Longreads Pick
“We all condemn Michael Vick for sitting around a pit and watching dogs fight because he derives pleasure from doing so. The rest of us sit around the barbecue pit and roast the bodies of animals who have been tortured as badly as—if not worse than—Vick’s fighting dogs, because we enjoy the taste. That’s moral schizophrenia. We treat some animals as members of our family, and we stick forks into other animals who are no different from our nonhuman family members. That’s moral schizophrenia”.
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Published: Feb 1, 2011
Length: 15 minutes (3,975 words)
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Michelle Legro: Top Longreads for Animal Behavior
michellelegro:
They ignored the signs: 100,000 fish floating belly-up in an Arkansas River, 5,000 blackbirds falling out of the sky. Please feel free leave your cat with me when the rapture comes. Until then, enjoy these three longreads about animals and their uncanny behavior.
Darcy Frey, “The Bears…
Early Adopter Michelle Legro of Lapham’s Quarterly breaks out a superb new #longreads #list.
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The Serpent King: The Capture of Wildlife Smuggler Anson Wong
“I can get anything here from anywhere,” he boasted to an American undercover agent in March 1997. “Nothing can be done to me. I could sell a panda — and, nothing. As long as I’m here [in Malaysia], I’m safe.” The key, he explained, was paying off government officials in the customs bureau and, importantly, in the wildlife department, the agency responsible for animals’ paperwork.
By Bryan Christy, Foreign Policy
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Longreads Pick
“I can get anything here from anywhere,” he boasted to an American undercover agent in March 1997. “Nothing can be done to me. I could sell a panda — and, nothing. As long as I’m here [in Malaysia], I’m safe.” The key, he explained, was paying off government officials in the customs bureau and, importantly, in the wildlife department, the agency responsible for animals’ paperwork.
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Published: Dec 29, 2010
Length: 9 minutes (2,289 words)
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Paleo Fitness: The Workout that Time Forgot
“We live like zoo animals!” It’s an idea Erwan Le Corre borrowed from the British zoologist Desmond Morris, author of the 1967 classic “The Naked Ape,” and it’s central to his worldview: that we are essentially wild creatures ill-suited to desk jobs and processed foods. “We have become divorced from nature, trapped in colorless boxes,” Le Corre says. “We have lost our adaptability, and it’s threatening our health and longevity.”
By Nick Heil, Outside Magazine
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Longreads Pick
“We live like zoo animals!” It’s an idea Erwan Le Corre borrowed from the British zoologist Desmond Morris, author of the 1967 classic “The Naked Ape,” and it’s central to his worldview: that we are essentially wild creatures ill-suited to desk jobs and processed foods. “We have become divorced from nature, trapped in colorless boxes,” Le Corre says. “We have lost our adaptability, and it’s threatening our health and longevity.”
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Published: Dec 17, 2010
Length: 18 minutes (4,600 words)
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Longreads Pick
Susan Orlean’s classic profile of a ten-year-old boy named Colin Duffy:
“If Colin Duffy and I were to get married, we would have matching superhero notebooks. We would ‘ wear shorts, big sneakers, and long, baggy T-shirts depicting famous athletes every single day, even in the winter. We would sleep in our clothes. We would both be good at Nintendo Street Fighter II, but Colin would be better than me. We would have some homework, but it would not be too hard and we would always have just finished it. We would eat pizza and candy for all of our meals. We wouldn’t have sex, but we would have crushes on each other and, magically, babies would appear in our home. We would win the lottery and then buy land in Wyoming, where we would have one of every kind of cute animal. All the while, Colin would be working in law enforcement – probably the FBI. Our favorite movie star, Morgan Freeman, would visit us occasionally. We would listen to the same Eurythmics song (“Here Comes the Rain Again”) over and over again and watch two hours of television every Friday night. We would both be good at football, have best friends, and know how to drive; we would cure AIDS and the garbage problem and everything that hurts animals. We would hang out a lot with Colin’s dad. For fun, we would load a slingshot with dog food and shoot it at my butt. We would have a very good life.”
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Published: Dec 1, 1992
Length: 20 minutes (5,081 words)
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Longreads Pick
Not all oil-soaked animals in Louisiana deserve saving. Nicole Pasulka attends fashion shows, braises venison, and heads into the bayou to understand the varmint of New Orleans: nutria.
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Published: Jun 1, 2010
Length: 8 minutes (2,022 words)
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