“To suffer from gender dysphoria (G.D.), as Michelle Kosilek does, is to exist in a real state for which our only frame of reference may be science fiction. You inhabit a body that other people may regard as perfectly normal, even attractive. But it is not yours. That fact has always been utterly and unmistakably […]
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“Somehow Anthony is blaming me and my 8,000-word story for the fact that everything turned to shit for him. I wish I knew if there was a word for all this. There’s probably a German word for it. And maybe I am naïve, but I am telling you that when you spend so many hours […]
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“As an astronaut, especially during launch, half of the risk of a six-month flight is in the first nine minutes. So as a crew, how do you stay focused, and how do you not get paralyzed by the fear of it? “And the way we do it is to break down what are the risks. […]
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“In America, the economic fortunes of ordinary people like those in Ramsey’s audience are stagnating, while the fruits of increased productivity and profits are accruing to the wealthiest among us, including Ramsey himself, at an accelerating rate. But Ramsey seems to think that concern over inequality just comes down to bitterness. ‘This idea that it […]
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“I did have an interesting (unattributable, of course) briefing from someone very senior in one West Coast mega-corporation who conceded that neither he nor the CEO of his company had security clearance to know what arrangements his own organization had reached with the US government. ‘So, it’s like a company within a company?’ I asked. […]
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College Longreads Pick: 'The End of the Waffle House' by Jessica Contrera, Indiana University
Every week, Syracuse University professor Aileen Gallagher helps Longreads highlight the best of college journalism. Here’s this week’s pick: You may have already read this week’s #college #longreads pick because someone posted it on Facebook or Twitter. Indiana University senior Jessica Contrera paid homage to the end of the local Waffle House with hours of […]
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“In the days before this Halloween, it was especially hard for me to avoid interpreting its elements too bluntly. If you have cancer, if you’ve had it for a while, at some point you start really seeing all those skulls and skeletons and Styrofoam headstones, all those children in hooded capes, bearing scythes on their […]
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The Bones of Marianna, by David Kushner
This week’s Longreads Member Pick is by David Kushner, a contributing editor for Rolling Stone whose work has been featured on Longreads often in the past. He has just published The Bones of Marianna, a new story from The Atavist, and we’re thrilled to give the ebook to Longreads Members. Kushner explains: Almost everyone who hears the shocking story […]
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“In the jargon of economics, the demand for therapeutic drugs is ‘price inelastic’: increasing the price doesn’t reduce how much the drugs are used. Prices are set and raised according to what the market will bear, and the parties who actually pay the drug companies will meet whatever price is charged for an effective drug […]
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Bureaucracy’s Playthings
“‘In the average business office, record making constitutes approximately ninety percent of the activity. Alert businessmen keep a constant check on their costs of doing business. One paper lost, mislaid, or delayed can and often does inconvenience and retard a dozen or more people in their work.’ “Furthermore, ’few people realize that, of all the […]