The Longreads Blog

While Gates’ vaccine-based giving—closing in on $6 billion to fight measles, hepatitis B, rotavirus and AIDS, among others—is part of the largest, most human-driven philanthropy in the history of mankind, what’s missing in his language are the individual ­humans.

In many ways that’s the point. Gates’ clipped manner in discussing the children he and his wife met in India and Africa (“Melinda and I spend time with these kids, and we see that they’re suffering; they’re dying”) disappears when the underlying numbers come up, his speech getting more rapid, his voice ever higher. “A 23-cent vaccine,” he says, “and you’ll never get measles,” a disease that “at its peak was killing about a million and a half a year; it’s down below 300,000.” Gates rattles off milestones in the history of global health and the prices of vaccines down to the penny, but blanks on the name of one of his favorite vaccine heroes, John Enders, the late Nobel laureate, or Joe Cohen, a key inventor of the new malaria vaccine Gates helped bankroll.

“With Vaccines, Bill Gates Changes The World Again.” — Matthew Herper, Forbes

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Featured Longreader: James Callan, content strategist. See his story picks from The New Yorker, Outlaw Vern, Frank Chimero and more on his longreads page.

Featured Longreader: James Callan, content strategist. See his story picks from The New Yorker, Outlaw Vern, Frank Chimero and more on his longreads page.

It was around 7:30, the sky dark but not black, the air crisp but not cold. I parked my 1996 Buick Regal, which Adam had driven before he left, but gave to me while he was in Iraq. When I saw my uncle and his family from Pickerington through the living room window, I paused. Why would they be here? Then my mom opened the door and walked toward me, her facial expression a mix of agony and attempted composure. 

“Our worst fears have come true,” she said as I walked up the driveway.

I knew what she meant.

I had to ask, though, just to hear the words. To let them hit home.

“Adam?” I said. “He’s dead?”

‘Our Worst Fears Have Come True.’ — Tom Knox, Columbus Monthly

See more #longreads about the Army

It was around 7:30, the sky dark but not black, the air crisp but not cold. I parked my 1996 Buick Regal, which Adam had driven before he left, but gave to me while he was in Iraq. When I saw my uncle and his family from Pickerington through the living room window, I paused. Why would they be here? Then my mom opened the door and walked toward me, her facial expression a mix of agony and attempted composure. 

“Our worst fears have come true,” she said as I walked up the driveway.

I knew what she meant.

I had to ask, though, just to hear the words. To let them hit home.

“Adam?” I said. “He’s dead?”

‘Our Worst Fears Have Come True.’ — Tom Knox, Columbus Monthly

See more #longreads about the Army

In December 2008, DeChristopher shot to fame as Bidder 70 when he entered a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oil- and gas-lease auction in Utah, posed as a buyer, and laid claim to 22,500 acres of wilderness worth nearly $1.8 million. His comeuppance, handed down in early March, a month before Power Shift, was a federal conviction on two felony counts: making false statements and violating the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act. Together they carry a maximum sentence of $750,000 in fines and up to ten years in prison—a prospect that explains why he’s been packing on the muscle. DeChristopher’s reward, however, has been a rapid rise to folk-hero status.

“The Trials of Bidder 70.” — Abe Streep, Outside magazine

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In December 2008, DeChristopher shot to fame as Bidder 70 when he entered a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oil- and gas-lease auction in Utah, posed as a buyer, and laid claim to 22,500 acres of wilderness worth nearly $1.8 million. His comeuppance, handed down in early March, a month before Power Shift, was a federal conviction on two felony counts: making false statements and violating the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act. Together they carry a maximum sentence of $750,000 in fines and up to ten years in prison—a prospect that explains why he’s been packing on the muscle. DeChristopher’s reward, however, has been a rapid rise to folk-hero status.

“The Trials of Bidder 70.” — Abe Streep, Outside magazine

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The way she held Menashi with her suckers seemed to me like the way a long-married couple holds hands at the movies.

“Deep Intellect.” — Sy Montgomery, Orion Magazine

Also by Orion: “The Reign of the One Percenters.” Sept. 30, 2011

The way she held Menashi with her suckers seemed to me like the way a long-married couple holds hands at the movies.

“Deep Intellect.” — Sy Montgomery, Orion Magazine

Also by Orion: “The Reign of the One Percenters.” Sept. 30, 2011

When Kruse IM’d Kim to see if she was done babysitting, no response came. But he didn’t expect one. The instant message was a cover. Kruse knew Kim had never made it to her job. She was right there in his house with him and Cam. Bound. Beaten. Raped. And, by the next morning, stuffed in his freezer. Dead.

Everyone knows teens live with abandon online—exposing their secrets, likes, dislikes, sexual preferences, home addresses, phone numbers, and so on—in ways their parents can’t understand. But it’s not just this generation’s sense of privacy that’s eroding. It’s their sense of permanence. They act as though the words they write and pictures they post and texts they send vanish into the ether. But in fact they’re leaving a running transcript behind, a digital trail of their hopes, their anxieties, and, in the case of at least one small Canadian town, even their crimes.

“Murder by Text.” — David Kushner, Vanity Fair

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