Reading List: You Can Have One Story That Isn’t About Our Current Political Maelstrom, As A Treat.
I am le tired.
Starting off today with a hearty salute and telepathic transmission of goodwill towards the world’s IT professionals, who are dealing with one of the largest outages… ever? Like, ever ever? If you are flying today, or have a medical appointment, or are doing anything that might be dependent on a computer in any way, shape or form, make sure it is still happening because… woof. As if we needed a(nother) reminder of just how fragile our entire information, economic, transportation, etc. systems are.
So if you’re actually able to read this right now, let’s get to the LONGREADS, shall we?
Lauren Smiley, ‘Priscila, Queen of the Rideshare Mafia’ (WIRED) — This is an example of my favorite kind of longform reporting: a truly amazing individual story used to highlight and delve into a larger societal risk. I read this top to bottom this morning, what a fascinating read. And kudos to Smiley for her curiosity in and empathy towards her subject.
Ryan Broderick, ‘Now we have Babydog’ (Garbage Day) — Broderick’s overview of the shooting over the weekend and the reaction of the media and internet at large somehow pulls together sobering facts (Billionaire men in elections! The porous nature of memory! A dog on stage at the RNC!) with concepts like “Bass Pro Shop stolen valor” and I feel like this is how scrambled all of our brains are now, 24/7, until the heat death of the universe.
Taylor Lorenz, ‘‘BlueAnon’ conspiracy theories flood social media after Trump rally shooting’ (Washington Post) — If you think that those on the right are the only people susceptible to misinformation and pernicious online rumors, take a deep breath and make sure you’re keeping a critical eye on the online media — especially on social media — you are consuming. The internet can be trash on all sides.
Julianne McShane, ‘J.D. Vance Supported Using the Comstock Act to Criminalize “Mail-Order Abortions”’ (Mother Jones) — We’re going to see a lot of reputational laundering of this new VP nominees rough, anti-social edges over the next few months — don’t fall for it. Take him at the words he said when he was appealing to the GOP base, and the sort of friends he has on Venmo. To loosely quote, “when people show you who they are, believe them” — especially when they’re getting endorsed by the foreign minister of an adversarial country.
Amanda Becker, Orion Rummler, Darreonna Davis, ‘The 19th Explains: What you need to know about Project 2025’ (The 19th) — Project 2025 is basically all I can think about when it comes to the election in November. Don’t believe every media outlet writing about how awful it is? You can read the dang document yourself — it’s really scary.
Drink that water, turn off your computer and get outside, and be kind to each other, won’t you?
xoxo Amy
