Dead Presidents

I’m catching up on my Instapaper account, and I wanted to suggest a couple of President-related articles that you may be interested in checking out:

•Obama’s Way (Vanity Fair, October 2012) — Michael Lewis spends six months covering the Obama White House

•Joe Biden Isn’t Finished (New York Magazine, September 2, 2012) — Awesome look at our equally awesome Vice President

•Bill Clinton: Who Is This Guy? (New York Magazine, January 20, 1992) — An early profile (published on my 12th birthday!) of then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton by Joe Klein. 

•Superman Comes to the Supermarket (Esquire, November 1960) — Normal Mailer on the 1960 Presidential campaign of Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy

Those last two articles were found via Longform.org, which is a site that I love to check out in order to find interesting, feature-length articles.

Over the holidays, I caught up on some more of the articles in my Instapaper account, and here are some recommendations that I liked and you might, too:

•Q&A WITH LOUIS CK (Jonah Weiner, The Writearound, November 16, 2011)

•GULAGS, NUKES, AND A WATER SLIDE: CITIZEN SPIES LIFT NORTH KOREA’S VEIL (Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2009)

•NORTH KOREA’S DIGITAL UNDERGOUND (The Atlantic, April 2011)
Lots of good articles about North Korea and it’s eccentric leadership were published and republished in the wake of Kim Jong-Il’s death in mid-December.

•IN THE LAND OF THE DEAR LEADER (PBS.org/Originally published in Harper’s Magazine, July 1996)
Is anybody else as interested as I am in visiting North Korea?  It’s such a creepy, bizarre place that I would really like to experience while it’s still a reclusive, closed, controlled society.

•WHO RUNS RUSSIA? (Financial Times, December 16, 2011)

•THE PAKISTANIS HAVE A POINT (New York Times Magazine, December 18, 2011)
Excerpt from Bill Keller’s article:  “If you survey informed Americans, you will hear Pakistanis described as duplicitous, paranoid, self-pitying and generally infuriating.  In turn, Pakistanis describe us as fickle, arrogant, shortsighted and chronically unreliable.  Neither country’s caricature of the other is entirely wrong, and it makes for a relationship that is less in need of diplomacy than couples therapy, which customarily starts by trying to see things from the other point of view.  While the Pakistanis have hardly been innocent, they have a point when they say America has not been the easiest of partners.”

•POSTSCRIPT: CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, 1949-2011 (The New Yorker, December 16, 2011)

•BEING BABE RUTH’S DAUGHTER (Grantland, December 19, 2011)

•CHUCK BERRY GODDAMN! (Esquire, January 2012)
A profile of the rock-n-roll legend who continues to play live shows at the age of 85.

•EXIT HAVEL (The New Yorker, February 17, 2003)
Vaclav Havel was a freedom fighter who helped bring an end to Communism in Eastern Europe, the last President of Czechoslovakia, the first President of the Czech Republic, and an accomplished playwright.  Havel died last month, but this New Yorker article was a look at his legacy as he retired from the Czech Presidency in 2003.

•HIV, FAILED CAREER DEFINES TOMMY MORRISON (Wichita Eagle, February 13, 2011)
The sad story of boxer Tommy Morrison whose rising career was derailed by an HIV diagnosis.  Morrison now denies that he ever had HIV, but the article paints a tragic story of a delusional, very sick man.

•ALONE IN THE DARK (The New Yorker, September 8, 2003)
More on North Korea and Kim Jong-Il

•“WHY AM I IN CUBA?”: EXCERPTS FROM GUANTANAMO MILITARY TRIBUNAL TRANSCRIPTS (Mother Jones, July 11, 2006)

•THE MAN WHO HAS BEEN TO AMERICA: ONE GUANTANAMO DETAINEE’S STORY (Mother Jones, September/October 2006)

•PURSUIT OF HABEAS: WHAT BUSH LEARNED FROM THE SHERIFF OF NOTTINGHAM (Mother Jones, September/October 2008)

•EXCLUSIVE: INSIDE GITMO WITH DETAINEE 061 (Mother Jones, March 9, 2008)

•THE SECRET LIVES OF KILLER AMERICAN DRONES (Mother Jones, December 20, 2011)

•AMERICA’S SECRET DRONE EMPIRE (Mother Jones, October 17, 2011)

