Search Results for: Washington Post

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

NEWTOWN, CT - MARCH 31: The exterior of the Sandy Hook Elementary School in the Sandy Hook village of Newtown, CT is pictured on March 31, 2019. The new school building was completed in 2016. (Photo by Nathan Klima for The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

This week, we’re sharing stories from John Woodrow Cox, Nathaniel Penn, Len Necefer, Aymann Ismail, and Michael Venutolo-Mantovani.

Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.

1. Only One of Their Children Survived Sandy Hook. Now School Posed a New Threat: The Virus.

John Woodrow Cox | The Washington Post | October 7, 2020 | 19 minutes (4,762 words)

“After losing their 6-year-old daughter in a mass shooting, can Isaiah Marquez-Greene’s parents bear to let him return to high school during a pandemic?”

2. The Last Patrol

Nathaniel Penn | The California Sunday Magazine | September 27, 2020 | 78 minutes (19,500 words)

“In 2019, President Trump pardoned Army Lieutenant Clint Lorance, who was serving a 20-year sentence for ordering the murder of two Afghan civilians. To Lorance’s defenders, the act was long overdue. To members of his platoon, it was a gross miscarriage of justice.”

3. Water is Life

Len Necefer | Alpinist Magazine | October 5, 2020 | 17 minutes (4,391 words)

“As I climbed and skied over rapidly receding snowfields, the journeys felt akin to doing final rounds of visits with my elders who are sick and soon to walk on into the next world.”

4. The Store That Called the Cops on George Floyd

Aymann Ismail | Slate | October 6, 2020 | 23 minutes (5,862 words)

“A teenage clerk dialed 911. How should the brothers who own CUP Foods pay for what happened next?”

5. From Tragedy to Trailblazer

Michael Venutolo-Mantovani | The Bitter Southerner | August 25, 2020 | 12 minutes (3,152 words)

“After three of her dear friends were murdered in 2015 — a case that drew national attention and triggered calls for stronger hate crime legislation — Nida Allam took to politics.”

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

CALISTOGA, CA — A CalFire firefighter uses a hand tool as he monitors a firing operation while battling the Tubbs Fire on October 12, 2017 near Calistoga, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

This week, we’re sharing stories from Abrahm Lustgarten, Greg Jaffe, Omari Weekes and Elias Rodriques, Jeremy Lybarger and Cat Cardenas and Christian Wallace.

Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.

1. Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration

Abrahm Lustgarten | ProPublica | September 15, 2020 | 24 minutes (6,133 words)

“Wildfires rage in the West. Hurricanes batter the East. Droughts and floods wreak damage throughout the nation. Life has become increasingly untenable in the hardest-hit areas, but if the people there move, where will everyone go?”

2. A Pandemic, a Motel Without Power, and a Potentially Terrifying Glimpse of Orlando’s Future

Greg Jaffe | The Washington Post | September 10, 2020 | 17 minutes (4,400 words)

The economic collapse has pushed vulnerable families living in motels near Disney World to the brink.

3. A Close Reading of Randall Kenan, Who Paid Rare Attention to Black Complexity

Omari Weekes, Elias Rodriques | LitHub | September 16, 2020 | 17 minutes (4,444 words)

“Omari Weekes and Elias Rodriques in conversation about the late writer.”

4. Fag Rag: The ’70s Paper Of Gay Political Revolution

Jeremy Lybarger | Columbia Journalism Review | September 11, 2020 | 10 minutes (2,608 words)

Fag Rag wasn’t an idealistic publication; it didn’t suggest that a gay utopia was possible or even desirable. Instead, it pushed for a political revolution that wouldn’t come at the expense of other marginalized groups.”

5. Top Dog: An Oral History of “Wishbone”

Cat Cardenas, Christian Wallace | Texas Monthly | September 16, 2020 | 32 minutes (8,100 words)

“No one had ever done this before. No one had ever put a dog in the middle of the Civil War. How do you actually make that happen?”

