Certainly many Irish people find the idea of abandoning Catholicism to be as counterintuitive as giving up their racial or sexual identity. A televised panel discussion on the abuse crisis last summer ended with a reporter asking a woman who was voicing her anger if she was ready to leave the Catholic Church. She paused, as if befuddled, then said, “Where would I go?” Then again, while until recently, being a member of the church had obvious social rewards, Eamon Maher, who has edited books about Irish Catholicism, told me, “now it’s a positive disadvantage.” Maher continued: “If you go around saying you’re an ardent Catholic, people will be distrusting of you.”
The Longreads Blog
The Complete Oral History of 'Party Down'
The Complete Oral History of ‘Party Down’
“Let’s put it this way: We were asked by the network, and not in an offensive way, to explore premium content, and part of that was some nudity if it was possible. It made us all flinch a little bit. Porn awards [‘Sin Say Shun Awards Afterparty’] was born from trying to take that request and figure out a way to do it that will enhance the show. Failed orgy [‘Nick DiCintio’s Orgy Night’], similar thing.”
By Whitney Pastorek, Details
Consumed
To be a kayaker in Africa is to be constantly warned that the rivers are too dangerous—too many lethal rapids, too many angry hippos, too many hungry crocodiles. Like John Goddard and others before them, Hendrik Coetzee, Ben Stookesberry, and Chris Korbulic had simply come to terms with the risks. The new team did, however, have one serious misunderstanding of the small rivers that feed the upper Congo. The general rule in Africa is that alpha predators are still no match for men with guns, meaning that crocodiles and other monsters are at their most menacing in protected areas, where they can’t be shot.
By Grayson Schaffer, Outside
The Fresh Air Interview: Church of Scientology, Fact-Checked
The Fresh Air Interview: Church of Scientology, Fact-Checked
GROSS: There was a meeting that you refer to in your article about Scientology, where people from the New Yorker staff met with representatives from Scientology. What was this meeting about?
Mr. WRIGHT: That was one of the most amazing days of my life. I had been out to Los Angeles to interview Tommy Davis over the Memorial Day weekend. And when he finally did come to meet with me, he said that he had decided not to talk to me.
But I asked him if he would agree at least to, you know, to respond to our fact-checking queries about the church. And he agreed to that. And over a period of time, we sent them 971 fact-checking queries, which alarmed them.
What Was He Thinking?
Jake Plummer never went to Tampa Bay, of course, just as he never offered his services to any other NFL team. Upon retiring in March 2007, he held a press conference at the Denver Athletic Club. Grasping a lectern, he told a crowd of reporters that he was “running away from the game” but not in “fear or fright.” He credited his teammates for his success, invoked his friend Pat Tillman and pointed to his chest and promised that “there will not be a jersey with an NFL patch here.” He said he was excited to move on and “take on new challenges,” because “life is grand, life is exciting.” Then, without taking questions, Plummer bid goodbye and walked down the hall to play a doubles handball match with his brother Eric.
How Great Entrepreneurs Think
“OK, I need to know which of their various groups of students, trainees, and individuals would be most interested so I can target the audience a little bit more. What other information…I’ve never done consumer marketing, so I don’t really know. I think probably…I think mostly I’d just try to…I would…I wouldn’t do all this, actually. I’d just go sell it. I don’t believe in market research. Somebody once told me the only thing you need is a customer. Instead of asking all the questions, I’d try and make some sales. I’d learn a lot, you know: which people, what were the obstacles, what were the questions, which prices work better. Even before I started production. So my market research would actually be hands-on actual selling.”
By Leigh Buchanan, Inc. Magazine
How the Internet Gets Inside Us
How the Internet Gets Inside Us
Call them the Never-Betters, the Better-Nevers, and the Ever-Wasers. The Never-Betters believe that we’re on the brink of a new utopia, where information will be free and democratic, news will be made from the bottom up, love will reign, and cookies will bake themselves. The Better-Nevers think that we would have been better off if the whole thing had never happened … The Ever-Wasers insist that at any moment in modernity something like this is going on, and that a new way of organizing data and connecting users is always thrilling to some and chilling to others—that something like this is going on is exactly what makes it a modern moment.
By Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker
(via @BiblioOdyssey)
Abusive Afghan Husbands Want This Woman Dead
Abusive Afghan Husbands Want This Woman Dead
For Afghan women, self-immolation has become a way to externalize private injustice, to push hidden pain into the public square. They are expressing a demand for human rights in a culture that does not allow them to articulate that wish. As chief prosecutor, Maria Bashir has sought to help women voice their grievances in the courts instead of by the gas can.
A Song for Aretha
When I am frustrated with my generation it is often because we have a willful disregard for what has come before. Aretha seems a prime example of this. Those hats are the hats of black churches. That weight and those breasts are a body that has aged. That hometown is family and that fear of flying is, above all, human. That “shut up” was a demand that you recognize she has been there, she has done that, and you could learn a thing or two from listening to where the “there” and the “that” have brought her and what they have shown her.
By Nell Boeschenstein, The Morning News
Mother Jones: Whose Tumblrs Are We Digging On This Week?
Glad you asked:
Lapham’s Quarterly has this webs thingy all figured out.
Longreads ensures we never stop reading, even after work hours.
I Love Charts brings graphic order to disorder.
And Cajun Boy is, well, Cajun Boy. Just read him, dammit. And speak well of the Saints.
Thank you for digging on us! As evidenced here, we love Mother Jones.
Thanks MoJo! BTW, we’ve teamed with them to highlight our Top 5 Longreads of the Week email (which you can receive every Friday by signing up here).
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