•MY SUMMER AT AN INDIAN CALL CENTER (Mother Jones, July/August 2011)

•HOW DEMOCRATS FOOLED CALIFORNIA’S REDISTRICTING COMMISSION (Mother Jones, December 21, 2011)

•BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF KIM JONG-IL’S REGIME (Mother Jones, May/June 2003)

•THE WEIRDEST THING ABOUT THE NORTH KOREA SUCCESSION (Mother Jones, December 19, 2011)

•A WEEK WITH THE NEW JERSEY NETS (Grantland, December 22, 2011)

•THE PERCEPTIONIST: HOW STEVE JOBS TOOK BACK APPLE (The New Yorker, September 8, 1997)
It’s always funny to read things like this with the benefit of hindsight: “In all probability, Apple is destined to become, at best, a break-even company in an industry where the leaders — Compaq or Dell in hardware, for instance, and Microsoft or Netscape in software — often grow by more than thirty per cent a year.”

•TAKEN BY PIRATES (New York Times Magazine, October 9, 2011)

•STEVE JOBS WAS ALWAYS KIND TO ME (OR, REGRETS OF AN ASSHOLE) (Brian Lam, thewirecutter.com, October 5, 2011)

•STEVE JOBS, 1955-2011 (wired.com, October 5, 2011)

•A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (Vanity Fair, October 2005)
This is just a heartbreaking story — the first-person account of a terminally-ill young mother, Marjorie Williams, and how she came to terms with her definitive death sentence: “There is a staggering vulnerability in asserting one’s right to hope.”

•“I WAS NO LONGER AFRAID TO DIE, I WAS NOW AFRAID TO DIE”: JOAN DIDION ON “BLUE NIGHTS” (New York Magazine, October 18, 2011)

•IF WE ONLY HAD WINGS: THE DARING DREAM OF PERSONAL FLIGHT (National Geographic, September 2011)

•FUNWORLD: THE BUSINESS OF WRITING ABOUT THE BUSINESS OF ROLLER COASTERS (Believer Magazine, November 2004)

•HOW AT&T CONQUERED THE 20TH CENTURY (Arts Technica, September 2011)

•A MOUNTAIN OF TROUBLE: AMERICAN HIKERS ARRESTED IN IRAN (Outside Magazine, April 21, 2010)

•WELCOME TO NEWBURGH, MURDER CAPITAL OF NEW YORK (New York Magazine, September 25, 2011)

•IN DESTITUTE SWAZILAND, LEADER LIVES ROYALLS (New York Times, September 6, 2008)

For the second weekend in a row, I spent some quality time plowing through the articles queued up in my Instapaper account, so I figured I’d share some recommended articles with you.  I also went back and tidied up articles I had left in there after reading, so many of these were actually read early in the year, if not earlier.  Since I didn’t start linking my suggestions until recently, I figured I might as well toss those older articles on to this list, as well.

When I posted recommendations last week, someone asked me where I find the articles that I read.  There are three great websites that consistently link really fascinating, in-depth articles: Longform.org (probably my favorite of the three); Give Me Something To Read (which has the benefit of being a Tumblr site for easy following); and Longreads.  These three sites also are posting some of their “Best of 2011” lists this month as well, so check them out.

I also have a few go-to magazines or publications that I regularly visit for good reads.  Some of my favorites are The Atlantic, The Economist, The American Scholar, The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated’s SI Vault, Esquire, GQ, Vanity Fair, Guernica, New York Magazine, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, Washingtonian Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, National Georgaphic, SF Weekly, Grantland, and many, many more.

If you haven’t done so already, I strongly encourage you to register for an Instapaper account.  It’s free, it’s easy, it’s painless, and it is the best tool for saving intriguing articles to read later without being bothered by annoying ads or too many graphics.  As an added bonus, I am told that my lengthier essays on Dead Presidents look particularly good when you read them through Instapaper.

Okay, enough of that, here’s the bigger-than-usual list of reading recommendations:

•THE KING OF COOL: MOHAMMED VI OF MOROCCO (Time Magazine, June 26, 2000)
I remember reading and loving this article when it came out nearly a dozen years ago.  I don’t think King Mohammed VI is quite as cool and popular with his people anymore, but he did make some reforms and hold on to power throughout the Arab Spring.  Either way, Mohammed VI was kind of a badass when he was younger at least, and certainly less oppressive than his father, King Hassan II, who died in 1999.  If nothing else, he has an awesome nickname: “M6”.

