Longreads

I said, ‘What’s your — pardon me — your fucking plan, then, if you don’t like this?’” “‘We don’t like—’ I said, ‘Don’t tell me what you don’t like! Tell me how you’re going to stop the North Korean nuclear program.’ ‘But we wouldn’t do it this way—’ ‘Stop! What are you going to do?’ […]

Anyone who has lived through the global bubble and bust of the last few years may wonder what’s so great about a consumer society. In the United States, the idea that we have reoriented our economy toward consumption and don’t make things anymore has become a standard lament, not a sign of progress. But China […]

Emerging from his haze, Sean O’Keefe felt a bizarre sensation in his mouth. Like chewing on gravel without taking a bite. He explored that mystery with his tongue until it registered: His mouth was awash with his own broken teeth. The Waiting: Survivors of the Ted Stevens plane crash in Alaska wondered if help would reach […]

A song called “A Freak Like Me Needs Company,” for the eight-stilettoed Arachne and her Furies to sing near the end of the show, was apparently less right. “I thought, and still do, that it would be a hit,” says Bono. “A percussive eighties Paradise Garage dance piece with a fantastic hook. Julie was like, […]

The myth of scale is seductive because it is easier to spread technology than to effect extensive change in social attitudes and human capacity. In other words, it is much less painful to purchase a hundred thousand PCs than to provide a real education for a hundred thousand children; it is easier to run a […]

But as often as not, conversations led back to home. “When we go home, everything will be great,” Pvt. Brandon Thompson mused between firefights one morning. “Air-conditioning will be great. Cold water will be great. Sleep will be great.” “Yeah,” Specialist Christian Dupree interjected, “for about a month. New York Times: A Year at War: […]