March 21, 2013

The Amazing Story of an Airship Club That Might Never Have Existed

No one quite knows who rescued the books from their landfill fate, but soon they landed at Fred Washington’s OK Trading Post. There they lay, beneath some carpets, (or maybe they were tarpaulins) until a student at a local university noticed them and brought them to the attention of a Houston art collector. By 1970, all 12 volumes had found more permanent homes. Dealers and historians eventually tracked down some additional Dellschau works, including a series of three journals called Recolections [sic], that also tell the story of the Sonora Aero Club and its inventions, with “ink drawings of fanciful airships that accompany the texts look for all the world as if they had flown off the pages of a Jules Verne novel,” as flight historian Tom D. Crouch describes them.

[…]

What are these scrapbooks? Are they an elaborate fantasy, spun out of the overactive imagination of an aging man? An outright delusion? Or are they earnest recollections of a lost time, a commemoration of the best years of a long, hard life?

[Images: Courtesy of Stephen Romano]

Read more about the mysterious story of the Sonora Aero Club and Charles August Albert Dellschau, whose awe-inspiring work evokes images of a gold-hungry nation “seized with a dream of flight.”

5:25pm
(Notes: 104)
  
Filed under: History Longreads Tech Art Books 
March 20, 2013

Ten years ago this week, the United States invaded Iraq. These two stories by James Fallows are essential to understanding the consequences of that decision.

The Fifty-First State? (Nov. 2002): Months before the invasion began, Fallows warned of the difficult responsibilities America would face as an occupying power. Was the U.S. prepared for a long-term relationship?

Bush’s Lost Year (Oct. 2004): “As a political matter, whether the United States is now safer or more vulnerable is of course ferociously controversial. That the war was necessary—and beneficial—is the Bush Administration’s central claim. That it was not is the central claim of its critics. But among national-security professionals there is surprisingly little controversy. Except for those in government and in the opinion industries whose job it is to defend the Administration’s record, they tend to see America’s response to 9/11 as a catastrophe.”

10:29am
(Notes: 203)
  
Filed under: Iraq Iraq War George W. Bush History Journalism Longreads 
January 3, 2013
How Online Romance is Threatening Monogamy The positive aspects of online dating are clear: the Internet makes it easier for single people to meet other single people with whom they might be compatible, raising the bar for what they consider a good relationship. But what if online dating makes it too easy to meet someone new? What if it raises the bar for a good relationship too high? What if the prospect of finding an ever-more-compatible mate with the click of a mouse means a future of relationship instability, in which we keep chasing the elusive rabbit around the dating track? Read more. [Image: R. Kikuo Johnson] ALSO READ: Alexis Madrigal’s response to this piece.

How Online Romance is Threatening Monogamy

The positive aspects of online dating are clear: the Internet makes it easier for single people to meet other single people with whom they might be compatible, raising the bar for what they consider a good relationship. But what if online dating makes it too easy to meet someone new? What if it raises the bar for a good relationship too high? What if the prospect of finding an ever-more-compatible mate with the click of a mouse means a future of relationship instability, in which we keep chasing the elusive rabbit around the dating track?

Read more. [Image: R. Kikuo Johnson]

12:13pm
(Notes: 395)
  
Filed under: Dating Romance Online dating Longreads 
December 6, 2012
147 Years Ago Today, the U.S. Outlawed Slavery Happy birthday, 13th Amendment! In honor of the anniversary, here’s a collection of excellent stories from The Atlantic’s archives. Where Will It End? (Dec. 1857): In The Atlantic’s second issue, Edmund Quincy urges readers to take a stand against slavery. “It is only the statement of the truism in moral and in political economy,” he wrote, “that true prosperity can never grow up from wrong and wickedness.” American Civilization (Apr. 1862): Ralph Waldo Emerson’s vehement argument for the federal emancipation of slaves. “Morality,” above all else, he asserted, “is the object of government.” The President’s Proclamation (Nov. 1862): Seven months later, Emerson hails Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation as an act that would mean “the lives of our heroes have not been sacrificed in vain.” Reconstruction, and an Appeal to Impartial Suffrage (Dec. 1866): In the same month the 13th Amendment was adopted, Frederick Douglass pushed lawmakers to grant black Americans the vote: “Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot.” The Death of Slavery (Jul. 1866): William Cullen Bryant’s stirring poem about the demise of the “cruel reign” of slavery. This is a very, very incomplete collection of stories from the era about slavery. (We were, after all, an abolitionist magazine.) For more, take a look at the commemorative Civil War issue we published last year. [Image: Wikimedia Commons/National Archives]

147 Years Ago Today, the U.S. Outlawed Slavery

Happy birthday, 13th Amendment! In honor of the anniversary, here’s a collection of excellent stories from The Atlantic’s archives.