•THE KING AND THE “CABBY” INSPECT JORDAN INCOGNITO (New York Times, August 9, 1999)
•JORDAN’S KING OF DISGUISE (BBC, July 30, 2001)
•DO YOU REMEMBER? KING ABDULLAH IN DISGUISE (The Black Iris of Jordan, December 7, 2005)
•KING GOES UNDERCOVER AGAIN (The Jordan Times, May 28, 2009)
Like Morocco’s Mohammed VI, King Abdullah of Jordan ascended at a young age to the throne of an Arab kingdom upon the death of his long-ruling father in 1999.  And, like “M6”, Abdullah has some unique, pretty awesome touches.  At various times throughout his reign, Abdullah has donned disguises, shunned his security, and attempted to get a feel for what life is like as an ordinary Jordanian.  I don’t know about you, but I’d totally watch a reality show of a King who disguised himself and tried to blend in with average citizens.

•WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO STRAUSS-KAHN? (The New York Review of Books, December 22, 2011)
One of the most sensational stories of 2011 is also one of the most mysterious.  With the charges against DSK being dropped, there’s something deeper about this story that we’ll probably never learn.

•INTERVIEW ABOUT JOHN JEREMIAH SULLIVAN’S NEW BOOK: PULPHEAD (GQ, November 2011)

•THE FINAL COMEBACK OF AXL ROSE (GQ, September 2006)
It’s Axl.  If you’re like me, you probably still know all the words to everything from Appetite For Destruction, Use Your Illusion, and Use Your Illusion.  If you’re like me, you also probably tried to do Axl’s snake dance for 3 years straight, or put a towel over your head and pretended to play a broom everytime you heard Slash’s solo at the end of “November Rain”.  What…no one else did that?

•LEAVING REALITY (GQ, JULY 2005)
John Jeremiah Sullivan takes a look at what happens to cast members after their stint on MTV’s The Real World ends.  A major personality in this article is Mike Mizanin, who would become arguably the most famous former Real World cast member a few years later as a legitimate star in the WWE with even a bit of mainstream crossover celebrity appeal.

•BACK IN THE DAY (GQ, SEPTEMBER 2009)
John Jeremiah Sullivan remembers the old Michael Jackson, which happened to be the young Michael Jackson.

•WELCOME TO THE FAR EASTERN CONFERENCE (GQ, MAY 2011)
Former NBA star Stephon Marbury’s basketball career in China.

•WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ALTERNATIVE NATION? (The A.V. Club, October 2010-February 2011)
•PART 1, 1990: “ONCE UPON A TIME, I COULD LOVE YOU”
•PART 2, 1991: “WHAT’S SO CIVIL ABOUT WAR ANYWAY?”
•PART 3, 1992: PEARL JAM, THE PERILS OF FAME, AND THE TROUBLE WITH AVOIDING IT
•PART 4, 1993: SMASHING PUMPKINS, LIZ PHAIR, AND URGE OVERKILL FORSAKE THE UNDERGROUND
•PART 5, 1994: KURT COBAIN IS DEAD! LONG LIVE SOUNDGARDEN!
•PART 6, 1995: LIVE, BUSH, AND ALANIS MORISSETTE TAKE THE POP PATH
•PART 7, 1996: LAYNE STALEY AND BRADLEY NOWELL ARE THE LIVING DEAD
•PART 8, 1997: THE BALLAD OF OASIS AND RADIOHEAD
•PART 9, 1998: YOU’RE EITHER WITH KORN AND LIMP BIZKIT, OR YOU’RE AGAINST THEM
•PART 10, 1999: BY THE TIME WE GOT TO WOODSTOCK ‘99…
Steven Hyden’s retrospective of what alternative music was, how it was born, how it evolved, and how it seemingly died is one of the best stories of the year, in my opinion.  Hyden recounts the era in historic, yet somewhat autobiographical way.  If you were old enough to have been devastated when Kurt Cobain killed himself or to have taken a date to go see Reality Bites, this story is right up your alley.  Hyden recently added an exclusive new essay to his original ten-part series and made the whole story available for download from Kindle.

