Longread #285 -- The Open Mic -- 3/29/13

This article provides an entertaining glimpse into the world of stand-up comedy and open mic nights in particular. It focuses specifically on Seattle, and in profiling the open mic experience at different locations, examines the joys and perils that confront people who aspire to be stand-up comedians. A friend who attends many open mics and performs comedy shows in town was interviewed (although not quoted) for this piece. While the article itself takes on a very specific starting point, it uses that as a lens by which to view stand-up comedy more broadly.

Happy Friday!

"Fear & Laughing at the Open Mic" by Brett Hamil
Published in CityArts, March 25, 2013

Eric

Longread #284 -- You Owe Me -- 3/28/13

This is a touching essay that is also a reminder of how difficult it can be to try to help people in dire situations. I am thankful for everyone who takes on this type of challenge and am thankful that Miah Arnold chose to write about it so poignantly.

"You Owe Me" by Miah Arnold
Published in the Michigan Quarterly Review, April 5, 2012

Longread #283 -- Bringing Them Back to Life -- 3/27/13

While this is fascinating science, I couldn't agree more with this perspective from the article:

“There is clearly a terrible urgency to saving threatened species and habitats,” says John Wiens, an evolutionary biologist at Stony Brook University in New York. “As far as I can see, there is little urgency for bringing back extinct ones. Why invest millions of dollars in bringing a handful of species back from the dead, when there are millions still waiting to be discovered, described, and protected?”

While I hate to stifle scientific curiosity, the fact of the matter is that there are finite resources (in terms of money, time, laboratories, etc.), and de-extinction to me likely trades off with other approaches that could be far more meaningful.

"Bringing Them Back to Life" by Carl Zimmer
Published in National Geographic, April 2013

Eric

Longread #282 -- Prince Alwaleed -- 3/26/13

An interesting article that profiles one of the richest people in Saudi Arabia and his ego-driven desire to make himself appear richer.

"Prince Alwaleed And The Curious Case Of Kingdom Holding Stock" by Kerry Dolan
Published in Forbes, March 25, 2012

Eric

Longread #281 -- See No Evil -- 3/25/13

This is an excellent piece that provides quality reporting both on the small and highly-specialized industry of making "traps" for cars and on the case of one of the most well-regarded trapmakers, Alfred Anaya, who got caught up in the dirty business of the men who hired him.

It's a story that frustrates me for two reasons. First, I think the specific details of Anaya's case seem to demonstrate questionable judgement on the behalf of the federal prosecutors. However, this article doesn't deeply explore both sides, so perhaps there is more to the case than mentioned here. Second, and more important in my mind, is how this article shows the way that the current nature of the drug war warps the functioning of the criminal justice system.

"See No Evil: The Case of Alfred Anaya" by Brendan I. Koerner
Published in Wired, March 19, 2013

Eric

Longread #280 -- The Kalamazoo Promise -- 3/21/13

Though "the Kalamazoo Promise" sounds like an awful romantic comedy, it's actually a pretty awesome program to pay for college for nearly all students who graduate from high school in Kalamazoo. This article explains the program, its mysterious origins, and its profound effects on the community.

"Why These Kids Get a Free Ride to College" by Ted C. Fishman
Published in the New York Times, September 13, 2012

Eric

Longread #279 -- The Things You Love -- 3/21/13

Satire is an amazing communicative device. While I tend to thing that it is overused in our society, it nevertheless retains enormous persuasive power. While satire is intended to be funny, it can and should be so much more. The best satire uses humor as a vehicle to force the audience to rethink an assumption or reconsider a viewpoint.

This article from the Onion -- one of the foremost purveyors of satire -- hits this note remarkably well. While it is an extremely funny article, my hope is that people who read it don't stop just at the humor. Instead, this article should compel people to think about their priorities in life and how their day-to-day actions actually align with those priorities. While it's easy to brush this aside as just another funny article from the Onion, I hope that you take a few minutes to reflect after reading it. As a friend wrote after sharing this on Facebook, "the fact that 7 people have shared this in the past day makes me feel like we're all doing something wrong..."

"Find The Thing You're Most Passionate About, Then Do It On Nights And Weekends For The Rest Of Your Life" by David Ferguson
Published in the Onion, March 20, 2013

Eric

Longread #278 -- Rescuing Cesar Millan -- 3/20/13

Before I read this article, I had no idea that Cesar Millan had fallen from grace. I never watched much of his show and passively assumed that his "dog whispering" was mostly a gimmick. While there are certainly elements of his approach that sound awfully fuzzy to me (everything about how the dog senses "energy"), that doesn't mean he's wrong. Reading this profile of Millan gave me a lot more appreciation for his care for dogs and provided an interesting story of how he's ridden the roller coaster of fame.

"Rescuing Cesar Millan" by Jason Fine
Published in Men's Journal, March 2013

Eric

Longread #277 -- Sriracha -- 3/19/13

Today's longread is a profile of a leading company in one of the fastest-growing segments of the food industry. As a person who loves sriracha in soup, stir fries, and well, most things really, I enjoyed learning about the quirks of this now well-known company.

"Sriracha Hot Sauce Catches Fire, Yet 'There's Only One Rooster'" by Caleb Hannan
Published in BusinessWeek, February 21, 2013

Eric

Longread #276 -- Bitter Pill -- 3/18/13

Our health care system is seriously broken. Costs have been rising but without corresponding increases in the quality of care for most patients. Tens of millions of people are uninsured and receiving little to no care at all. While Obamacare attempts to address some of these challenges, even its most ardent supporters generally acknowledge that it doesn't go anywhere near far enough in addressing the fundamental problems of our health care system.

