10 Mar 2017

Weekly Reading: The best longreads all in one place

11:09 am on 10 March 2017

Our weekly recap highlighting the best feature stories from around the internet.

 

Meaghan Garvey talks to Migos this week on MTV.

Meaghan Garvey talks to Migos this week on MTV. Photo: Unknown

Meaghan Garvey talks to Migos this week on MTV.

Inside Quavo, Offset and Takeoff’s Miraculous Year, by Meaghan Garvey, MTV

‘“We call it Hurricane Migos,” one of their managers apprised me earlier, regarding the effect that America’s favorite trio tends to have these days when they enter a room. I am no scientist, personally, but I’m fairly sure a hurricane amounts, more or less, to a large number of raindrops gone rogue. And I kid you not: Later, when the lobby has quieted down and the Migos have taken a break from our photo shoot to inhale takeout barbecue plates, a young woman wanders out of the elevator absentmindedly humming, “Raindrop, drop top,” not realizing Offset is 5 feet away.”

In Conversation: David Letterman, by David Marchese, Vulture

“I would just start with a list. “You did this. You did that. Don’t you feel stupid for having done that, Don? And who’s this goon Steve Bannon, and why do you want a white supremacist as one of your advisers? Come on, Don, we both know you’re lying. Now, stop it.” I think I would be in the position to give him a bit of a scolding and he would have to sit there and take it. Yeah, I would like an hour with Donald Trump; an hour and a half.”

Kony 2017: From Guerrilla Marketing to Guerrilla Warfare, by David Gauvey Herbert, Foreign Policy

“Once dismissed as a group of amateur click-activists, Invisible Children is now on the front line of a covert war against the LRA. In its latest incarnation, the group has veered even further from standard humanitarian protocol, pioneering a controversial approach to humanitarian aid that treats intelligence gathering as a core objective and military force as a legitimate avenue of justice. Invisible Children sees this new approach as a welcome alternative to years of failed efforts to catch a bloodthirsty killer. Critics say the group may be putting many more people at far greater risk — not just its employees, but the very people it aims to help.”

Camille Paglia Predicted 2017, by Molly Fischer, The Cut

“It’s true that there is not infrequently something Trumpian in Paglia’s cadence (lots of ingenuous exclamation points — “This tyrannical infantilizing of young Americans must stop!”), as well as her irresistible compulsion to revisit enemies, slights, and idées fixes (substitute “Gloria Steinem” and “Lacan” for “the failing New York Times”). And then, perhaps most important: She, like Trump, gives her audience the vicarious thrill of watching someone who appears to be saying whatever the hell they want.”

Here’s Why Women Did (And Didn’t) Go On Strike Today, by Anne Helen Petersen, Buzzfeed

“Strikes are funny political tools: They speak through absence. Which is part of their power, but also, I’d argue, part of why they’re hard for women to wrap their arms around. We’ve been told that the only way to get something we want is to work harder, not absent ourselves. What’s more, most of our labor — especially of the domestic and emotional varieties — is already invisible.”

Welcome to Pleistocene Park, by Ross Anderson, The Atlantic

‘“It will be cute to have mammoths running around here,” he told me. “But I’m not doing this for them, or for any other animals. I’m not one of these crazy scientists that just wants to make the world green. I am trying to solve the larger problem of climate change. I’m doing this for humans. I’ve got three daughters. I’m doing it for them.”’