•THAT’S NOT FUNNY, THAT’S C.K. (GQ, August 2011)
Louis C.K. is prominently involved in this article.  That’s all that need to be said for it to be a must-read.

•SCOTT STORCH RAKED IN HIP-HOP MILLIONS AND THEN SNORTED HIS WAY TO RUIN (Miami New Times, April 22, 2010)
Scott Storch is a douche and I thought his production style was overrated at best, and unlistenable in many instances.

•THE MAN WHO SAILED HIS HOUSE (GQ, October 2011)
This sounds like an analogy for something, but it’s not.  It’s literally a story about a man who was rescued after the massive Japanese earthquake and tsunami.  When he was spotted, he was floating in the sea several miles from shore on the roof of his house.

•WHO KILLED CHE? (Guernica, October 15, 2011)
Forty-four years after his death, Guernica focuses on Ché Guevara’s final days and his last revolution.  It’s no surprise which shadowy government agency had a hand in the manhunt for Ché which ended with him being summarily executed in Bolivia.

•CHANGING TIMES: JILL ABRAMSON TAKES CHARGE OF THE GRAY LADY (The New Yorker, October 24, 2011)

•THE DEATHS MAP: AT THE MEXICAN BORDER (London Review of Books, October 20, 2011)

•INSIDE OBAMA’S WAR ROOM (Rolling Stone, October 13, 2011)
The President, his decision to support the Libyan uprising, and the battles within his own Administration over the situation.

•THE WOMAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (Vanity Fair, November 2011)

•A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BRAIN (New Scientist, September 26, 2011)

•WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW CAN KILL YOU (Discover Magazine, July/August 2011)

•ELIZABETH ECKFORD AND HAZEL BRYAN: THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTOGRAPH THAT SHAMED AMERICA (The Telegraph, October 9, 2011)
A profile of the two principal figures of a photo of an angry white girl (Bryan) screaming at a peaceful but frightened black girl (Eckford) as the Little Rock Nine attempted to integrate Little Rock Central High School in 1957.

•CHARLES DARWIN, ECONOMIST (The American Interest, November/December 2011)

•FREE JOHN HINCKLEY (Washingtonian Magazine, October 2011)
In 1981, John Hinckley shot and nearly killed President Ronald Reagan and three other people outside of the Washington Hilton.  When it was revealed that Hinckley tried to assassinate President Reagan to win the love and admiration of actress Jodie Foster, the would-be assassin was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C.  After 30 years, his doctors argue that Hinckley is cured and ready to be released.

•I CAN FIND AN INDICTED WARLORD, SO WHY ISN’T HE IN THE HAGUE (Mother Jones, September 28, 2011)
Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda is wanted for war crimes, and hiding in plain sight next to a United Nations peacekeeping force.

•THE CONVICTIONS OF CONRAD BLACK (Vanity Fair, October 2011)
The legal troubles of the British media magnate.  Oddly enough — to tie it into Dead Presidents — Conrad Black has written two really good, really expansive, and just downright massive biographies about Presidents: Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom and Richard Milhous Nixon: The Invincible Quest.

•SCOTT OF THE ANTARCTIC: THE LIES THAT DOOMED HIS RACE TO THE POLE (The Guardian, September 24, 2011)

•THE SHAME OF COLLEGE SPORTS (The Atlantic, October 2011)
An extraordinary indictment of college sports by one of the preeminent historian of the Civil Rights Movement, Taylor Branch.

•“THE WRESTLER” IN REAL LIFE (Grantland, August 24, 2011)
The sad case of Ric Flair — a professional wrestling legend who is one of the most beloved and respected members of his profession.  Despite being one of the most successful wrestlers in history, the 62-year-old Flair is forced to continue wrestling as personal problems have drained his finances.  Flair’s story is eerily similar to that of Mickey Rourke’s character in The Wrestler.

•THE CULT: THE TWISTED, TERRIFYING LAST DAYS OF ASSAD’S SYRIA (The New Republic, October 4, 2011)

•A THIRD REICH PAST: WHY I CANNOT ANSWER QUESTIONS ABOUT MY GRANDFATHER (Spiegel, September 23, 2011)

•THE SURREAL RUINS OF QADDAFI’S NEVER-NEVER LAND (New York Times Magazine, September 25, 2011)

•OFFLINE: TEACHER BOOSTED FOR ALLEGED PERVY CONTACT WITH GIRL STUDENTS IN CLASS AND ONLINE (SF Weekly, September 14, 2011)

•JON STEWART AND THE BURDEN OF HISTORY (Esquire, October 2011)
A profile of Daily Show host Jon Stewart from a different perspective.

