IT’S A DAY of rest, and you may be in the mood for a quiet corner and a comfy chair. We’ve hand-picked the week’s best reads for you to savour.
1. The Middle East’s most powerful operative
In The New Yorker, Dexter Filkins has a fascinating profile of Qassem Suleimani. Suleimani is an Iranian operative who has been at or near the centre of just about every conflict in the region since the late 70s. He is now directing the Assad regime’s troops in Syrian.
(The New Yorker – 10,341 words – Approx 51 minutes reading time)
Suleimani came into the Green Zone to meet the Iraqis,” the Iraqi politician told me. “I think the Americans wanted to arrest him, but they figured they couldn’t.
The issue of guns is one that polarises America. Even discussing the issue of gun control in Ireland can be tough. However, what is indisputable is that a large number of American children are shot every year. Michael Luo and Mike McIntire talk to the families of some of the children killed accidentally. This is not easy reading, nor should it be.
Cassie Culpepper, 11, was riding in the back of a pickup with her 12-year-old brother and two other children. Her brother started playing with a pistol his father had lent him to scare coyotes. Believing he had removed all the bullets, he pointed the pistol at his sister and squeezed the trigger. It fired, and blood poured from Cassie’s mouth.
(New York Times – 5,699 words, Approx 28 minutes reading time)
Lucas Heagren with his father, Joshua, on Christmas 2011, holding a .22 rifle that was a present. The photograph was evidence in Mr. Heagren’s negligent homicide trial after Lucas shot himself. (NYTimes)
In August, the Guardian was forced to destroy copies of files they had obtained from the Government Communications Headquarters in the UK. Before that, however, they asked author John Lanchester if he would look at the files. Initially sceptical, Lanchester found enough in the files to say that the British public should be worried.
(The Guardian- 5,713 words, Approx 28 minutes reading time)
The problem and the risk comes in the area of mass capture of data, or strategic surveillance.
Just the week, this website reported on a tribute paid by students to a deceased teacher. Over on SeattleMet, James Ross Gardner tells a similar story. After their teacher was murdered by his own son, his students lived out his ultimate fantasy – to go to space. Tissues at the ready for this one.
(SeattleMet- 6,385 words, Approx 31 minutes reading time)
When a friend told Nae’Ana Aguon her teacher had died, the sixth grader assumed it was a prank. She texted the friend back, “Is this is a joke?” The response that flashed on her phone sunk any hope the friend was kidding. “Look at the news.”
Scott Birdseye and student Nae’Ana Aguon prepare a balloon that would send their memorial craft into space. (SeattleMet)
Over on DNAinfo Chicago, Serena Dai tells the story of a typical neighbourhood character. A bit eccentric, a thing for cats. Except John Norton is a former Animal Control worker who now catches cats on his own. Like a cop busted off the case for being too much of a loose cannon. Except Norton may just be crazy.
(DNAinfo Chicago- 1,820 words, Approx 9 minutes reading time)
“They can vilify me all they want,” Norton said. “Great souls have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds.”
On this website, Hugh O’Connell, Daragh Brophy, Sinéad O’Carroll, Michelle Hennessy and Aoife Barry put together a 7,000 word oral history of the 2008 bank guarantee. Interviewing some of the key players and taking from multiple sources, it is a comprehensive look at one of the most important events in Irish history.
(TheJournal.ie- 7,312 words, Approx 36 minutes reading time)
I didn’t know what to think but when you have the Minister for Finance of a country that is going down the tubes sitting opposite you at your kitchen table, about to wolf down raw garlic, you have to suspend your disbelief…
…AND ONE FROM THE ARCHIVES…
Stock image of a homeless man via Shutterstock.
Back in 2006, Malcolm Gladwell outlined just how much it costs the taxpayers of LA not to deal with a single homeless person. Weaving his story through the lives of the people around him, the man would become known as Million Dollar Murray.
(Gladwell.com- 6,308 words, Approx 31 minutes reading time)
Murray was such a character and had such a great sense of humor that we somehow got past that. Even when he was abusive, we’d say, ‘Murray, you know you love us,’ and he’d say, ‘I know—and go back to swearing at us.”
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