  • Where Will It End? (Dec. 1857): In The Atlantic’s second issue, Edmund Quincy urges readers to take a stand against slavery. “It is only the statement of the truism in moral and in political economy,” he wrote, “that true prosperity can never grow up from wrong and wickedness.”
  • American Civilization (Apr. 1862): Ralph Waldo Emerson’s vehement argument for the federal emancipation of slaves. “Morality,” above all else, he asserted, “is the object of government.”
  • The President’s Proclamation (Nov. 1862): Seven months later, Emerson hails Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation as an act that would mean “the lives of our heroes have not been sacrificed in vain.”
  • Reconstruction, and an Appeal to Impartial Suffrage (Dec. 1866): In the same month the 13th Amendment was adopted, Frederick Douglass pushed lawmakers to grant black Americans the vote: “Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot.”
  • The Death of Slavery (Jul. 1866): William Cullen Bryant’s stirring poem about the demise of the “cruel reign” of slavery.

This is a very, very incomplete collection of stories from the era about slavery. (We were, after all, an abolitionist magazine.) For more, take a look at the commemorative Civil War issue we published last year.

[Image: Wikimedia Commons/National Archives]

1:51pm
(Notes: 706)
  
Filed under: History Longreads Civil War Slavery Thirteenth Amendment Abraham Lincoln Ralph Waldo Emerson Frederick Douglass 
November 29, 2012
"If what a bookstore offers matters to you, then shop at a bookstore."

— Ann Patchett, author and co-owner of Parnassus Books, Nashville’s only independent bookstore. 

9:27pm
(Notes: 186)
  
Filed under: Books Bookstores Longreads Lit Small business Ann Patchett Nashville Parnassus Books 
November 29, 2012
Our December issue is now online! Read on for a trip to Foxconn with James Fallows, Ann Patchett’s thriving independent bookstore, Jeffrey Goldberg’s case for more guns (and gun control), and much, much more. And, as always, don’t forget to tell us what you think.

Our December issue is now online!

Read on for a trip to Foxconn with James Fallows, Ann Patchett’s thriving independent bookstore, Jeffrey Goldberg’s case for more guns (and gun control), and much, much more.

And, as always, don’t forget to tell us what you think.

10:31am
(Notes: 25)
  
Filed under: Longreads Journalism 
October 25, 2012
Our annual Brave Thinkers issue is now online! Inside, you’ll find: Profiles of 21 people who risk their reputations, fortunes, and lives in pursuit of daring ideas An extended interview with Mayor Michael Bloomberg about his soda ban, why he doesn’t care about approval ratings, and governing in the age of the Internet The inept leadership of American generals, explained A troubling prediction about the genetic future of biowarfare And much, much more! Tell us: What do you think of this month’s issue?

Our annual Brave Thinkers issue is now online! Inside, you’ll find:

Tell us: What do you think of this month’s issue?

9:00am
(Notes: 51)
  
Filed under: Brave Thinkers Journalism Longreads 
October 5, 2012
Who Destroyed the Economy? The Case Against the Baby Boomers The facts as I see them are clear and damning: Baby boomers took the economic equivalent of a king salmon from their parents and, before they passed it on, gobbled up everything but the bones. Ultimately, members of my father’s generation—generally defined as those born between 1946 and 1964—are reaping more than they sowed. They graduated smack into one of the strongest economic expansions in American history. They needed less education to snag a decent-salaried job than their children do, and a college education cost them a small fraction of what it did for their children or will for their grandkids. One income was sufficient to get a family ahead economically. Marginal federal income-tax rates have fallen steadily, with rare exception, since boomers entered the labor force; government retirement benefits have proliferated. At nearly every point in their lives, these Americans chose to slough the costs of those tax cuts and spending hikes onto future generations. Read more. [Image: Rob Finch Visuals]

Who Destroyed the Economy? The Case Against the Baby Boomers

The facts as I see them are clear and damning: Baby boomers took the economic equivalent of a king salmon from their parents and, before they passed it on, gobbled up everything but the bones.