•THE RARELY NOTICED CASUALTIES OF SEPT. 11th (Boston Globe, September 6, 2011)
The airport security workers haunted by the fact that the 19 hijackers of September 11, 2001 passed through their lines of defense.

•GLEN CAMPBELL: ONE LAST LOVE SONG (The Guardian, August 26, 2011)
A singer tries to tour and make music as Alzheimer’s Disease begins to encroach.

•A DEITY GOES INTO RETIREMENT: TIBETANS FACE UNCERTAINTY IN POST-DALAI LAMA ERA (Spiegel, August 25, 2011)
The Dalai Lama and his plans to slow down.

•JON HUNTSMAN: THE OUTSIDER (Vogue, August 2011)
One of the earliest profiles of the best hope of defeating President Obama in 2012.

•THE FIERCE INTIMACY OF TENNIS RIVALRIES (New York Times Magazine, August 28, 2011)

•?UESTLOVE: 15 YEARS (Pitchfork, August 19, 2011)
An interview with the frontman of The Roots on life, hip-hop, and Jimmy Fallon.

•SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH MIKHAIL GORBACHEV (Spiegel, August 16, 2011)
An interview with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev by the German magazine Spiegel in which the questions are asked in an oddly provocative, abrasive manner.

•HE SERVED 10 PRESIDENTS, BUT DIED ALONE IN SQUALOR: WHAT HAPPENED TO THEODORIC C. JAMES? (Washington Post, August 13, 2011)

•FRESH AIR: JAY-Z (NPR, November 16, 2010)
A transcript of Terry Gross interviewing Jay-Z for NPR’s “Fresh Air”.

•KAMALA HARRIS: THE DEMOCRATS’ ANTI-PALIN (Politico, December 24, 2010)
A profile on Kamala Harris who had just been elected California’s Attorney General at the time.  Kamala was San Francisco’s District Attorney and I had the opportunity to work with her on numerous occasions during the 2008 Presidential campaign.  Kamala was an early supporter of Obama and frequently stood in as a surrogate at campaign events and fundraisers in Northern California.  If anyone is a sure thing to be a success in politics, it is Kamala Harris.

•THE COMING DEATH SHORTAGE: WHY THE LONGEVITY BOOM WILL MAKE US SORRY TO BE ALIVE (The Atlantic, May 2005)

•AMERICA’S HIDDEN DISEASES (Miller-McCune, November 2010)

•LIFE ABOARD THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION (The Guardian, October 24, 2010)

•MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCES (The Atlantic, November 1879)
No, that’s not a typo…it’s an article from 1879.

•SUPERMODERATE!: THE NEW GOVERNOR DAZZLES THE CELEBRITY-STRUCK LEGISLATORS OF SACRAMENTO (The New Yorker, June 28, 2004)
A look at the honeymoon period following California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s election.  Shortly afterward, the legislators and Gov. Schwarzenegger degenerated back into California politics as usual.

•THE LAST TWO VETERANS OF WORLD WAR I (The Awl, May 3, 2011)

•RANDY (MACHO MAN) SAVAGE’S FIRST LOVE WAS BASEBALL (Sports Illustrated, May 23, 2011)
The promising professional baseball career of Randy Poffo, who was injured in the minor leagues and eventually left baseball to become one of the most recognizable and successful professional wrestlers of all-time — “Macho Man” Randy Savage.

•SIX BROTHERS (Texas Monthly, October 2005)

•SQUID HUNTER (The New Yorker, May 24, 2004)
The hunt for the elusive, but very real giant squid.

•GOODBYE TO ALL THAT (The New York Review of Books, July 17, 1997)
Christopher Hitchens on Ché Guevara

•THE CULT OF JURASSIC PARK (Grantland, October 27, 2011)

•THE SHADOW SUPERPOWER (Foreign Policy, October 28, 2011)
The effect of the black market on the global economy.

