Here are a few of the most interesting longreads I’ve read this week. If you feel like consuming even more longreads, check out TheLongRead, a subbreddit dedicated to sharing interesting longreads on the Internet.

Humanity Imperiled: The path to disaster. What is the future likely to bring? A reasonable stance might be to try to look at the human species from the outside. – by Noam Chomsky – http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/noam-chomsky-humanity-imperiled/

After Six Years of Bloodshed, Mexico’s Drug War Shows Little Sign of Waning: The horrors of daily life with the cartels. It was roughly 8 a.m., on Jan. 3, 2007. Mexican President Felipe Calderon had just landed at the airport in Uruapan, in the central state of Michoacan. – by Malcolm Beith – http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/after-six-years-of-bloodshed-mexicos-drug-war-shows-little-sign-of-waning/276533/

Mexican Manifesto: Laura and I did not make love that afternoon. In truth, we gave it a shot, but it just didn’t happen. Or, at least, that’s what I thought at the time. Now I’m not so sure. We probably did make love. – by Roberto Bolaño – http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2013/04/22/130422fi_fiction_bolano

A U.S. Soccer Star’s Declaration of Independence: The latest attempt at a women’s professional soccer league in the United States begins this weekend, so the stars of the American team from the London Olympics have, for the most part, returned to preaching the gospel stateside. – by Sam Borden – http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/sports/soccer/megan-rapinoe-does-it-her-way-in-us-and-in-france.html

When The Beautiful Game Turns Ugly: Right up until he started quoting Hitler and dropping N-bombs, my new friend was a great dude. I’ll call him The Hooligan. A more generous host would be hard to find. Soon after we met, he made sure we stopped at the one place in town that served Campari correctly. – by Roberto Parada - http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/9338962/when-beautiful-game-turns-ugly

Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens returns to the track: ““I got balls and guts,” Gary Stevens tweeted on the evening of Feb. 23. The barb was directed at an armchair critic who blasted the legendary jockey’s ride in that day’s Risen Star Stakes — at the Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots, in New Orleans. - http://www.sbnation.com/longform/2013/5/2/4289776/gary-stevens-comeback-kentucky-derby-2013-horse-racing

The Double Life Of A Gay Dodger: Originally published in the October 1982 issue of Inside Sports. The game is over and the baseball player sits in the hotel lobby, his eyes fixed on nothing. He thinks his secret is safe but he is never quite sure, so at midnight in the lobby it is always best to avoid the other eyes. - http://thestacks.deadspin.com/the-double-life-of-a-gay-dodger-493697377

The Brief Life And Complicated Death Of Tommy Lasorda’s Gay Son: Originally published in the October 1992 issue of GQ, as “Tangled Up in Blue.” A postscript from the author follows. Nighttime in Los Angeles, on a quiet street off Melrose Avenue. - http://thestacks.deadspin.com/the-brief-life-and-complicated-death-of-tommy-lasordas-485999366

Surviving Professional Baseball in the Steroid Era: Most of our writers didn’t enter the world sporting an @baseballprospectus.com address; with a few exceptions, they started out somewhere else. – by Eric Knott - http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php

Schizophrenic. Killer. My Cousin.: The thing that struck me when I first met my cousin Houston was his size. He wasn’t much taller than me, if at all, and was slight of frame. On the other side of the visitors’ glass, he looked surprisingly small, young for his 22 years. – by Mac McClelland – http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/mental-health-crisis-mac-mcclelland-cousin-murder

The Martian Chroniclers: There once were two planets, new to the galaxy and inexperienced in life. Like fraternal twins, they were born at the same time, about four and a half billion years ago, and took roughly the same shape. – by Burkhard Bilger – http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/04/22/130422fa_fact_bilger

Hot commodity: David Tran, 68, founded the hot sauce company Huy Fong Foods Inc. in L.A.’s Chinatown in 1980 and a few years later introduced Sriracha sauce to the United States. – by FRANK SHYONG – http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/food/hot-commodity-204991211.html

Overheard: Steven Soderbergh: A few months ago I was on this Jet Blue flight from New York to Burbank. And I like Jet Blue, not just because of the prices. They have this terminal at JFK that I think is really nice. – http://www.filmcomment.com/entry/steven-soderbergh-state-of-cinema-address

