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 world’s greatest freediver
An article about Alexey Molchanov, who is history’s most daring freediver.
(GQ, approx 31 mins reading time)
Like other activities in which the sublime is sought, danger is an animating feature. Blackouts are frequent, especially at shallow depths, even for the most skilled divers. Pressure, which builds as one goes deeper, can rupture the soft tissues of the ears, throat, and lungs if it’s not properly managed. The risks are deceptive. There is a temptation to go deeper before one is ready, which means that even the world’s best tend to bite off only incremental gains in depth. There are no shortcuts in freediving; no cheat codes to water pressure, buoyancy, and gravity. At the surface, after reacquainting with the air, there can be loss of motor skills, uncontrollable shaking, blackouts, blood. Death is rare, but ever present.
Inside the CIA’s secret war plans against the Wikileaks, based on conversations with more than 30 former US officials.
(Yahoo, approx 33 mins reading time)
The CIA’s fury at WikiLeaks led Pompeo to publicly describe the group in 2017 as a “non-state hostile intelligence service.” More than just a provocative talking point, the designation opened the door for agency operatives to take far more aggressive actions, treating the organization as it does adversary spy services, former intelligence officials told Yahoo News. Within months, U.S. spies were monitoring the communications and movements of numerous WikiLeaks personnel, including audio and visual surveillance of Assange himself, according to former officials.
3. Afghanistan falls to the Taliban
Zarlasht Halaimzai writes about watching their country fall to the Taliban, and the huge toll it took on people.
(The Guardian, approx 17 mins reading time)
Aid workers, journalists, former military personnel – people with any connection to Afghanistan – started calling anybody that could help with evacuations. The most valuable contacts were those with connections to the military – generals, special forces, people who understood how to operate in hostile environments and who could pressure the US government into getting people out. Civilians who had never dealt with emergency evacuations of people in war zones were suddenly coordinating with special forces on WhatsApp groups.
A really interesting read on the small vehicles of Tokyo, like delivery trolleys, bicycles and mamachari, and how they fit into the landscape of the city. Lots of photographs here.
(A Chair In A Room, approx 17 mins reading time)
The key to Tokyo street life is not its moving cars, but its stationery cars. In most other cities, car parking is perhaps the most obviously problematic ‘privatisation’ of public space of the street. Yet here, given the Tokyo’s parking laws—no overnight on-street parking; proof-of-parking before purchase—cars are ingeniously wedged into all kinds of spaces, unable to encroach into the shared space. Parking spaces sliced across building envelopes, scooped out from underneath stairways, tucked under eaves and awnings …
The story of how the murder of Instagram influencer Mercedes Morr has left other models terrified. (Requires login)
(Rolling Stone, approx 15 mins reading time)
Most people only learned her real name after one of her followers became so obsessed with her that he violently took her life, leaving YouTubers breathlessly speculating about her killer’s true motives and the influencer ecosystem shaken. “It’s a super scary reality that this could happen to any of us,” says Jets, who has hundreds of thousands of followers and manages other Instagram models as well. “And now it has.”
Nick Bryant writes about what it was like when his family travelled from the US to Australia.
(The Sydney Morning Herald, approx 8 mins reading time)
That time difference hit us straight away. With the nurses who met us off the flight decked out in full PPE and wielding thermometer guns. With the diggers wearing camouflage fatigues and rubber gloves who took care of our luggage. With the coach that ferried us from the airport to downtown Sydney, part of a convoy that included a police outrider at the front and a squad car bringing up the rear. In some aspects, it felt like a VIP welcome. But that acronym had taken on a new meaning. Every traveller, whether double-vaccinated or not, was treated as if they were potentially a very infected person.
…AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…
In 2017, Jim DeRogatis wrote this hugely important article about the parents who discovered R Kelly was holding their daughter against her will.
(Buzzfeed, approx 21 mins reading time)
The last time J. saw her daughter was Dec. 1, 2016. “It was as if she was brainwashed. [She] looked like a prisoner — it was horrible,” she said. “I hugged her and hugged her. But she just kept saying she’s in love and [Kelly] is the one who cares for her. I don’t know what to do. I hope that if I get her back, I can get her treatment for victims of cults. They can reprogram her. But I wish I could have stopped it from happening.”
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