Michelle Kosilek, a transgender woman in prison for the 1990 murder of her wife, is fighting for the right to have the state provide sexual-reassignment surgery. Kosilek’s battle touches on what is covered under the Eighth Amendment: We enter into a kind of compact with the people we incarcerate. Much as we might like to […]
Search results
Posted inEditor's Pick
In Conversation: Antonin Scalia
The Supreme Court justice on his legacy, gay rights, his belief in the Devil, and the TV show “Duck Dynasty”: “Maybe the world is spinning toward a wider acceptance of homosexual rights, and here’s Scalia, standing athwart it. At least standing athwart it as a constitutional entitlement. But I have never been custodian of my […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
The Radical Pessimism of Dashiell Hammett
The stories of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler once wrote, “gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse.”
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle and Readmill users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. 1. Reaching My Autistic Son Through Disney Ron Suskind | The New York Times Magazine | March 9, 2014 | 36 minutes (9,118 words) […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Truth About Aliens, According to Ronald Reagan
“It was in the White House screening room and Reagan got up to thank me for bringing the film to show the President, the First Lady and all of their guests, which included Sandra Day O’Connor in her first week of as a Justice of the Supreme Court, and it included some astronauts… I think […]
Posted inUncategorized
Today, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the police can collect a DNA swab from people who have been arrested but not convicted of a crime. The justices were unusually divided—conservative Justice Antonin Scalia joined liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan on the dissenting opinion. For some deeper context, read Harry […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Massive Resistance in a Small Town
After the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling overturned the mandate that “separate but equal” facilities were constitutional, Prince Edward County in Virginia closed its public schools to resist integration. The story behind the small town that resisted integration and the legal battles that ensued during the Civil Rights movement: “After the […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Rah, Rah, Cheers, Queers
“I feel dizzy, exalted: recognized.” Terry Castle begins to make peace with her mother and finds joy in the experience of being married in a country where it is finally legal: “But I’m nearly sixty and there’s something to be said for advancing senescence. Maybe things don’t hurt quite as much? (Blakey just came in […]
Posted inFeature
The Prodigal Prince: Richard Roberts and the Decline of the Oral Roberts Dynasty
He was the heir to the televangelist’s empire, but Richard Roberts soon disappeared from the university that his father founded.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Monsanto Menace Takes Over
“Monsanto’s specialty is killing stuff.” A brief, outraged history of how the biotech giant took control of the world’s food supply, from pesticides to genetically modified crops. The promise was that GM crops would mean cheaper food around the world, but patents allowed the company to muscle out competitors, fend of regulators and steer the […]