•OAKLAND RAIDERS CEO AMY TRASK DRIVEN LIKE HER MENTOR, AL DAVIS (ESPN, November 3, 2011)
A profile of the only female CEO in the National Football League, shortly after the death of Raiders owner, Al Davis.

•DECEPTIVE PICTURE: HOW OSCAR WILDE PAINTED OVER ‘DORIAN GRAY’ (The New Yorker, August 8, 2011)

•THE HUNTER BECOMES THE HUNTED (Esquire, March 2011)
The life of an Iraqi terrorist hunter

•MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE GO TO CAMP: INSIDE THE BOHEMIAN GROVE (Spy Magazine, November 1989)
The bizarre annual gathering of wealthy, powerful, and elite men in a private grove of Redwoods north of San Francisco.

•INSIDE THE SECRET SERVICE (The Atlantic, March 2011)

•THE APOSTATE: PAUL HAGGIS VS. THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY (The New Yorker, February 14, 2011)

•THE SUICIDE CATCHER (GQ, May 2010)
A Chinese man who dedicates his free time to single-handedly try to curb suicide attempts on the Nanjing Bridge over the Yangtze River.

•THE LOCKERBIE DEAL (Vanity Fair, January 2011)

•WINONA FOREVER (GQ, January 2011)

•THE PHYSICS OF TERROR (Miller-McCune, September 9, 2011)

•NIKE’S PHIL KNIGHT HAS BRANDED OREGON INTO A NATIONAL POWER (Sports Illustrated, January 6, 2011)

•SAN FRANCISCO KILLER GROUPIE SAMANTHA SPIEGEL (SF Weekly, December 8, 2010)
To say that this girl has problems or “daddy issues” is an understatement.  Samantha Spiegel was 20 years old at the time of this story’s publication.  Basically, she writes letters to notorious criminals, such as Charles Manson, “Nightstalker” Richard Ramirez, and the man who kidnapped, raped, and murdered Polly Klaas, Richard Alan Davis, who is one of the most reprehensible human beings on the planet.  Spiegel writes these people because she gets some sort of thrill out of the attention.  Remember that REALLY creepy guy John Mark Karr who confessed to killing Jon Benet Ramsey even thought he didn’t actually do it?  Samantha Spiegel started communicated with him and they were even engaged at one point.  I won’t ruin why they didn’t make it to the altar for you; I’ll let you go ahead and read the story.

•THE TIGER’S REVENGE (Men’s Journal, September 22, 2010)
In case anyone forgets, tigers > human beings.

•THEY GET TO ME: A YOUNG PSYCHOLINGUIST CONFESSES HER STRONG ATTRACTION TO PRONOUNS (The American Scholar, Spring 2010)

•DUBYA AND ME: OVER THE COURSE OF A QUARTER-CENTURY A JOURNALIST WITNESSED THE TRANSFORMATION OF GEORGE W. BUSH (The American Scholar, Autumn 2011)

•CIVIL WARFARE IN ST. LOUIS (The American Scholar, Spring 2011)

•A RIVER RUNS THROUGH HIM (Intelligent Life, Spring 2010)
Mark Twain’s Mississippi River

•CARY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS (Vanity Fair, August 2010)
Cary Grant and LSD

•THE AGNOSTIC CARTOGRAPHER (Washington Monthly, October 2010)
“How Google’s open-ended maps are embroiling the company in some of the world’s touchiest geopolitical disputes.”

•THE HUNTED: DID AMERICAN CONSERVATIONISTS IN AFRICA GO TOO FAR? (The New Yorker, April 5, 2010)

•A THREAD ACROSS THE OCEAN (Failure Magazine, 2011)

•THE LOST CONTAINER CRUISE (Failure Magazine, 2011)

•INSIDE THE SECRET WORLD OF TRADER JOE’S (CNN Money, August 23, 2010)
Trader Joe’s RULES.  I miss living within walking distance of a Trader Joe’s.

