Anthropologists and climate researchers in Western institutions are increasingly turning to Indigenous people to ask what they have observed about the world around them.
In the process, these scientists are learning that Indigenous communities have been cataloging, in their own way, data about change at a hyper-local level — insights that Westernized climate science might miss — and also how that change is affecting people.
"There’s real culinary creativity in cooking, in recipes, in the kitchen—in the domestic sphere—that gets discounted when we try to talk about vegan or vegetarian food as something where you’re just replacing the meat or the dairy or the egg." —Alicia Kennedy in conversation with Jason McBride at Hazlitt
“If you walk past a homeless dog in the street, you stop and you want to help,” he said. “You walk past a drug addict, you step over them.” He added: “We need to do better.” —John Leland for The New York Times
"Recently, competition for control of the avocado, and of the resources needed to produce it, has grown increasingly violent, often at the hands of cartels."
"The brain does not monitor itself for truth; once encoded, a memory is simply there, no matter how false it is, and a false memory can be as vivid, detailed, and laden with emotion as any other."
"Romeo approaches the electrified fence, lovestruck. What light through yonder fence breaks? It is the east, and Carolyn and Kyle Carr are the sun." —Lauren Larson for Texas Monthly
"But a few months in, his supervisor started calling him 'boy.' Keys heard white coworkers use the N-word and call people 'monkey.' There was a swastika drawn with a black marker near where he clocked in to work every day."
"There is no city more beautiful and richer with personal history to me than this one—where my parents grew up, fell in love, and left in their twenties for America. And yet, there is also no city in which I feel more out of my depth." —Shruti Swamy for AFAR
"If everything you know is passed through word of mouth and from generation to generation—if the land and olive trees are gone, and the places that birthed recipes and stories are gone—stories are all that’s left."
Looking for new writers to work with on @longreads stories. I prefer to read drafts of personal essays/reported essays but I also consider reported essay pitches, too. Rates start at $500. Read our submission guidelines: https://longreads.com/submissions/
"Still, the board voted 4 to 1 to become the first public library system in the nation to cut ties with the ALA."
Libraries are at the center of America's culture war. For #MotherJones, Kiera Butler reports on how this conflict plays out in the small-town community of Gillette, Wyoming.
"The reason websites continue to load, bank transfers go through, and civilization persists is because of the thousand or so people living aboard 20-some ships stationed around the world, who race to fix each cable as soon as it breaks."
"The kids drifted off, but I lingered in this pre-internet backwater where we used to keep a stool next to the kitchen phone and a list of phone numbers taped to the wall. How did we make plans? How did we know where to go? How did we find each other?" —Heidi Lasher for Orion Magazine
"There is something about learning, about admitting 'I don’t know,' that brings you back into that space of childhood, with its mix of excitement and possibility and fear and shame. There is something about being a beginner again."
Today at @longreads, Devin Kelly overcomes the inertia of learning a new skill as an adult to experience joy, not just because of success, but because of perseverance.
At the end of 1973, Joni "Mitchell fired her opening shot. 'Raised on Robbery' was released as the lead single to Court and Spark. 'Robbery' is a rollicking homage to ’50s rock and roll. It’s what it might sound like if Ella Fitzgerald did uppers and covered “Johnny B. Goode.” —KC Hoard for The Walrus
You're going to read and hear a LOT about the odds that Biden and Trump will be the nominees of the two major parties of the USA on the news today after the Super Tuesday results in the primary, but I expect few outlets will effectively cover the stakes of the election, as @donmoyn does here: https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/what-mandate-for-leadership-says File this one under #longreads
"In his life, Bob brought a sense of awe and wonder to many. His death has prompted a much-needed conversation about how humans and elk can share the same home. Many more elk will die on our roads this year. None will be as famous as Bob, but each one will be a life lost, and endanger human lives in the process." —Emma Gilchrist for @thenarwhal
Neil Gaiman said “Short stories are tiny windows into other worlds and other minds and other dreams. They are journeys you can make to the far side of the universe and still be back in time for dinner.” In our latest feature, longtime contributor Pravesh Bhardwaj has curated 10 short stories, all freely available to be read online.
• How Israel uses AI for assassination in the Gaza War
• A father reflects on his son’s development
• The rise of the term, “gaslighting”
• Toni Morrison’s expansive rejection letters
• The history of PostSecret
Learn why our editors have recommended these pieces and find out which story our audience loved most.