Recommended Reading (9/5/24)

You may notice a rebrand in the subject line here - basically, I bookmark too many links to post once or twice a week, but I don't feel like I can commit to daily, so we're going with . . . whenever works! Hopefully most weekdays, at least.

This is bad!! A German far-right party wins its first state election (NPR)

Revealed: Shell oil non-profit donated to anti-climate groups behind Project 2025 (The Guardian)

The voyage of the Altar Stone: A Stonehenge mystery solved (maybe) (WaPo)

East Palestine, After the Crash (The New Yorker)

Why Time Is Running Out Across the Maldives’ Lovely Little Islands (NYT)

Haunting the Human Genome Project: A Question of Consent (Undark)

The Logical End Point of College Sports (The Atlantic)

The reckless policies that helped fill our streets with ridiculously large cars (Vox)

‘Humongous’ fort found in Wales may disprove theory of Celtic-Roman peace (The Guardian)

The pitches they couldn’t master: 12 MLB aces on the one that got away (The Athletic)

! Rare Aphra Behn novel found on home bookshelf (BBC)

Why New England’s Stone Walls Are Unlike Any Others (Atlas Obscura)

Bonus Links (9/4/24)

How Tech Giants Cut Corners to Harvest Data for A.I. (NYT gift link)

The Christian Nationalist Hydra: In Era of Trump, Christian Nationalism Has Many Faces (Talking Points Memo)

'This Will Finish Us': How Gulf princes, the safari industry, and conservation groups are displacing the Maasai from the last of their Serengeti homeland (The Atlantic)

From the Horror to the Envy of Africa: Rwanda’s Leader Holds Tight Grip (NYT)

In the Arctic, American commandos game out a great-power war (WaPo)

How to Publish a Magazine in a Maximum-Security Prison (The New Yorker)

The EPA Has Done Nearly Everything It Can to Clean Up This Town. It Hasn’t Worked. (ProPublica)

Here’s Why Jalapeño Peppers Are Less Spicy Than Ever (D Magazine)

Silver coin boom in medieval England due to melted down Byzantine treasures, study reveals (The Guardian)

How a new class of Japanese stars is changing baseball (WaPo)

Fake Authenticity Is Toxic, and So Are Iowa-Style Writing Workshops (Electric Lit)

Why Is It So Hard to Unionize a Bar? It’s Complicated. (Punch)

Weekly Reading (8/23/24)

How the Ukraine-Russia war is playing out differently on 3 separate fronts (NPR)

Iran uses fake news sites to interfere in U.S. election, Microsoft says (WaPo)

I was delighted by Massachusetts and Vermont. The DNC roll call featured a musical salute to each state. Here's what your state chose (NPR)

This is so great: Long-Acting Drugs May Revolutionize H.I.V. Prevention and Treatment (NYT)

Custody ruling in same-sex case hailed as LGBTQ+ milestone in China (The Guardian)

The Atlantic Is Cooling at a Mysteriously Fast Rate After Record Warmth (Gizmodo)

Lokiceratops, a Horned Dinosaur, May Be a New Species (NYT)

Jesus and the Jews: Part One (Life Is a Sacred Text)

A Secret Code May Have Been Hiding in Classical Music for 200 Years (The Atlantic)

This is nerdy but fascinating for um a very specific definition of fascinating: The evolution of Sonny Gray’s many sliders: ‘More velo, less movement’ (The Athletic)

How Lydia Ernestine Becker Was Once Central to—Then Excluded from—the Study of Botany (LitHub)

Doubling Down (Baseball Prospectus)

Weekly Reading (8/16/24)

More than 40,000 killed in Israel’s war in Gaza, Health Ministry says (WaPo)

WHO declares 2024 mpox surge a 'public health emergency of international concern' (NPR)

Revealed: US neo-Nazi terror group aims to revive activities ahead of election (The Guardian)

Kamala Harris Is Not ‘Totally Against the Jewish People’ (The Atlantic)

An ISIS Terror Group Draws Half Its Recruits From Tiny Tajikistan (NYT)

MIT researchers release a repository of AI risks (TechCrunch)

The U.S. Government Defended the Overseas Business Interests of Baby Formula Makers. Kids Paid the Price. (ProPublica)

The Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius Wasn’t Pompeii’s Only Killer (NYT)

The World Series winner, the venture capitalist and their baseball dream for Team Poland (The Athletic)

Are Flying Cars Finally Here? (The New Yorker)

In Service: Writers on Making Ends Meet in the Service Industry (LitHub)

Knitter records glove patterns to save Sanquhar designs (BBC)

Bonus Links (8/14/24)

The Great Democratic Success Story That Wasn’t (The Atlantic)

This nonprofit has newsrooms in all 50 state capitals. Is it the future of state journalism? (CJR)

TikTok Turns to Nuns, Veterans and Ranchers in Marketing Blitz (NYT)

Despite Recent Headlines, Urban Farming Is Not a Climate Villain (Civil Eats)

The Family Who Vanished into the Bush (Slate)

Secret Spy Weapons of the Cold War (RFE)

Octavia Butler, Audre Lorde, and the Power of Pleasure (Reactor)

Declutter, Haul, Restock, Repeat: The content creators making a living by cleaning — one purse tower, acrylic plastic box, and egg organizer at a time. (The Cut)

She Slept With a Violin on Her Pillow. Her Dreams Came True in Italy. (NYT)

‘A crazy can-do mentality’: what made New York’s Met one of the world’s mega museums? (The Guardian)

Why ‘Shogun’ (and the Rest of TV) Is Slightly Out of Focus (The Ringer)

