Search Results for: The Nation

Money Matters: Neal Pollack

Longreads Pick

The writer reflects on his professional and financial mistakes, and how he’s changed his focus:

“I was still just a guy with one book under his belt. And a book that, despite all the attention it was getting, sold maybe 10,000 copies. It wasn’t some sort of international publishing phenomenon. It was, at best, sort of a moderately successful indie-rock project. So I still had to do stuff like write promotional copy for Weight Watchers to support myself and pay my mortgage, which was relatively small. The year I quit the Reader, I made almost no money. Maybe $30,000. And I thought, ‘Aren’t I supposed to be a famous writer? Is this it? A drafty townhouse in Philadelphia?’ So that pattern established itself for me over the years; I’d have a little success, let it go to my head, and then make some outrageous move to try and capitalize on that, and the move would come crashing down on my head. I would always get a little overexcited.”

Source: Onion A.V. Club
Published: Mar 16, 2013
Length: 30 minutes (7,672 words)

The Once and Future Gov

Longreads Pick

A positive assessment of California Gov. Jerry Brown’s achievements during his second time around:

“The testimony to Brown’s acuity for all things Californian is remarkable because the California that Brown now governs has been so radically transformed over the past three decades that it bears scant resemblance to the state he once governed. While Brown has lived his entire life in politics and has been a national figure longer than any current American elected official, he has often seemed impatient with, if not downright contemptuous of, the workings of both politics and government and many of the most basic tenets of American liberalism. Yet, California today is again a state, as it has not been for decades, where the future that liberals hope will be America’s is happening first, and Jerry Brown, for all his skepticism about politics, government, and liberalism, is leading it there.”

Published: Mar 7, 2013
Length: 24 minutes (6,033 words)

Slow Porn: Cindy Gallop’s Quest to Blow Up Internet Sex

Longreads Pick

Meet the woman who wants to reprogram the porn industry and change our perceptions of meaningful sex:

“Gallop’s residence in the Flatiron District–a glamorous and sprawling loft dubbed The Black Apartment–looks more like the set of a high-class erotic thriller than a casual homemade porn video. A converted YMCA locker room, it was actually used as the set for The Notorious B.I.G.’s ‘Nasty Gal’ video in 2005. The cavernous loft, filled with taxidermy and lined with bookshelves, windows, and a display case for Gallop’s 300 pairs of high heels, also serves as the base of operations for Make Love Not Porn when her staffers are in New York.

“As we sat there, Gallop facing me over a taxidermy statue of a mongoose fighting a cobra, she began to tell me the story of her fascination with porn.”

Source: Motherboard
Published: Mar 6, 2013
Length: 10 minutes (2,573 words)

Prince Alwaleed And The Curious Case Of Kingdom Holding Stock

Longreads Pick

Inside a Saudi billionaire’s obsession with his own Forbes wealth ranking—and the magazine’s subsequent investigation into his real worth:

“But for the past few years former Alwaleed executives have been telling me that the prince, while indeed one of the richest men in the world, systematically exaggerates his net worth by several billion dollars. This led FORBES to a deeper examination of his wealth, and a stark conclusion: The value that the prince puts on his holdings at times feels like an alternate reality, including his publicly traded Kingdom Holding, which rises and falls based on factors that, coincidentally, seem more tied to the FORBES billionaires list than fundamentals.

“Alwaleed, 58, wouldn’t speak with FORBES for this article, but his CFO, Shadi Sanbar, was vociferous: ‘I never knew that FORBES was a magazine of sensational dirt-digging and rumor-filled stories.’ Our discrepancy over his net worth says a lot about the prince, and the process of divining someone’s true wealth.”

Source: Forbes
Published: Mar 6, 2013
Length: 14 minutes (3,737 words)

The Deluge

Longreads Pick

Technology is rapidly improving our ability to find oil and gas. It means “peak oil” may not be as close as we thought, and the United States is becoming less dependent on foreign oil:

“Right now, the map of who sells and who buys oil and natural gas is being radically redrawn. Just a few years ago, imported oil made up nearly two-thirds of the United States’ annual consumption; now it’s less than half. Within a decade, the U.S. is expected to overtake Saudi Arabia and Russia to regain its title as the world’s top energy producer. Countries that have never had an energy industry worth mentioning are on the brink of becoming major players, while established fossil fuel powerhouses are facing challenges to their dominance. We are witnessing a shift that heralds major new opportunities—and dangers—for individual nations, international politics and economics, and the planet.”

Published: Mar 5, 2013
Length: 22 minutes (5,609 words)

The Watchmen

Longreads Pick

[Not single-page] Inside the Milwaukee Police Department Intelligence Fusion Center, a high-tech, crime-fighting unit that houses a team of local law enforcement and federal agents and analysts:

“In 2011 – with help from other Fusion personnel – the team of Blaszak and Harms busted a segment of a sophisticated international smuggling operation. The racket, run by an organized crime syndicate based in the Republic of Georgia and Russia, had contracted with a Milwaukee man to steal Apple products. He’d then deliver them to an associate of the organization who would periodically drive in from New York. At the meeting, the associate would collect the electronics, pay the Milwaukee booster, and from there, the Apple products would be smuggled out of the country for sale in former Soviet republics.