Escape: Each year, more than 18,000 victims of domestic violence call SafeHouse Denver’s hot line. Meet one of them. Krystal Ryan was tired. Not work-tired, when your eyes start to burn. Or mom-tired, when your shoulders ache and your neck feels hollow. – by Natasha Gardner – http://www.5280.com/magazine/2013/05/escape

The Prophets of Oak Ridge: Last summer, in the dead of night, these three people penetrated the exterior of Y-12 in Tennessee, supposedly one of the most secure nuclear-weapons facilities in the United States. – by Sister Anne Montgomery – http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/style/2013/04/29/the-prophets-of-oak-ridge/

The Guantánamo Memoirs of Mohamedou Ould Slahi: Mohamedou Ould Slahi began to tell his story in 2005. Over the course of several months, the Guantánamo prisoner handwrote his memoir, recounting what he calls his “endless world tour” of detention and interrogation. He wrote in English, a language he mastered in prison. – by Larry Siems – http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2013/04/mohamedou_ould_slahi_s_guant_namo_memoirs_how_the_united_states_kept_a_gitmo.html

So That If I Died It Mattered: 1. I went back to Ohio Friday night to see another friend from college get married. This was my fifth such wedding in three years. Surrounded by my Ohio friends and their spouses, I found myself having to consider, once again, what it means to be 29 and not in a meaningful relationship. – by Jon Sands – http://www.themillions.com/2013/05/so-that-if-i-died-it-mattered.html

One-Third of U.S. Honeybee Colonies Died Last Winter, Threatening Food Supply: Nearly one in three commercial honeybee colonies in the United States died or disappeared last winter, an unsustainable decline that threatens the nation’s food supply. – by Brandon Keim – http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/05/winter-honeybee-losses/

When Our Kids Own America: Brooklyn Park, Minn., which sits just to the northwest of Minneapolis and hugs the Mississippi River, was once the quintessential American suburb: Pretty sleepy. Midwestern. Mostly white. Jesse Ventura, the garrulous former Minnesota governor and pro wrestler, used to be the city’s mayor. – http://apps.npr.org/codeswitch-changing-races/

Dear Leader Dreams of Sushi: The sushi chef was leaving his apartment when he noticed the stranger outside. He could tell by the man’s suit—black and badly made—that he was North Korean. Right away, the chef was nervous. – by Adam Johnson – http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201306/kim-jong-il-sushi-chef-kenji-fujimoto-adam-johnson-2013

Welcome to Mogadishu: You can see where their heads hit the roof,” says a member of Somalia’s bomb squad. He is showing me pictures of the latest co-ordinated suicide attack. – by Katrina Manson – http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/e0c521b4-c8bd-11e2-acc6-00144feab7de.html

 

Here are a few of the most interesting longreads I\’ve read this week. If you feel like consuming even more longreads, check out TheLongRead, a subbreddit dedicated to sharing interesting longreads on the Internet.

Drone Home: A few months ago I borrowed a drone from a company called Parrot. Officially the drone is called an AR.Drone 2.0, but for simplicity’s sake, we’re just going to call it the Parrot. The Parrot went on sale last May and retails for about $300. – by Lev Grossman – http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2135132-1,00.html

The Man Who Killed Osama bin Laden… Is Screwed: For the first time, the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden tells his story — speaking not just about the raid and the three shots that changed history, but about the personal aftermath for himself and his family. – by PHIL BRONSTEIN – http://www.esquire.com/features/man-who-shot-osama-bin-laden-0313

Diving Deep into Danger: The first dive to a depth of a thousand feet was made in 1962 by Hannes Keller, an ebullient twenty-eight-year-old Swiss mathematician who wore half-rimmed glasses and drank a bottle of Coca-Cola each morning for breakfast. – by Nathaniel Rich – http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/feb/07/diving-deep-danger/

Frank Ocean Can Fly: Frank Ocean did not want to ride in my rented Ford Fusion; that much was clear. After I parked the car, he met me outside his modernist apartment building in Los Angeles and led me to the garage where he rents three parking spots for three different BMWs. – by Jeff Himmelman – http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/magazine/frank-ocean-can-fly.html