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

US President Barack Obama (R) hugs US Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, one of the original marchers at Selma, during an event marking the 50th Anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, March 7, 2015. und Pettus Bridge. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

This week, we’re sharing stories from Barack Obama, Andrea Pitzer, Hannah Dreier, Ismail Muhammad, Niela Orr, Hanif Abdurraqib, Danielle A. Jackson, and Cassie Owens, and Karolina Waclawiak.

Note: the Top 5 Longreads of the week will return on August 14th, 2020.

Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.

1. Barack Obama’s Eulogy for John Lewis

Barack Obama | The Atlantic | July 30, 2020 | 14 minutes (3,641 words)

“He, as much as anyone in our history, brought this country a little bit closer to our highest ideals.”

2. My Midlife Crisis as a Russian Sailor

Andrea Pitzer | Outside | July 27, 2020 | 28 minutes (7,025 words)

“For a book project about 16th-century polar explorer William Barents, Andrea Pitzer needed to reach the remote Arctic island where he and his men came to grief. She booked passage on an expeditionary boat out of Murmansk, then headed north on a trip marked by unforgettable scenery, unexpected loss, and wild magic that changed her life.”

3. The Worst-Case Scenario

Hannah Dreier | The Washington Post | July 24, 2020 | 16 minutes (4,240 words)

“A white police officer fresh from de-escalation training, a troubled black woman with a gun, and a crowd with cellphones ready to record.”

4. Black Talk, Black Feeling: Media Round Table

Niela Orr, Ismail Muhammad, Hanif Abdurraqib, Danielle A. Jackson, Cassie Owens
The Believer | July 29, 2020 | 37 minutes (9,261 words)

“So much of my work as a writer and editor is to make sure that Black people have the ability to write about more than just moments like the one we’re in right now, and a big disheartening thing for me has been to live through this moment and again see editors scrambling to get Black writers to write and then undoubtedly those same editors will vanish when those Black writers want to write about, I don’t know, ice cream or whatever the fuck.”

5. What My Mother Didn’t Talk About

Karolina Waclawiak | BuzzFeed | July 25, 2020 | 16 minutes (4,245 words)

“My mother and I were very close, but when she died last year there was still so much I didn’t know about her.”

‘Who’s Going to Take Care of Me?’: When the Coronavirus Takes Both Parents

Photo by Rahul

At the Washington Post, writer John Woodrow Cox and photojournalist Salwan Georges share the story of the three Ismael siblings — Nash, 20; Nadeen, 18; and Nanssy, 13 — as they struggle with the loss of their mother, Nada Naisan, and their father, Nameer Ayram, who died 20 days apart from COVID-19.

For days, he and his sisters had lived off delivery orders through their mom’s DoorDash account, though they had no idea where the money came from to pay for it. None of them had bank accounts or credit cards, and Nash didn’t want to spend the $300 in cash he’d found in a drawer behind his parents’ bed.

Zeana opened a tab at Sahara to keep them fed, but she also worried about their bills. Nash retrieved his mother’s phone from the hospital after her intubation, and Zeana told him to search it for a banking app. When he discovered that the mortgage appeared to be past due, he tried to pay it. A moment later, he found his parents’ checking account, drained of all but $900. The mortgage payment bounced.

Nash tried to learn as much as he could as fast as he could, but he often felt overwhelmed, especially on the morning nine days after his dad’s death when he discovered a $188,629 hospital bill that he was terrified they might have to pay.

Read the story

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Former US Army First Lieutenant Clint Lorance. (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images)

This week, we’re sharing stories from Greg Jaffe, Justine van der Leun, Diana Moskovitz, Katy Vine, and Brian VanHooker.

Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.

1. The Cursed Platoon

Greg Jaffe | The Washington Post | July 2, 2020 | 40 minutes (10,000 words)

“Clint Lorance had been in charge of his platoon for only three days when he ordered his men to kill three Afghans stopped on a dirt road. A second-degree murder conviction and pardon followed. Today, Lorance is hailed as a hero by President Trump. His troops have suffered a very different fate.”

