Everybody Smiley Poops

A meditation on the language of emojis.

Author: Matter
Source: Mary Mann
Published: Aug 5, 2014
Length: 16 minutes (4,078 words)

Working Anything But 9 to 5

Scheduling technology has made it easy for companies to automate employees’ schedules, but it leaves low-income parents with hours of chaos.

Published: Aug 13, 2014
Length: 9 minutes (2,435 words)

How a Squad of Ex-Cops Fights Police Abuses

In Broward County, Florida, a group of former police officers are using bold tactics to help public defenders.

Source: Mother Jones
Published: Aug 11, 2014
Length: 24 minutes (6,188 words)

What I Saw in Ferguson

Jelani Cobb on the situation in Ferguson, Missouri following the tragic death of Michael Brown.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Aug 14, 2014
Length: 7 minutes (1,995 words)

Falling: Love and Marriage in a Conservative Indian Family

A new Longreads Exclusive from River Teeth: Debie Thomas shares her story about growing up in a conservative Indian family and reconciling the idea of arranged marriages with the Western world’s version of falling in love.

Source: River Teeth
Published: Aug 1, 2013
Length: 16 minutes (4,194 words)

Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

James Bamford tracks down Snowden in Moscow to go deep inside the story of “the most wanted man in the world.”

Source: Wired
Published: Aug 13, 2014
Length: 30 minutes (7,557 words)

Infant Possibilities

Sequencing the genomes of babies can reveal information that can save their lives, but that information can also be used for less noble things, like giving parents the ability to select their baby’s eye color.

Source: Popular Science
Published: Jul 30, 2014
Length: 18 minutes (4,516 words)

The Believer Interview: Ice Cube

Excerpted from The Believer’s new book, Confidence, or the Appearance of Confidence: The Best of the Believer Music Interviews.

Source: The Believer
Published: Aug 13, 2004
Length: 26 minutes (6,574 words)

We Don’t Need No Education

Ben Hewitt describes “unschooling” his children Fin and Rye, who do “self-directed, adult-facilitated life learning in the context of their own unique interests” rather than attend public schools or participate in the kind of homeschooling that mirrors a public education.

Author: Ben Hewitt
Source: Outside
Published: Aug 12, 2014
Length: 17 minutes (4,458 words)

Looking for Lilly

A complicated parental kidnapping cracks a window into the Sunshine State’s growing right-wing fringe, a bizarro world where Lincoln and Obama are a tag team bent on destroying America, the end times are ever nigh, and the Confederacy lives on.

Published: Aug 12, 2014
Length: 21 minutes (5,320 words)