009, and another is from 2007.)

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• Paul Graham ruminates over the deflationary value of stuff.

• Zak Smith debates which is more offensive: the porn industry or Tyra Banks exploiting the porn industry in Barely Legal Whores Get  Gang-F***ed.

• The New York Times (Wyatt Mason) deep dives into the mind of The Wired’s David Simon.

• The New Yorker (Nick Paumgarten) profiles John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods.

• The CBC investigation (by Neil Macdonald) of the assassination of Lebanon’s prime minister Rafik Hariri plays like an international procedural thriller. Ben Affleck as the protagonist?

Time Person of the Year 2010: Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg

Time Person of the Year 2010: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg

The defense could have proposed that it’s never normal or sane to believe you’re the prophet of God…But the defense did not go there, perhaps because the judge and most of the jury and most of the people outside the courtroom were Mormons and would have been deeply offended.

Scott Carrier on the trial of the Utah man recently convicted of abducting Elizabeth Smart: an inside look at the mystical religious fervor that grips many Americans…and took center stage in Smart’s case. (via motherjones)

Murder Music

Murder Music

Top 10 Longreads for Art, Design, Film & Music

Top 10 Longreads for Art, Design, Film & Music

gq:

“I wouldn’t call it conversation,” Gelb said. “It’s this sort of breathless monologue that you can only engage by interrupting. Dick is an advocate. He almost always has a case to make.” Holbrooke’s forcefulness is tempered by an endearing vulnerability—the nakedness of his ambitions and pleasures and insecurities. He takes pains arranging the seating chart for official dinners. Between government jobs, he worked as an investment banker, and, according to USA Today, he’s worth at least seventeen million dollars, but he still looks as if he’d dressed in a hurry. He reads voraciously, writes quickly and well, and consumes large quantities of schlock entertainment. (Holbrooke is especially fond of “There’s Something About Mary.”) His great advantage over most colleagues and opponents is his analytic and synthetic prowess, which allows him, for example, to break down the reasons for the Taliban’s successful propaganda campaign in the tribal areas while connecting it to imperial British history in the region. As for his flaws, he seems remarkably unaware of them. Holbrooke cannot be kidded about the trait for which he’s best known: his ego.


—from
“The Last Mission,” George Packer’s Sept 2009 New Yorker profile of Richard Holbrooke. Photograph by Brigitte Lacombe.

Ellen Ripley Saved My Life

Ellen Ripley Saved My Life

From Kid Celebrity to Consummate Con Artist

From Kid Celebrity to Consummate Con Artist