Animal spirits: My brothers and I looked at each other. This was last-minute advice. We were clinging at a 45-degree angle to the Mount Bisoke volcano, having hacked and crawled for three hours through stinging nettles. We started out in Rwanda; now we were in the Congo. – by Stephen T Asma – http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/stephen-t-asma-evolution-of-emotion/

How The Ruins Of Detroit Are A Warning For America: I reached down the pant cuff with the eraser end of my pencil and poked it. Frozen solid. But definitely human. I took a deep breath through my cigarette. I didn’t want to use my nose. It was late January, the air scorching cold. – http://jalopnik.com/5980916/how-the-ruins-of-detroit-are-a-warning-for-america

The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food: On the evening of April 8, 1999, a long line of Town Cars and taxis pulled up to the Minneapolis headquarters of Pillsbury and discharged 11 men who controlled America’s largest food companies. – by MICHAEL MOSS – http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html

Cinema Tarantino: The Making of Pulp Fiction: The first independent film to gross more than $200 million, Pulp Fiction was a shot of adrenaline to Hollywood’s heart, reviving John Travolta’s career, making stars of Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman, and turning Bob and Harvey Weinstein into giants. – by Annie Leibovitz, Mark Seal – http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2013/03/making-of-pulp-fiction-oral-history

Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us: 1. Routine Care, Unforgettable Bills When Sean Recchi, a 42-year-old from Lancaster, Ohio, was told last March that he had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, his wife Stephanie knew she had to get him to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. – by STEVEN BRILL – http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/bitter-pill-why-medical-bills-are-killing-us/print/

The Rape of Petty Officer Blumer: The first thing Petty Officer 2nd Class Rebecca Blumer realized upon waking was that she was freezing cold and naked. The second thing was that her body ached all over. Blumer groggily scanned the unfamiliar room for clues. – by Sabrina Rubin Erdely – http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-rape-of-petty-officer-blumer-20130214

A Loaded Gun: Amy Bishop, a neurobiologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, sat down at the conference table just moments before the faculty meeting began. – by Patrick Radden Keefe – http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/02/11/130211fa_fact_keefe

Excuse Us While We Kiss The Sky: As Singapore Airlines flight 322 descended through the early-morning haze toward Heathrow, Bradley L. Garrett, Ph.D.—just Brad to his research subjects—looked out over the gray sprawl of London spreading to a horizon streaked by sunrise. – by Matthew Power – http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201303/urban-explorers-gq-march-2013

Danse Macabre: Sergei Yurevich Filin, a man of early middle age and improbable beauty, sat behind the wheel of his car on a winter night driving toward home. It was 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the center of Moscow, a light snow in the air, snow on the rooftops, snow piled up in the lanes. Traffic was thick but brisk. – by David Remnick – http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/03/18/130318fa_fact_remnick

Growing Up In The World’s Deadliest City: The interior of the school bus is awash in blue light, lumbering through the Villa Esperanza neighborhood on the outskirts of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, on a chilly November evening. Tinny rap music in Spanish plays on a cell phone. – by Jeremy Relph – http://www.buzzfeed.com/jeremyrelph/growing-up-in-the-worlds-deadliest-city

Cypherpunk rising: WikiLeaks, encryption, and the coming surveillance dystopia: In 1989, when the internet was predominantly ASCII-based and HyperCard had yet to give birth (or at least act as a midwife) to the world wide web, R.U. Sirius launched Mondo 2000. – by R. U. Sirius – http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/7/4036040/cypherpunks-julian-assange-wikileaks-encryption-surveillance-dystopia

The Passion of Lew Wallace: Lew Wallace was making conversation with the other gentlemen in his sleeper car when a man in a nightgown appeared in the doorway. – by John Swansburg – http://www.slate.com/articles/life/history/2013/03/ben_hur_and_lew_wallace_how_the_scapegoat_of_shiloh_became_one_of_the_best.single.html

Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead?: Just after noon on a Wednesday in November, Adam Grant wrapped up a lecture at the Wharton School and headed toward his office, a six-minute speed walk away. Several students trailed him, as often happens; at conferences, Grant attracts something more like a swarm. – by SUSAN DOMINUS – http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/magazine/is-giving-the-secret-to-getting-ahead.html