As with diagnosing a medical condition, determining what is wrong with our health care system requires looking at the symptoms and trying to identify their causes. In this detailed report, the author exposes an array of troubling practices in hospital administration that are driving up costs without helping to make us any healthier. It serves as an excellent starting point for discussions of how to revamp or reform the medical system.

Update -- 3/19: It has come to my attention that this article is now behind the Time Magazine subscriber paywall. I don't know any good way around it, but I had saved a copy to my Kindle before that. If I come across another full-text version, I will update here accordingly.

"Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us" by Steven Brill
Published in Time Magazine, March 4, 2013

Eric

Longread #275 -- A Rough Guide to Disney World -- 3/15/13

I'm not going to do much of a writeup today. This longread was one of the most well-regarded of 2011 and was one of the first I read when starting this longread project. The style of this longread is markedly different from my typical postings, but it's a great read for a Friday.

"You Blow My Mind. Hey, Mickey!" by John Jeremiah Sullivan
Published in the New York Times, June 8, 2011

Eric

Longread #274 -- Drug War Hypocrisy -- 3/14/13

There's a lot that's wrong about the way that our country conducts the "war on drugs." While anti-drug officials have increasingly talked about going after "big fish," this article demonstrates that they are spineless when it comes to actually shutting down the vital cogs in the machines that allow illicit, multinational drug trafficking continue. It's another read that will make your blood boil.

"Outrageous HSBC Settlement Proves the Drug War is a Joke" by Matt Taibbi
Published in Rolling Stone's TaibbiBlog, December 13, 2012

Eric

Longread #273 -- Hackers of Damascus -- 3/13/13

For civilians like myself, it's easy to think of war and combat in specific ways, many of which are framed by well-known war movies about World War II or Vietnam. But it is clear that the nature of the battlefield is changing, and cyberwar is becoming increasingly relevant to conflicts of all kinds. This article looks at how control of information and online communication has played a central role in the ongoing conflict in Syria.

"The Hackers of Damascus" by Stephan Faris
Published in Business Week, November 15, 2012

Eric

Longread #272 -- The Story of Steve Jobs -- 3/12/13

While the specter of Steve Jobs has largely faded, his legacy is one that still inspires controversy. In business and in his personal life, Jobs took an approach that could often fairly be labeled as both inspirational and bullying. This longread looks at the different ways of interpreting his leadership style and whether it can or should be applied by others.

"The Story of Steve Jobs: An Inspiration or a Cautionary Tale?" by Ben Austen
Published in Wired, July 23, 2012

Eric

Longread #271 -- The Force -- 3/11/13

Some of the largest effects of the budget sequestration are on the military. In light of these budget cuts, this longread felt especially relevant as it looks at the changing dynamics of military spending and the role of the U.S military in global politics.

"The Force" by Jill Lepore
Published in the New Yorker, January 28, 2013

Eric

Longread #270 -- Libor Rigging -- 3/7/13

The scope of this scandal is truly astounding, especially in the wake of all the other scandals and general malfeasance going on at banks. I'll let one high-level regulator summarize (emphasis mine)...

Sheila Bair, who served as acting chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the 1990s and as chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. from 2006 to 2011, says the scope of the scandal points to the flaws of light-touch regulation on both sides of the Atlantic. “When a bank can benefit financially from doing the wrong thing, it generally will,” Bair says. “The extent of the Libor manipulation was eye-popping.”

I'll be out of town tomorrow, so no longread will be posted. Hope you all have a great weekend!

"Libor Lies Revealed in Rigging of $300 Trillion Benchmark" by  Liam Vaughan & Gavin Finch
Published in Bloomberg Markets Magazine, January 28, 2013

Eric

Longread #269 -- Driving Bin Laden -- 3/6/13

As with many Supreme Court decisions, it is easy to forget how much time and effort went into building and arguing the cases themselves. For someone locked up at Guantanamo, the challenges in obtaining effective representation were enormous. This article examines the challenges faced by Hamdan and the dedication of his legal team to taking on an Administration waging a War on Terrorism.

"Driving Bin Laden: Salim Hamdan" by Rick Anderson
Published in Seattle Weekly, November 28, 2012

Eric

Longread #268 -- Brain Damage and Genius -- 3/5/13

Today's longread offers another intriguing look at unusual sources of creativity and genius. These are incredible stories of people who have suddenly "discovered" new abilities after traumatic brain injuries. It does make you wonder if we possess latent abilities that we simply can't access. Though I don't want to slam my head into a wall to do it, it would be pretty amazing to "unlock" my brain's ability to play a filthy blues guitar.

"When Brain Damage Unlocks The Genius Within" by Adam Piore
Published in Popular Science, February 19, 2013

Eric

Longread #267 -- The Electric Pencil -- 3/4/13

This story was interesting to me mostly because I had no idea that "outsider art" was so popular or valuable. The backstory behind the creation of this art is also pretty unique, which I guess is part of what makes it fall into the "outsider art" category. While it seems like the industry of buyers and sellers of this art may have commodified it (like most types of art), what is cool about "outsider art" to me is the idea that inspiring creations can come from anywhere and anyone.

"The Electric Pencil: A long-lost cache of sketches by a state mental hospital inmate finally yields up some of its secrets" by Aimee Levitt
Published in the Riverfront Times, September 14, 2012

Eric

Longread #266 -- Lost and Found in Siberia -- 3/1/13

This isn't the only story of its kind, but it is pretty remarkable how this family was able to survive under the conditions they found themselves in. It's also a crazy thought experiment to try to put yourself in theirs shoes and consider the profound changes in society that you would have to adapt to (or choose not to adapt to).

Happy Friday!

"For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of WWII" by Mike Dash
Published in Smithsonian Magazine, January 29, 2013

Eric