September 20, 2012
The New Price of American Politics You may be one of those people who believe there is too much money in politics. (Polling suggests there are many such people—­a vast majority of Americans, in fact.) You may believe that the larger the financial contribution, the greater the chance it will corrupt your representative in Congress, or even your president. You may believe that there are too many political advertisements on television, too many groups with blandly patriotic names trying to change your mind about energy or Medicare or national defense. You may even believe that the nation’s founders would be repelled by the idea of corporations and billionaires pouring millions of dollars into political campaigns. It is reasonable—it is quite respectable—to believe these things. But if you are one of these people, what you believe is turning out not to matter very much. Read more. [Image: AP]

The New Price of American Politics

You may be one of those people who believe there is too much money in politics. (Polling suggests there are many such people—­a vast majority of Americans, in fact.) You may believe that the larger the financial contribution, the greater the chance it will corrupt your representative in Congress, or even your president. You may believe that there are too many political advertisements on television, too many groups with blandly patriotic names trying to change your mind about energy or Medicare or national defense. You may even believe that the nation’s founders would be repelled by the idea of corporations and billionaires pouring millions of dollars into political campaigns. It is reasonable—it is quite respectable—to believe these things.

But if you are one of these people, what you believe is turning out not to matter very much.

Read more. [Image: AP]

9:59am
(Notes: 46)
  
Filed under: Politics Longreads Longform Campaign finance Election 2012 Citizens United Stephen Colbert Elections 
September 14, 2012
When I Was 26, I Had a Stroke Before my stroke, I was a .com-er with a hip job in a downtown office painted kindergarten colors. I wore vintage clothing and stompy boots. I was cute enough: small and wimpy, pale, with very dark hair and strong eyebrows. I lived in Washington, D.C.’s Adams Morgan neighborhood. Other generations were jealous of young professionals like me. But when I was 26, I had a stroke. My mind went pop. I found myself in a D.C. hospital for the summer, a different person. My motor skills had been slammed. I couldn’t really move my right arm at all, which was always folded tight against my chest, as if I was defending myself. My right hand clenched itself into an angryfist that I could not open. My trunk muscles and my right leg were a little better. I could get around, for short distances. But most of the time, maybe 20 hours a day, I was asleep, gone. When I was awake, my speech felt the most broken. I wasn’t making much sense. My words were coming out wrong, if at all. I would occasionally come up with sentences that were intact and appropriate. Hospital notes include me saying, “I like to go to obscure cultural events.”  Other times it was like… oh… and nothing was coming out. I was particularly bad at naming things. Therapists would show me a picture — a snail, a harp, a harmonica — and ask me what it was. More than half the time, I shook my head. I would understand people without difficulty. You know what it feels like when you can’t identify a snail? Shitty. Read more. [Image: craigcloutier/Flickr]

When I Was 26, I Had a Stroke

Before my stroke, I was a .com-er with a hip job in a downtown office painted kindergarten colors. I wore vintage clothing and stompy boots. I was cute enough: small and wimpy, pale, with very dark hair and strong eyebrows. I lived in Washington, D.C.’s Adams Morgan neighborhood. Other generations were jealous of young professionals like me.

But when I was 26, I had a stroke. My mind went pop. I found myself in a D.C. hospital for the summer, a different person. My motor skills had been slammed. I couldn’t really move my right arm at all, which was always folded tight against my chest, as if I was defending myself. My right hand clenched itself into an angryfist that I could not open. My trunk muscles and my right leg were a little better. I could get around, for short distances. But most of the time, maybe 20 hours a day, I was asleep, gone.

When I was awake, my speech felt the most broken. I wasn’t making much sense. My words were coming out wrong, if at all. I would occasionally come up with sentences that were intact and appropriate. Hospital notes include me saying, “I like to go to obscure cultural events.” 

Other times it was like… oh… and nothing was coming out. I was particularly bad at naming things. Therapists would show me a picture — a snail, a harp, a harmonica — and ask me what it was. More than half the time, I shook my head. I would understand people without difficulty.

You know what it feels like when you can’t identify a snail?

Shitty.

Read more. [Image: craigcloutier/Flickr]

(Source: )

10:33am
(Notes: 149)
  
Filed under: Health Longreads Medicine Stroke 
August 23, 2012

Slugfest 2012: Who Will Win the Presidential Debates?

The past two cycles of general-election debates have been anticlimactic. Everyone expected the college-debate whiz John Kerry to outperform the aphasic-seeming George W. Bush. He did, but it didn’t matter. For John McCain, the world financial crisis, plus his selection of Sarah Palin, was bringing his campaign down around him before he even stepped on a stage with Barack Obama. The only memorable aspect of their debates was McCain’s short-lived attempt to get out of them so that he could devote his full attention to developing financial-rescue policies.

This year’s exchanges have the potential to be different, and more dramatic. Romney is very strong as a debater but has also shown two repeated weaknesses: a thin command of policy details, and an awkwardness when taken by surprise.