“But the Brew City robber got pinched in Illinois, and an executive with Apple security helped to deliver the robber to Fusion. In a scene out of a Scorsese movie, agents escorted the man back to Milwaukee to meet with officers at a church on North Avenue. It was eerily empty when the cops arrived.”

Published: Mar 4, 2013
Length: 27 minutes (6,802 words)

Honor Betrayed

Longreads Pick

A two-part series on sexual abuse and homelessness among female veterans in the U.S.:

“In response to the growing outcry over sexual violence, the Pentagon last year ordered that charging decisions in sexual assault cases be determined by more senior commanders than in the past, but the directive stopped short of taking the decision out of the chain of command. Some other nations, including Britain, have taken steps to create a more independent military judicial system, but experts on military justice said that the United States has been unwilling to do so.

“‘The military justice system is not only to judge innocence or guilt, but is also designed to help a commander ensure good order and discipline,’ said Dwight Sullivan, an appellate defense counsel for the Air Force. ‘Those things sometimes come into conflict.'”

Published: Feb 26, 2013
Length: 16 minutes (4,090 words)

Miami Heist: The Brink’s Money Plane Job’s Messy Aftermath

Longreads Pick

How a group of thieves stole $7.4 million from Brink’s guards in a warehouse at Miami International Airport, and were caught by FBI investigators:

“Monzon’s plan, naturally, was to lie low. The crew sealed the money in vacuum packs and split up. Monzon stashed some of his money in PVC pipes and buried them under his family’s house in Homestead, a rural area halfway between Miami and the Florida Keys. Some went into the attic. He didn’t hide it all, though: He bought a Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle worth about $14,000. But the everyday dramas of ordinary life continued. Monzon kept his job at the rental company. Cinnamon kept working as well, as a receptionist at Vista magazine. ‘I get up every day at six in the morning to come work like a slave,’ she complained months later in a phone conversation tapped by the FBI.”

“Boatwright took a different approach. He bought a Rolex and a set of gold caps for his teeth and began days-long drug binges at strip clubs. He dropped thousands of dollars partying with friends. Rumors spread to Monzon that he was doing drugs right out in the street.”

Source: Businessweek
Published: Feb 22, 2013
Length: 12 minutes (3,185 words)

Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us

Longreads Pick

An investigation into the complicated and costly world of medical billing in the U.S.:

“Out of work for a year, Janice S. had no insurance. Among the hospital’s charges were three ‘TROPONIN I’ tests for $199.50 each. According to a National Institutes of Health website, a troponin test “measures the levels of certain proteins in the blood” whose release from the heart is a strong indicator of a heart attack. Some labs like to have the test done at intervals, so the fact that Janice S. got three of them is not necessarily an issue. The price is the problem. Stamford Hospital spokesman Scott Orstad told me that the $199.50 figure for the troponin test was taken from what he called the hospital’s chargemaster. The chargemaster, I learned, is every hospital’s internal price list. Decades ago it was a document the size of a phone book; now it’s a massive computer file, thousands of items long, maintained by every hospital.

“Stamford Hospital’s chargemaster assigns prices to everything, including Janice S.’s blood tests. It would seem to be an important document. However, I quickly found that although every hospital has a chargemaster, officials treat it as if it were an eccentric uncle living in the attic. Whenever I asked, they deflected all conversation away from it. They even argued that it is irrelevant. I soon found that they have good reason to hope that outsiders pay no attention to the chargemaster or the process that produces it. For there seems to be no process, no rationale, behind the core document that is the basis for hundreds of billions of dollars in health care bills.”

Source: Time Magazine
Published: Feb 20, 2013
Length: 102 minutes (25,502 words)

When Brain Damage Unlocks The Genius Within

Longreads Pick

Brain injuries can result in “acquired savant syndrome,” in which ordinary people develop remarkable skills after suffering head trauma:

“It would be weeks before the full impact of Amato’s head trauma became apparent: 35 percent hearing loss in one ear, headaches, memory loss. But the most dramatic consequence appeared just four days after his accident. Amato awoke hazy after near-continuous sleep and headed over to Sturm’s house. As the two pals sat chatting in Sturm’s makeshift music studio, Amato spotted a cheap electric keyboard.

“Without thinking, he rose from his chair and sat in front of it. He had never played the piano—never had the slightest inclination to. Now his fingers seemed to find the keys by instinct and, to his astonishment, ripple across them. His right hand started low, climbing in lyrical chains of triads, skipping across melodic intervals and arpeggios, landing on the high notes, then starting low again and building back up. His left hand followed close behind, laying down bass, picking out harmony. Amato sped up, slowed down, let pensive tones hang in the air, then resolved them into rich chords as if he had been playing for years. When Amato finally looked up, Sturm’s eyes were filled with tears.”

Author: Adam Piore
Source: Popular Science
Published: Feb 19, 2013
Length: 16 minutes (4,123 words)