If your commencement speaker disappoints, you can read these beautiful addresses from Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ursula K. LeGuin and Joy Ladin.
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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
The best stories of the week, as chosen by the editors of Longreads.
The Spy Who Billed Me
“Like every other business, clandestine operations have a budget and like every federal agency, that budget is examined by scores of government workers. But how do expenses work if you’re a spy, doing secret work?”
Feeling Unsafe at Every Size
Our new president’s predatory attitudes towards women transport Eva Tenuto straight back to a high school teacher’s abuse of power and the relentless criticism of her junior high peers that made her an ideal target.
Feeling Unsafe at Every Size
Our new president’s predatory attitudes towards women transport Eva Tenuto straight back to a high school teacher’s abuse of power and the relentless criticism of her junior high peers that made her an ideal target.
What We Saw in Washington, D.C.
What the Trump inauguration and Women’s March reveal about the next four years in America.
Iggy Pop’s Brand of Experience
Iconic punk progenitor Iggy Pop is touring through the US this spring, and I caught his show in Portland, Oregon last month. As a huge Iggy fan, this tour was no small deal to me. Iggy delivered. Despite new physical limitations, he gave everything his body could give, and the set list of new and […]
Writing Our America
“Despite the headlines that came after the election calling this country ‘Trump’s America’—and there were many—I won’t call it that, or see it that way. And regardless of your politics I’ll ask you to join me. This is our America. It’s our America to write in, and our America to write.”
Xenu’s Paradox: The Fiction of L. Ron Hubbard and the Making of Scientology
Alec Nevala-Lee, author of Astounding, a forthcoming book on the history of science fiction, digs into the writing career of L. Ron Hubbard, gaining new insights into the life of the controversial founder of dianetics and the origins and nature of Scientology itself.
On the Difference Between ‘Technical’ and ‘Tactical’ Spies
Why then does the American public still consider all spies to be demons? Why does the public make no distinction between technical spies like Julius Rosenberg stealing useful knowledge and tactical spies like Kim Philby destroying human lives? Perhaps it is because the American public is misled by the American secrecy system. The secrecy system is a bureaucratic monster that classifies vast quantities of information as secret, making it impossible for the ordinary citizen to see the difference between important and unimportant secrets.

