Excellent Reads

The title doesn't do it justice; A history of the creation of competitive selective enrollment at educational institutions (not limited to the Ivies), and a discussion of its impacts on American society, as well as a consideration of possible alternatives.

archive.today link

If you couldn't be bothered to read it: It was mainly protestant Germans from rural areas, as well as upper-middle-class districts.

Also available as a documentary style video essay on YouTube.

archive link

[We] have now fully turned in terms of public sentiment toward Big Tech. People have to use it because you can’t participate in society without it, but that’s not winning users. That’s coercion. We’re talking about lock-in, where other options have been foreclosed by state abandonment or monopoly. The demand for an alternative has never been stronger.

Archive link.

The German political establishment has abandoned the belief that the Holocaust gave it a responsibility to humanity and replaced it with a responsibility to Israel alone.

I first read this excellent article many years ago. With the Central Park Five recently making speeches at the DNC, it seems timely. I find that it exposes the superficiality of contemporary public and political discourse, especially when contrasted with the systematic, detail-oriented nature of the legal process.

Archive link for those who want it: https://archive.is/20240725152155/https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2024/07/usa-cricket-team-pakistan-win-t20-world-cup/679221/

NYT but link is gift article from me

At 27, I’ve settled into a comfortable coexistence with my suicidality. We’ve made peace, or at least a temporary accord negotiated by therapy and medication. It’s still hard sometimes, but not as hard as you might think. What makes it harder is being unable to talk about it freely: the weightiness of the confession, the impossibility of explaining that it both is and isn’t as serious as it sounds. I don’t always want to be alive. Yes, I mean it. No, you shouldn’t be afraid for me. No, I’m not in danger of killing myself right now. Yes, I really mean it.

The author solves a half century old murder of a small town legend.