When the subject is one he’s prepared for, he rarely falters. When it’s not, or when an exchange goes on longer or in a different direction than expected, many of his ad-libbed responses turn out to be mistakes (“I’ll bet you $10,000!”). Thus the Romney team has the impossible challenge of trying to imagine every question or attack line that might come up in debates with Obama, while the Obama team tries to imagine what Romney’s might have missed. This kind of chess game is always part of debate preparation, but it is unusually important this year, because the gap between Romney at his best and at his worst is so wide.

Read more. [Image: Alison Jackson, GIFs: Kasia Cieplak Mayr von Baldegg]

12:55pm
(Notes: 42)
  
Filed under: Politics Obama Romney Election 2012 Longreads 
August 23, 2012
Boys on the Side: How Hookup Culture Affects Women Single young women in their sexual prime—that is, their 20s and early 30s—are for the first time in history more success­ful, on average, than the single young men around them. They are more likely to have a college degree and, in aggregate, they make more money. What makes this remarkable development possible is not just the pill or legal abortion but the whole new landscape of sexual freedom—the ability to delay marriage and have temporary relationships that don’t derail education or career. To put it crudely, feminist progress right now largely depends on the existence of the hookup culture. And to a surprising degree, it is women—not men—who are perpetuating the culture, especially in school, cannily manipulating it to make space for their success, always keeping their own ends in mind. For college girls these days, an overly serious suitor fills the same role an accidental pregnancy did in the 19th century: a danger to be avoided at all costs, lest it get in the way of a promising future. Read more. [Image: Emiliano Granado]

Boys on the Side: How Hookup Culture Affects Women

Single young women in their sexual prime—that is, their 20s and early 30s—are for the first time in history more success­ful, on average, than the single young men around them. They are more likely to have a college degree and, in aggregate, they make more money. What makes this remarkable development possible is not just the pill or legal abortion but the whole new landscape of sexual freedom—the ability to delay marriage and have temporary relationships that don’t derail education or career. To put it crudely, feminist progress right now largely depends on the existence of the hookup culture. And to a surprising degree, it is women—not men—who are perpetuating the culture, especially in school, cannily manipulating it to make space for their success, always keeping their own ends in mind. For college girls these days, an overly serious suitor fills the same role an accidental pregnancy did in the 19th century: a danger to be avoided at all costs, lest it get in the way of a promising future.

Read more. [Image: Emiliano Granado]

12:12pm
(Notes: 268)
  
Filed under: Hookups Love Marriage Women Feminism College Sex Longreads 
August 23, 2012
"Barack Obama governs a nation enlightened enough to send an African American to the White House, but not enlightened enough to accept a black man as its president."

— Ta-Nehisi Coates, on America’s fear of a black president.

11:02am
(Notes: 222)
  
Filed under: Obama Politics Race Racism Longreads 
August 23, 2012
The Cheapest Generation: Why Aren’t Millennials Buying Cars or Houses? What if Millennials’ aversion to car-buying isn’t a temporary side effect of the recession, but part of a permanent generational shift in tastes and spending habits? It’s a question that applies not only to cars, but to several other traditional categories of big spending—most notably, housing. And its answer has large implications for the future shape of the economy—and for the speed of recovery. Read more. [Image: Kagan McLeod] It’s safe to say that a decent number of Tumblr users are a part of the Millennial generation. So, tell us: Do you own a car or house? If not, why?

The Cheapest Generation: Why Aren’t Millennials Buying Cars or Houses?

What if Millennials’ aversion to car-buying isn’t a temporary side effect of the recession, but part of a permanent generational shift in tastes and spending habits? It’s a question that applies not only to cars, but to several other traditional categories of big spending—most notably, housing. And its answer has large implications for the future shape of the economy—and for the speed of recovery.

Read more. [Image: Kagan McLeod]

It’s safe to say that a decent number of Tumblr users are a part of the Millennial generation. So, tell us: Do you own a car or house? If not, why?

10:53am
(Notes: 18,716)
  
Filed under: Economy Cars Houses Housing Longreads Millennials Money Jobs Economics 
August 23, 2012
Fear of a Black President Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others. Black America ever lives under that skeptical eye. Hence the old admonishments to be “twice as good.” Hence the need for a special “talk” administered to black boys about how to be extra careful when relating to the police. And hence Barack Obama’s insisting that there was no racial component to Katrina’s effects; that name-calling among children somehow has the same import as one of the oldest guiding principles of American policy—white supremacy. The election of an African American to our highest political office was alleged to demonstrate a triumph of integration. But when President Obama addressed the tragedy of Trayvon Martin, he demonstrated integration’s great limitation—that acceptance depends not just on being twice as good but on being half as black. And even then, full acceptance is still withheld. The larger effects of this withholding constrict Obama’s presidential potential in areas affected tangentially—or seemingly not at all—by race. Meanwhile, across the country, the community in which Obama is rooted sees this fraudulent equality, and quietly seethes. Obama’s first term has coincided with a strategy of massive resistance on the part of his Republican opposition in the House, and a record number of filibuster threats in the Senate. It would be nice if this were merely a reaction to Obama’s politics or his policies—if this resistance truly were, as it is generally described, merely one more sign of our growing “polarization” as a nation. But the greatest abiding challenge to Obama’s national political standing has always rested on the existential fact that if he had a son, he’d look like Trayvon Martin. Read more. [Image: Bill Sanderson]