The Ancient Female Alchemist Whose Name Is in Your Kitchen (Atlas Obscura)

Weekly Reading (8/9/24)

Bangladesh’s Leader Fled Just Ahead of an Angry Crowd, Urged by Family to Go (NYT)

This is so great: In a hostile era, Tim Walz stood up for students’ Gay-Straight Alliance (WaPo)

This was written before the VP pick but what it has to say about the rhetoric people are using about Shapiro vs. other options is still really important: Who's Afraid of Josh Shapiro? (The Atlantic gift link)

Similarly, this was written before the election but is still worth a read: Could Venezuela’s softly-spoken opposition newcomer end 25 years of Chavismo? (The Guardian)

Many Ukrainian Prisoners of War Show Signs of Trauma and Sexual Violence (NYT)

A Jewish couple were rejected as foster parents because of their religion. This is the future Project 2025 envisions (The Guardian)

Don't Believe What They're Telling You About Misinformation (The New Yorker)

Maryland Is on Track to Process a Nearly 50-Year-Old Backlog of Rape Kits (ProPublica)

The breathtaking lifesaving impact of vaccines, in one chart (Vox)

find your place on deck (Life Is a Sacred Text)

Fuelling the Tour de France: Secrets of the team kitchens (BBC)

A new group is buying up minor league baseball teams at a feverish pace. What’s the end game? (The Athletic)

Bonus Links (8/7/24)

The Guantánamo Spy Who Wasn’t (NYT)

Few states cover fertility treatment for LGBTQ+ couples, but that could be changing (The 19th*)

‘You have imprisoned our democracy’: inside Republicans’ domination of Tennessee (The Guardian)

For Lithuania, Unease Over a Growing Russian-Speaking Diaspora (NYT)

Tromp 45: Braves backup gets unexpected lesson in the politics of a number change (The Athletic)

It’s time for a hard reset on notifications (The Verge)

This was fascinating!! Age of Empires (or, How Microsoft Got in on Games) (The Digital Antiquarian)

On Skeleton Beach (The Dark Mountain Project)

This by Ronald Acuña Jr. is a must-read for baseball fans: I Mean No Harm, I Swear (The Players' Tribune)

Álvaro Enrigue Won’t Romanticize Mexican History (The Millions)

Researchers Use Old Newspaper Reports to Identify 137-Year-Old Shipwreck in Lake Michigan (Smithsonian)

Syrinx and the Sirens: From Ancient Greece to Etruria (Antigone)

Weekly Reading (7/27/24)

Hillary Clinton: How Kamala Harris Can Win and Make History (NYT gift link)

Adam Serwer: Why Some Republicans Can’t Resist Making Vile Attacks on Harris (The Atlantic)

On Kamala Harris, Barack Obama and a theory. On Sleepy Hollow, moving forward and Not Going Back (Burner Account by Maureen Ryan)

JD Vance Has a Bunch of Weird Views on Gender (Politico)

Record number of journalists killed in Pakistan already this year (The Guardian)

A Ragtag Resistance Sees the Tide Turning in a Forgotten War (NYT)

An Alabama manufacturer shows how to retain working moms: child care (NPR)

Crossbows and eerie silences – following Antarctic whales for climate change clues (BBC)

Contemporary Literary Novels Are Haunted by the Absence of Money (LitHub)

Players play as themselves in MLB video game, and some use it as a scouting tool (The Athletic)

What Is Noise? (The New Yorker)

‘The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook’ Was Ahead of Its Time (Eater)

Weekly Reading (7/19/24)

On Authoritarianism (Life Is a Sacred Text)

This piece from a few years ago has been going around this week for obvious reasons, and it's definitely worth your time: Hillbillies Need No Elegy (The Bitter Southerner)

About 90% of people in Gaza displaced since war began, says UN agency (The Guardian)

The schoolchildren being lured by rebels on TikTok (BBC)

War or No War, Ukrainians Aren’t Giving Up Their Coffee (NYT)

Canada's Polite Trumpism (Vox)

What George Kelly’s Mistrial Says About How We See the Border (The New Yorker)

How the pandemic gave power to superbugs (NPR)

Prestigious Medical Journal Ignored Nazi Atrocities, Historians Find (NYT)

Can Maine Lead the Way to a Future without Forever Chemicals? (Mother Jones)

Cutting Class: On the Myth of the Middle Class Writer (LitHub)

Oldest MLB player turns 100: Roomed with Yogi Berra, stymied Ted Williams (The Athletic)

Weekly Reading (7/12/24)

LGBT troops on Ukraine's front line fight homophobia at home (BBC)

How Gaza’s Largest Mental-Health Organization Works Through War (The New Yorker)

Imagine texting this stuff in public at an institution with a history of antisemitism like Columbia: Columbia Removes Three Deans, Saying Texts Touched on ‘Antisemitic Tropes’ (NYT)

‘This is going to be a disaster’: inside the Tories’ chaotic election campaign (The Guardian)

The Koch Brothers Are Getting What They Wanted: The Supreme Court Is Gutting Environmental Protections (Slate)

This is huge: ‘Chemical recycling’: 15-minute reaction turns old clothes into useful molecules (Nature)

An incomplete list of broken heat records this year (PBS)

Another Red-Blue Divide: Money to Feed Kids in the Summer (NYT)

The Torah I Learned at ACT UP (Life Is a Sacred Text)

Which scientists get mentioned in the news? Mostly ones with Anglo names, says study (NPR)

The Literary Outsider: How Barbara Comyns Wrote Her Way to The Juniper Tree (LitHub)

Jessie Winker Is Up to Something (Baseball Prospectus)