2. “I Hope Our Daughters Will Not Be Punished”

Justine van der Leun | Dissent | June 29, 2020 | 16 minutes (4,109 words)

“From a solitary cell in Texas, Kwaneta Yatrice Harris writes letters documenting the torturous conditions, despite the risk of retribution.”

3. Tie a Tourniquet on Your Heart

Diana Moskovitz | Popula | June 25, 2020 | 15 minutes (3,948 words)

Journalist Diana Moskovitz revisits Pulitzer-prize winning crime reporter Edna Buchanan’s memoir “The Corpse Had a Familiar Face,” enshrined as part of a “textbook collection of great works of literary journalism.” “I reached for it as America erupted this month, yet again, in protests over the killings of Black people at the hands of police, wondering what Edna Buchanan, one of the greatest influences on late 20th century crime writing, would have to offer this moment.”

4. Do You Have What It Takes to Be a Master Auctioneer?

Katy Vine | Texas Monthly | June 24, 2020 | 23 minutes (5,843 words)

‘Eight days inside America’s Auction Academy, learning the secrets of “the dynamo from Dallas.”’

5. An Oral History of the Onion’s 9/11 Issue

Brian VanHooker | MEL Magazine | June 29, 2020 | 37 minutes (9,395 words)

“Immediately after 9/11, humorists struggled with what many called ‘the death of irony.’ Then ‘The Onion’ returned and showed everyone the way.”

Inside the Revolts Erupting in America’s Big Newsrooms

Longreads Pick

“Staff members’ demands helped end the tenure of James Bennet as Opinion editor of The New York Times. And they are generating tension at The Washington Post. Part of the story starts in Ferguson, Mo.”

Author: Ben Smith
Published: Jun 7, 2020
Length: 12 minutes (3,100 words)

And Then We Grew Up

Getty / Illustration by Longreads

Sarah Menkedick | Longreads | May 2020 | 11 minutes (3,116 words)

“I envy you,” my cousin told me once, as we were sitting on the front porch of a log cabin in the Ohio woods, eating peach pie. “You have a word.” That word was WRITER. My cousin, who’d bounced around jobs in her twenties and thirties, envied the way my word so neatly answered the questions of career and identity, the way it brought me into focus. I may not have had any money. I may not have had any idea if the project I was working on would ever actually be seen by someone other than myself, but I had a word.

Every once in a while, I go through a spell of applying for jobs. Teaching jobs. Tech jobs. Utterly random jobs. I google “how to write a cover letter.” I fantasize with both fascination and horror about showing up at an office and chatting about The Handmaid’s Tale over tepid coffee in a communal space. Then inevitably I imagine that moment when a stranger asks me what I do and I can no longer supply my word as an answer. It is incredibly disarming, even just in my interior dreamscape, not to have that word. It has been an anchor for my personal sense of validation, my identity, my way of relating to the world for so long. What would it mean to give it up? To hand over all my art monster ambitions and renounce the often cruel bargain of personal stability for creative nobility?

Read more…

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Pneumonia coronavirus

This week, we’re sharing stories from Jessica Lustig, Ed Yong, Leslie Jamison, Rosa Lyster, and Geoff Edgers.

Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.

1. What I Learned When My Husband Got Sick with Coronavirus

Jessica Lustig | The New York Times Magazine | March 24, 2020 | 12 minutes (3,227 words)

“You shouldn’t stay here,” he says, but he gets more frightened as night comes, dreading the long hours of fever and soaking sweats and shivering and terrible aches. “This thing grinds you like a mortar,” he says.

2. How the Pandemic Will End

Ed Yong | The Atlantic | March 25, 2020 | 22 minutes (5,549 words)

“The U.S. may end up with the worst COVID-19 outbreak in the industrialized world. This is how it’s going to play out.”

