A look at the Oglala Lakota people of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and how they’ve preserved their identity and customs after more than a 100 years of a tenuous relationship with the U.S.: Buried deep within the pages of the 2010 Defense appropriations bill, signed by President Barack Obama in December 2009, […]
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The creator of The Wire remembers a young man whose life as a 15-year-old drug dealer in Baltimore was depicted in his book The Corner: At first, he was content with the book we wrote about his world. By the time The Corner was published it was something of an epitaph for people who were […]
Faith, technology and Christianity in Silicon Valley: The internet and social media present a conundrum for Chuck DeGroat, the pastor at City Church. With a congregation of hip modern professionals, from architects and financial advisers to programmers and venture capitalists, he can’t afford not to have a Facebook page, Twitter handle, or website. And yet, […]
A writer-comedian reviews his successes and failures, realizing there’s not much difference between the two: You might be thinking to yourself, ‘How do you know the fear never goes away?’ It could just be me. It could just be pessimism, or cynicism. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks a few years back […]
Top 5 Longreads of the Week: Wired, The Verge, Rolling Stone, ESPN The Magazine, VICE, fiction, plus a guest pick by Joanna Lin.
How the 42-year-old Wisconsin representative (and now Mitt Romney VP pick) took a leading role in the Republican Party’s budget battle with President Obama: Three days later, the White House started a livelier debate with Ryan. In a press briefing, Peter Orszag, the budget director at the time, dismantled Ryan’s plan, point by point. Ryan’s […]
An interview with the humorist and essayist about his book, Half Empty, his Academy Award-winning short film, and his recurrence of cancer: GROSS: You were diagnosed with cancer in your 20s. Now you’re in your 40s and have a cancer diagnosis again. Are you dealing with it emotionally differently now in your 40s than you […]
A writer meets with “grinders”—people who are obsessed with human enhancement through the manipulation of their body with technology—and then decides to implant a magnet in his finger: I chatted with Warwick from his office at The University of Reading, stacked floor to ceiling with books and papers. He has light brown hair that falls […]
A history of Mormonism and how it has evolved: Yet how much do specifically Mormon beliefs matter to contemporary Mormons? Brooks’s story, give or take a Nephite or two, could unfold in any fundamentalist community that provides comfort and meaning if you’re prepared to park your critical intelligence in the lot outside the church door. […]
The new Ohio State football coach made a promise to his family that he’d put them first. Will he keep it? Eighty or so people filed into the school cafeteria. Urban and his wife, Shelley, joined their daughter at the front table, watching as Gigi stood and spoke. She’d been nervous all day, and with […]
