This week’s issue features articles on progressive activism, declining salmon, how Chicago can protect birds from premature deaths, the future of coding technology, and a profile of a nasty (and powerful) literary agent.
Grace Glass and Sasha Tikko | n+1 | October 26, 2023 | 16,313 words
Whether you’ve been following the Cop City series, are hearing about it for the first time this week, or have no idea what I’m talking about, you should read this essay. For those of you who fall into the third category, here’s a quick explanation: Cop City is the nickname for a law enforcement training campus under construction near Atlanta, located on forested land once inhabited by Native Americans who were forcibly removed and then transformed into a slave plantation and then into a farm for prisoners (“Plantations, prison farms, police academies: it’s like American history,” write Grace Glass and Sasha Tychko). Opponents of the project are known as “forest defenders,” and one of them was shot and killed by police in an incident last January. This essay is an inside look at the Stop Cop City movement. It’s detailed, smart, and deeply moving. It’s about the beauty and bloodshed of the progressive movement, the stories of the land beneath us, the history of police racism, and much more. In a word, it’s epic.SD
Max Graham | Grist | November 9, 2023 | 4,931 words
Yukon salmon stocks are declining, and that should concern us all. Max Graham GristFewer and fewer fish return to spawn, causing governments to limit or halt harvests. The health and cultural impacts on remote indigenous peoples who rely on the annual salmon run to feed their communities through long winters when a can of Spam can cost $7.95 are impossible to quantify. The main culprit? Warmer rivers and oceans due to climate change. “Salmon are a cold-water species, so when temperatures rise, their metabolism speeds up and they need more energy to live,” said Ed Farley, an ecologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center. “That means they have to eat more.” Of course, with such an ecological conundrum, the causes and effects are much more complicated than that. Graham deftly weaves facts and color from fishermen, elders, fishing industry officials, and scientists to help the general reader understand not only the scope of the problem, but the devastating consequences that could happen to the fish and the people who depend on them. Can all humans with different interests work together to restore salmon stocks? I hope this idea is more than just a fish story for you, too. —KS
Ben Goldfarb | Biographical | October 31, 2023 | 3,514 words
My previous home, on a half-acre of wooded land in rural Sonoma County, Western California, had lots of large windows. So many, in fact, that birds would often fly into them. Some would be startled for a moment and fly away, others wouldn’t. Matte stickers and patterned coatings on all the windows made our home safer for birds. But what if the whole city became a deadly place for our winged friends? As Ben Goldfarb says in this post: Biographical Chicago is the most dangerous city for birds in America. It sits on the Midwest Flyway, a route for spring and fall migrations, and its glass architecture and bright lights create a dangerous combination. (Example: On a recent morning, conservation volunteers gathered around Chicago.) A Thousand Birds At McCormick Place, a massive convention center located next to Lake Michigan (which is mostly glass and considered a collision hotspot), architects, building managers, and even politicians are taking steps to make Chicago a bird-friendly city, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. Goldfarb writes informative articles for everyone to enjoy, including bird conservation, Chicago architecture and history, and urban design. —CLR
James Summers | The New Yorker | November 13, 2023 | 4,735 words
The age of the centaurs has arrived. We haven’t yet been defeated by artificial intelligence, but programmers have new powers. And half-human, half-AI coding teams have great powers. While tinkering with ChatGPT-4, Summers reflects on his long coding career, and is struck by how he reminds me of “an era of near-zero interest rates and phenomenal growth,” when programmers were gods with infinite free espresso. It’s changing fast. There’s a lot of information out there about AI, but by placing this development in the context of his own career, Summers shines a bright, dazzling light on the pivotal times we live in. It’s not necessarily scary. Sure, things are changing, but they always have been changing, and they will continue to change. “Programmers in the agricultural era probably tinkered with water wheels and crop varieties,” but programmers of the future might “spend late nights at the heart of the AI their parents once considered a black box.” While centaurs will no doubt soon be replaced by full AI horses, Summers remains confident that coding isn’t dead.translation
Alex Blasdell | The Guardian | November 9, 2023 | 7,941 words
Reading this profile of Andrew Wylie, the most powerful agent in book publishing and perhaps one of its most repulsive characters, is like eating several Big Macs: deliciously tasty but leaving you feeling sick afterwards. It’s a remarkable story about a man whose life was colorful, whose legacy was enormous, but whose ego was hideous. Plead It’s engrossing. In the twilight of his career, Wylie is the kind of guy who would say of the chain restaurant he frequents for weekday lunches, “When I eat at Joe & the Juice, I feel like I’m right next to extreme poverty. It’s a comfortable place.” He’s also the kind of guy who describes his desire to dominate China’s publishing market as “We need to bring in the tanks… We need Tiananmen Square!” I read this profile in one sitting and immediately texted it to friends, reveling in the horror and using emojis galore. Yes, dear readers, I loved it. —SD
Audience Award
This week’s most read Editors’ Picks. Drum roll please:
Caroline Tracey | The Baffler | November 6, 2023 | 5,564 words
for BafflerCaroline Tracy reports on the important work of humanitarian forensic anthropologists working with Operation Identification (OpID), a program aimed at providing closure to loved ones by identifying migrants who died while attempting to enter the United States from Mexico. A fascinating field, “…humanitarian forensic anthropology began with the Argentine forensic anthropology team, which Thomas Keenan and Eyal Weizman write as “the world’s first professional war crimes exhumation group.” Mengele’s skull—KS