3. Since I Became Symptomatic

Leslie Jamison | New York Review of Books | March 26, 2020 | 6 minutes (1500 words)

A month after filing for divorce, single mom Leslie Jamison contracted COVID-19. She wrote this meditation on single parenthood, loneliness, longing, and frustration while sheltering in place — and sweating out the virus — with her 2-year-old daughter.

4. Where Water Used to Be

Rosa Lyster | London Review of Books | March 25, 2020 | 11 minutes (2,810 words)

A look at another crisis the world is facing: water scarcity. Rosa Lyster examines the water-stressed cities of Cape Town and Mexico City — cities grappling with issues related to climate change, infrastructure, and inequality.

5. Sinéad O’Connor is Still in One Piece

Geoff Edgers | The Washington Post | March 18, 2020 | 15 minutes (3,857 words)

“She tore up a picture of the pope. Then her life came apart. These days, she just wants to make music.”

Can Sinéad O’Connor Find Peace?

Sinéad O'Connor (Photo by Don Arnold / WireImage)

Sinéad O’Connor maintains her proudest day is the one in 1992 when she tore up the pope’s photo on Saturday Night Live. Some suggest she’s been struggling ever since, but it seems the problems started much earlier, with an abusive childhood at the hands of a deeply religious mother. Nearly 30 years later, at age 53, after four marriages, four children, and a series of physical and mental health issues, she’s transposed her anger and anguish into music — headlining a series of sold-out shows on the east coast of the US (now postponed due to Coronavirus). Read Geoff Edgersexcellent profile at The Washington Post.

There are still moments when O’Connor will break down, either in fury, tears or a kind of self-loathing. But during her most recent hospital stay, which ended last May, she learned an important concept, which has become her mantra: radical acceptance. As a girl, she suffered abuse from her deeply religious mother that remains with her decades after her mother’s death. In the past, she’s tried to fight and deflect it, sometimes by lashing out at others. She’s learned that this doesn’t help.

“Because that kind of pain doesn’t go away,” O’Connor says. “You only learn to live with it. Music is where I can manage it.”

She sat there quietly. Even as O’Connor finishes a memoir aimed for the spring of 2021, starts work on her first album in years and awaits the second leg of a tour — a string of sold-out East Coast shows, including at the Birchmere, which have been postponed due to coronavirus concerns — there is a bigger project underway. How to live.

O’Connor doesn’t have a home studio or notebooks lying around filled with song drafts. She writes, she says, largely in her head. A melody will strike, the words will come and she’ll repeat the whole thing until it’s ready to be laid down as a demo.

Reynolds, her longtime producer, remembers O’Connor composing virtually all of 1994’s “Universal Mother” in a single night, simply singing into a tape recorder. She isn’t afraid to share her inspirations, whether the therapy time in “Milestones” or “The Last Day of Our Acquaintance,” about her relationship with former manager and onetime partner Fachtna O’Ceallaigh.

Read the story

Albatross People

Arthur Morris / Getty, Photo illustration by Katie Kosma

Colin Daileda | Longreads | March 2020 | 7 minutes (2,000 words)

My wife told me she had at last booked a flight back to Bengaluru and so I should relax that evening at our apartment. There I opened a book I was reading about birds, called The Thing With Feathers, by Noah Strycker. I was toward the end, on a chapter about albatrosses.

The wandering albatross looks not much different from a seagull, except it’s enormous. Its wings span 12 feet, twice my height. Wanderers need wings like this because they spend a huge part of their lives floating over the open ocean, plucking fish and squid from the water. They do this away from their mates, because keeping track of each other would cost precious energy needed to stay aloft. Each partner goes about their own life until, once every two years, they flutter back home to the little bits of land in the Southern oceans on which they nest. They greet each other with a dance and quickly go about building that year’s home. Though it takes nine months for an albatross chick to leave its nest, the parents won’t see each other much during that time, either. The baby needs food, and so they fly out in search of it over different parts of the sea. All that time away, and yet albatrosses almost always remain faithful for life.

Read more…