•

After watching my Oakland Raiders got their asses handed to them by the Green Bay Packers last night (and narrowly getting knocked out of my fantasy league playoffs), I spent some time catching up on the articles on queued up in my Instapaper account.  Here’s some of my recommendations:

•GUANTANAMO DIARY: MOHAMMED EL GORANI AND JEROME TUBIANA (London Review of Books, December 15, 2011)
This is just absolutely haunting.  The story of the youngest detainee at Guantanamo, told in his own words:  “I’d seen a lot of American movies, and arrested people always said, ‘I have the right to a lawyer!’  The interrogators laughed at me: ‘Not here in Guantanamo!  You got no rights here!”  If even half of Mohammed el Gorani’s account is true, I am sickened for my country.

•WHEN DID THE GOP LOSE TOUCH WITH REALITY? (New York Magazine, November 20, 2011)
A pretty spot-on commentary by a conservative Republican who served in the Bush Administration.

•MERCENARY (Esquire)
This is just a weird story.

•MONDAY NIGHT LIGHTS: HOW JON GRUDEN BECAME AMERICA’S FOOTBALL COACH (The New Yorker, December 12, 2011)
Jon Gruden makes Monday Night Football unwatchable for me, but this is an interesting profile

•SHAKESPEARE AND VERDI IN THE THEATER (New York Review of Books, November 2011)
I may have posted this article before, but I don’t remember

•GRIEF AND SOLEMNITY: COLIN DICKEY ON THE AMERICAN WAY OF DEATH (Los Angeles Review of Books, November 27, 2011)

•REBECCA CORIAM: LOST AT SEA (The Guardian, November 11, 2011)

•JON HUNTSMAN: THE NO-DRAMA CONSERVATIVE (The American Conservative, August 24, 2011)

•CENTRAL BOOKING (The New Yorker, November 28, 2011)

•KOBE BRYANT DOESN’T WANT YOUR LOVE (Esquire, November 2007)

•BARNEY’S GREAT ADVENTURE (The New Yorker, January 12, 2009)
An older profile on Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank and his leadership in the Democratic caucus

•WHAT REALLY HAPPENED ABOARD AIR FRANCE 447 (Popular Mechanics)

•ROGER EBERT’S 1972 INTERVIEW WITH GROUCHO MARX (RogerEbert.com/Originally from Esquire Magazine)
I fucking LOVE the Marx Brothers.  I can’t get enough of Groucho, so this was pure brilliance.

•BUILDING A BETTER MITT ROMNEY-BOY (New York Times Magazine, December 4, 2011)

•THE UNLIKELY EVENT: AIRLINE SAFETY CARDS (The Paris Review, November 28, 2011)
Little-known fact: I dream that I’ll get invited to write for the Paris Review someday because I think it would be helpful with picking up chicks, among other less important reasons.

•WHAT WOULD GABBY DO? (New York Magazine, November 2011)
An interesting possibility about Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ husband, Mark Kelly, possibly picking up the political torch if Gabby can’t physically continue holding on to her Congressional seat.

•PUNCHED OUT: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A HOCKEY ENFORCER, PART I: LEARNING TO BRAWL (New York Times, December 3, 2011)
•PUNCHED OUT: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A HOCKEY ENFORCER, PART II: BLOOD ON THE ICE (New York Times, December 4, 2011)
•PUNCHED OUT: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A HOCKEY ENFORCER, PART III: A BRAIN ‘GOING BAD’ (New York Times, December 5, 2011)

•AND…SCENE: AN ORAL HISTORY OF THE UPRIGHT CITIZENS BRIGADE (New York Magazine, October 2011)

•RIFT IN PARADISE (National Geographic, November 2011)

•FACE TO FACE WITH RADOVAN KARADZIC (The Guardian, December 3, 2011)

•RICK PERRY HAS THREE STRIKES AGAINST HIM (Vanity Fair, January 2012)
A fascinating article on Governor Perry and his background.

•THE BIBLE OF KING JAMES (National Geographic, December 2011)

•JOYCE CAROL VINCENT: HOW COULD THIS YOUNG WOMAN LIE DEAD AND UNDISCOVERED FOR ALMOST THREE YEARS? (The Guardian, October 8, 2011)

•THE ETERNAL ADOLESCENCE OF BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD (New York Times Magazine, October 16, 2011)

•PLANET OF THE RETIRED APES (New York Times Magazine, July 24, 2005)

•THE GREEN BAY PACKERS HAVE THE BEST OWNERS IN FOOTBALL (Business Week, October 20, 2011)

•LIL WAYNE: THE GQ INTERVIEW (GQ, November 2011)