Ultimately, members of my father’s generation—generally defined as those born between 1946 and 1964—are reaping more than they sowed. They graduated smack into one of the strongest economic expansions in American history. They needed less education to snag a decent-salaried job than their children do, and a college education cost them a small fraction of what it did for their children or will for their grandkids. One income was sufficient to get a family ahead economically. Marginal federal income-tax rates have fallen steadily, with rare exception, since boomers entered the labor force; government retirement benefits have proliferated. At nearly every point in their lives, these Americans chose to slough the costs of those tax cuts and spending hikes onto future generations.

Read more. [Image: Rob Finch Visuals]

2:48pm
(Notes: 289)
  
Filed under: Politics Economics Long reads Baby Boomers Longreads 
September 25, 2012
Dearborn, Michigan: Where Bigoted Americans Come to Hate Muslims Dearborn, a city of 97,000 surrounded on three sides by Detroit, is a must-visit location on 21st-century America’s newly established anti-Muslim protest circuit. The entire city, right-wing critics erroneously claim, is subject to Sharia law. And they warn that the rest of America might soon be, too. In June, Christian protesters made yet another appearance at the Arab International Festival. Signs threatened Muslims with a “LAKE OF FIRE.” The street fair, which includes standard items like a booth where someone guesses your weight in exchange for a dollar, soon descended into chaos. It was all documented for YouTube: angry young people surrounded the crowd of evangelists, who promptly announced that they were being “stoned” as an avalanche of profanity rained down alongside water bottles and a variety of objects that weren’t nailed down. Aside from one brief chant of “Allahu Akbar” (God is great), the incident elicited largely secular profanities, including blunt and colloquial entreaties for oral sex. Other cries were more plaintive: “What are you doing here? What is the point of all this?” Amid the chaos, someone, perhaps accidentally, turned the debate over foreignness and belonging on its head, yelling: “Go home! Do you understand English?” Read more. [Image: Zoe Strauss]

Dearborn, Michigan: Where Bigoted Americans Come to Hate Muslims

Dearborn, a city of 97,000 surrounded on three sides by Detroit, is a must-visit location on 21st-century America’s newly established anti-Muslim protest circuit. The entire city, right-wing critics erroneously claim, is subject to Sharia law. And they warn that the rest of America might soon be, too.

In June, Christian protesters made yet another appearance at the Arab International Festival. Signs threatened Muslims with a “LAKE OF FIRE.” The street fair, which includes standard items like a booth where someone guesses your weight in exchange for a dollar, soon descended into chaos. It was all documented for YouTube: angry young people surrounded the crowd of evangelists, who promptly announced that they were being “stoned” as an avalanche of profanity rained down alongside water bottles and a variety of objects that weren’t nailed down. Aside from one brief chant of “Allahu Akbar” (God is great), the incident elicited largely secular profanities, including blunt and colloquial entreaties for oral sex. Other cries were more plaintive: “What are you doing here? What is the point of all this?” Amid the chaos, someone, perhaps accidentally, turned the debate over foreignness and belonging on its head, yelling: “Go home! Do you understand English?”

Read more. [Image: Zoe Strauss]

1:53pm
(Notes: 146)
  
Filed under: Religion Longreads Bigotry Islam Michigan Intolerance Racism Politics 
September 25, 2012
How Collecting Opium Antiques Turned Me Into an Opium Addict

“You really have to work hard to get hooked on smoking opium. The Victorian-era form of the drug, known as chandu, is rare, and the people who know how to use it aren’t exactly forthcoming. But leave it to an obsessive antiques collector to figure out how to get to addicted to a 19th-century drug.”

- As told to Lisa Hix at CollectorsWeekly.com

1:39pm
(Notes: 192)
  
Filed under: Drugs Opium Longreads Antiques History submission 
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