Fear of a Black President

Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others. Black America ever lives under that skeptical eye. Hence the old admonishments to be “twice as good.” Hence the need for a special “talk” administered to black boys about how to be extra careful when relating to the police. And hence Barack Obama’s insisting that there was no racial component to Katrina’s effects; that name-calling among children somehow has the same import as one of the oldest guiding principles of American policy—white supremacy. The election of an African American to our highest political office was alleged to demonstrate a triumph of integration. But when President Obama addressed the tragedy of Trayvon Martin, he demonstrated integration’s great limitation—that acceptance depends not just on being twice as good but on being half as black. And even then, full acceptance is still withheld. The larger effects of this withholding constrict Obama’s presidential potential in areas affected tangentially—or seemingly not at all—by race. Meanwhile, across the country, the community in which Obama is rooted sees this fraudulent equality, and quietly seethes.

Obama’s first term has coincided with a strategy of massive resistance on the part of his Republican opposition in the House, and a record number of filibuster threats in the Senate. It would be nice if this were merely a reaction to Obama’s politics or his policies—if this resistance truly were, as it is generally described, merely one more sign of our growing “polarization” as a nation. But the greatest abiding challenge to Obama’s national political standing has always rested on the existential fact that if he had a son, he’d look like Trayvon Martin.

Read more. [Image: Bill Sanderson]

9:31am
(Notes: 784)
  
Filed under: Politics Obama Race Racism Longreads History 
August 14, 2012
In Oregon, Residents Struggle to Solve a Pesticide Mystery Six years ago, Eron King, an artist and young mother, moved from the edge of Eugene to a creekside plot of forest valley so her two boys could grow up raising hens and Toggenburg goats. She wasn’t naïve about rural life in Oregon, where she’d lived for nine years. The state’s western third is timber country, and the tractor-trailer rigs hauling logs were no shock to her. But like many residents of the region, King was unaware that major timber companies — Weyerhaeuser, Roseburg Resources, Stimson Lumber, Seneca Jones, and others — have been spraying millions of pounds of herbicide on their private forestland. Some of it, she believes, is carried by the winds and lands on her property. Last year, King and her two children, along with their father and 37 other residents, submitted their urine for laboratory testing. The results were startling: Every person tested positive for the compound 2,4-D — made famous as an ingredient of Agent Orange — and for the chemical atrazine. Read more. [Image: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]

In Oregon, Residents Struggle to Solve a Pesticide Mystery

Six years ago, Eron King, an artist and young mother, moved from the edge of Eugene to a creekside plot of forest valley so her two boys could grow up raising hens and Toggenburg goats. She wasn’t naïve about rural life in Oregon, where she’d lived for nine years. The state’s western third is timber country, and the tractor-trailer rigs hauling logs were no shock to her.

But like many residents of the region, King was unaware that major timber companies — Weyerhaeuser, Roseburg Resources, Stimson Lumber, Seneca Jones, and others — have been spraying millions of pounds of herbicide on their private forestland. Some of it, she believes, is carried by the winds and lands on her property.

Last year, King and her two children, along with their father and 37 other residents, submitted their urine for laboratory testing. The results were startling: Every person tested positive for the compound 2,4-D — made famous as an ingredient of Agent Orange — and for the chemical atrazine.

Read more. [Image: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]

3:07pm
(Notes: 120)
  
Filed under: Health Environment Oregon Pollution Herbicides Longreads News 
August 8, 2012
Why Isn’t Man Who Invented the World Wide Web Rich? [Image: Reuters]

Why Isn’t Man Who Invented the World Wide Web Rich?

[Image: Reuters]

1:34pm
(Notes: 63)
  
Filed under: Tech World Wide Web Tim Berners-Lee Longreads Longform 
August 8, 2012
"At 6:26 p.m local time last night, an hour or so after the last appeal was denied, Texas executed a mentally retarded black man named Marvin Wilson, a man who could not handle money or navigate a phone book, a man who sucked his thumb and could not always tell the difference between left and right, a man who, as a child, could not match his socks, tie his shoes or button his clothes, a 54-year-old man with an IQ of 61 which, his attorneys were quick to point out, is ‘below the first percentile of human intelligence.’"

— Andrew Cohen, on how Texas ignored a Supreme Court decision to execute Marvin Wilson.

1:24pm
(Notes: 295)
  
Filed under: News Politics Marvin Wilson Texas Prison Executions Law Supreme Court Longreads Longform 
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