This Design Generation Has Failed

Today’s designers move too fast and break too many things. Mike Monteiro advises the next generation of designers to slow down: to unionize, pursue licensing, raise standards, embrace regulation, and care more about the consequences of sacrificing ethics for speed.

Source: Co.Design
Published: Feb 21, 2018
Length: 15 minutes (3,981 words)

The Devil in My Dad

It’s hard to shed your religious upbringing, especially when your parents’ religion involves demonic possession.

Source: Elle
Published: Feb 20, 2018
Length: 10 minutes (2,743 words)

My Abuser’s Gender Made Me Doubt My Experience

In this personal essay, for years after an assault, Caroline Catlin questions the safety of queerness.

Source: Longreads
Published: Feb 26, 2018
Length: 10 minutes (2,695 words)

Inside the OED: Can the World’s Biggest Dictionary Survive the Internet?

On the centuries-long quest to create the perfect, all-encompassing English dictionary.

Source: The Guardian
Published: Feb 23, 2018
Length: 19 minutes (4,898 words)

Malls and the Future of American Retail

The mall was supposed to be a reinvention of the town square — and for nearly half a century it was, as a public space committed to shopping, eating, or merely lounging around with friends. But the retail apocalypse has taken the core out of the mall, the flagship retail that held it all together, and the new mall may have more in common with a museum, where shopping is less important than an overall mood of luxury and citizenship.

Source: Curbed
Published: Feb 15, 2018
Length: 11 minutes (2,800 words)

Grief is a Jumble Word

A personal essay in which Ken Otterbourg contemplates love and loss, and what we remember when we try to forget.

Source: Longreads
Published: Feb 23, 2018
Length: 10 minutes (2,710 words)

American Manufacturing Doesn’t Have to Die

Capitalism is framed as both a choice and an inevitability. It allows the consumer to buy whatever we want, but what’s available to purchase is due to the pressures and whims of the market. “It’s about the fact that American business have choices,” writes reporter Meredith Haggerty “and how we pretend they don’t.”

Source: Racked
Published: Feb 20, 2018
Length: 29 minutes (7,250 words)

Medicaid, Marijuana And Me: An Ex-Opioid Addict’s Take On American Drug Denial

A journalist shares what her experience with prescription painkillers taught her about the value of decriminalization.

Source: Forbes
Published: Feb 18, 2018
Length: 13 minutes (3,340 words)

My First Year Sober

Writer and cartoonist Edith Zimmerman on how she stopped drinking.

Source: Spiralbound
Published: Feb 21, 2018

What Ever Happened to Brendan Fraser?

A profile of actor Brendan Fraser — who was popular in the ’90s for movies like School Ties, and has been making something of a comeback since he was cast in The Affair in 2016. Fraser reveals that in 2003 he was touched inappropriately by Philip Berk, a former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. The incident left him feeling violated and insecure. Adding insult to injury, his reporting it seems to have possibly gotten him blacklisted for years.

Author: Zach Baron
Source: GQ
Published: Feb 22, 2018
Length: 20 minutes (5,137 words)