Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
A pair of women ride a LimeBike scooter. Photo by the author The Bay Area serves as America’s sandbox. The tech world’s most far-fetched ideas are often sketched and tested here, and if they’re successful, they’ll spread throughout the country. The latest trend to materialize here is motorized scooters you can rent through an app….
We’ve known for some time now that Americans are increasingly dying younger, but the scale and nature of the problem has been a little bit murky. There was speculation that the downturn in American life expectancy was all thanks to “deaths of despair,” but some experts have said that might not be the full story,…
“Hang on, I just have to put my soles on,” I call after the kids, who are racing out the door for a trip to the market. The soles in question are two dove-gray, rubber flaps that snap to the bottoms of my slippers, which I have just imported from London. A slipper-transformer that will…
North Carolina is the one state where the law explicitly says you cannot revoke consent once it’s given. A bill that would remove this “unacceptable loophole” has little traction. Photo by Simone Becchetti via Stocksy One May evening in 1977, Beverly Hester was sexually assaulted. According to the summary included in the North Carolina Supreme…
Oh hai, Batman. Last month, Variety reported that Hangover director Todd Phillips was in talks with Joaquin Phoenix to star in the stand-alone Joker origin film—a compelling choice to play the Batman villain who could probably give the character a depth we haven’t seen since Heath Ledger. But following Variety‘s announcement, another actor unexpectedly threw…
One officer involved in the city’s massive corruption scandal said officers kept the replicas “in case we accidentally hit somebody or got into a shootout, so we could plant them.” Last week, the beginning of an explosive corruption trial involving eight members of Baltimore’s elite Gun Trace Task Force revealed that a handful of Baltimore…
Kenneth Eng is on the other side of viral now, where it’s hard to see him. 11 years ago, in 2007, it was easy to see him. He achieved a brief burst of viral infamy for writing a column titled “Why I Hate Blacks,” inexplicably published by the now-defunct AsianWeek. He had every quality we…
iStock Dear Chads and Beckys, I admit that I have been reluctant to write this letter. It has nothing to do with my dislike for you or your people. In fact, some of my best friends are white. Well … one of my best friends is white. OK, I’ll be honest, all of my best…
The Illinois Republican Party is condemning the man poised to be its nominee for Congress in the state’s third congressional district as a Nazi. So how did he end up on the ballot? The answer points to failures of democratic safeguards on every level, from a state party unable to recruit an alternative candidate in…
Spotify, the world’s largest paid music service, will begin offering news and political coverage to lure listeners away from radio and podcasts from rival Apple Inc. Eight companies, including BuzzFeed and Refinery29, have agreed to produce programming for the new initiative, called Spotlight. One of the first shows will be a four- to seven-minute daily…