The Making of an Activist Athlete

“How Washington Mystics point guard Natasha Cloud became the WNBA’s unofficial minister of social justice.”

Author: Mike Wise
Source: Washingtonian
Published: Jul 8, 2021
Length: 26 minutes (6,700 words)

In the World of Ultralight Hiking, Everything Weighs Something

“The lasting effect Buckskin Gulch had on me isn’t pain or surgery. No, walking up the Paria River Canyon next to Glen and Dan and David and Bill and Matthew and Ed and Ben, the indelible impressions of the experience are the light, the dark, the sun, the moon, the reds, the browns, the cold, the warmth, the wet, the dry, the oxygen, the effort, the monotony, the catharsis, the purity, and the epiphany.”

 

Author: Ali Selim
Source: Outside
Published: Jul 14, 2021
Length: 24 minutes (6,126 words)

Those Were the Days of Our Lives This Generation Will Never Know The True Freedom — and Neglect — of Being an ’80s Kid.

“The hardest thing to convey to the children in my life about my childhood is the concept of unadulterated freedom. As people who have been scheduled and monitored down to the second for most of their lives, they truly cannot conceive of life outside of the panopticon of their own experience. When I was a child, a successful day was one where I saw my mother for two hours total, split evenly before and after she went to work.”

 

Source: The Cut
Published: Jul 14, 2021
Length: 6 minutes (1,700 words)

All Work and No Play

“Video games, like any creative product, reflect and refract the conditions of their production. Today, what they most resemble is twenty-first-century work.”

Source: Dissent
Published: Jul 12, 2021
Length: 14 minutes (3,714 words)

The Future Dystopic Hellscape is Upon Us

“The rise and fall of the ultimate doomsday prepper.”

Author: Sam Biddle
Source: The Intercept
Published: Jul 5, 2021
Length: 48 minutes (12,142 words)

How a Trail in Rural Oregon Became a Target of Far-Right Extremism

“A story about a community divided, about extremism and bigotry, about powerful people who try on a working-class identity like a costume.”

Published: Jul 1, 2021
Length: 24 minutes (6,150 words)

A Racist Scientist Built a Collection of Human Skulls. Should We Still Study Them?

“After the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 sparked protests for racial justice around the country, more and more people within and outside Penn began to see the Morton collection as a present-day perpetuation of racism and its harms, rather than just a historic example.”

Source: Science
Published: Jul 8, 2021
Length: 16 minutes (4,206 words)

Jason Sudeikis Is Having One Hell of a Year

“He got famous playing a certain kind of funny guy on SNL, but when Jason Sudeikis invented Ted Lasso, the sensitive soccer coach with the earnest mustache, the actor found a different gear—and a surprise hit. Now, ahead of the show’s second season, Sudeikis discusses his wild ride of a year and how he’s learning to pay closer attention to what the universe is telling him.”

Author: Zach Baron
Source: GQ
Published: Jul 13, 2021
Length: 20 minutes (5,000 words)

The Dark Side of Chess: Payoffs, Points and 12-Year-Old Grandmasters

“It is an open secret in chess that many players cut side deals with tournament organizers and other top competitors that help them achieve norms they might have struggled to get legitimately.”

 

Published: Jul 13, 2021
Length: 11 minutes (2,911 words)

Still, Life

“We joke that by the time our son is a tween, he’ll be so sick of hearing about the year he was born that he’ll roll his eyes at any mention of the word “pandemic.” (Too bad, kid!) It is, in part, a story I wouldn’t necessarily have asked for, or even imagined, but it’s ours, and it’s also his. I’m grateful we decided to tell it.”

Published: Jul 13, 2021
Length: 10 minutes (2,500 words)