'There's no life left here'

Hi 👋 

Another Monday, another The Lazy Reader reading list. Ready to read some of the Internet’s best longform stories? ✨

It’s been a real awful week to be sick.

For those of you who are new to TLR, I work as a biotech journalist. That’s my main job. And the news cycle last week was crazy. Probably the craziest it’s been this year. There were days I was writing nearly around the clock, chasing deadlines and sources.

It was tough to keep up with my reading, especially since I just wanted to look at anything else aside from a screen. Or to sleep.

In any case, if you missed last week’s email, feel free to give that a read. Otherwise, here are some choice picks:

• OneZero (Medium) Inside the Social Media Cult That Convinces Young People to Give Up Everything

• GQ The Death-Defying Secrets of the Super-Century Club

• TexasMonthly If a Mountain Lion Didn’t Kill Christopher Whiteley, What or Who Did?

As with last week, please let me know what you think of the list this week by voting in the poll below.

Happy reading and see you again next Monday!

I refuse to accept that systematically denying and destroying healthcare to a suffering civilian population is acceptable. It isn’t.

Regardless of whatever side of the political divide you’re on, we need to be able to agree on this. Conflict notwithstanding, there are things that you don’t withhold from people. Food is one of those things. So is water. And so is adequate medical care.

I don’t typically enjoy essays, nor do I typically enjoy doctors. So this piece fits the stereotype of something that I wouldn’t even bother with. But I feel like this is one of those things that I shouldn’t turn away from. And I think you shouldn’t either. The subject matter alone should speak to how important this should be to everyone.

On a more technical level, though, this piece was expertly done. The writing is crisp and the structuring is simple enough so as not to distract from what the author is trying to say. The editing seems minimal, too, which makes sense because pieces like this sing loudest when the writer’s emotions are left as raw as they can be.

Mr. Nobody: The Bizarre Story of Sywald Skeid | GQ, $

This is one of those stories that I feel was carried more by the writing than by the actual material. Which is not to say that a profile of this Mr. Nobody is boring—quite the opposite, really. But I do think Michael Paterniti’s lens and prose did a lot of heavy lifting here, magnifying the many twists and turns of this man’s life and lay them out along a compelling narrative thread.

A nitpick, maybe: A few of the vignettes that make up the overall structure of this story tend to get lost in the weeds a bit. If you’re the type to read an article in bursts, you might find it difficult to hop out and back in.

Kiss and Kill | Vanity Fair, $

How do the kids say it these days? #WomenInMaleFields?

I have to say: That’s very apt for this story, which is an accounting of the life and crimes of Aileen Wuornos, one of the few serial killers of note in American history. Personally, I found the story to be a bit too straightforward—not much flair in the structuring and prose, and no real twists that knocked the air out of me. Others may find that to be a good thing, though, because it does allow the craziness of Wuornos’ story to speak for itself.

The Elephant Vanishes: How a Circus Family Went on the Run | The Guardian, Free

Okay—animal rights stories don’t typically strike me as sexy or particularly exciting. But I have to say this one was a really enjoyable. (At the very least, it made me forget that I was torturing myself on the treadmill). I will say, though, that the title sort of oversells the mystique of the story. There’s not really an elephant that disappeared into thin air, but more of a family that’s determined to keep her with them, even if they have to lug her across borders.

And while this isn’t the crime story that I imagined it to be, it does inspire some pretty deep thinking about our relationship with animals. I suspect pet owners will want to read this.

I have very complicated feelings about this story, mainly because I have very complicated feelings about the ICC.

This piece tries to address that head-on: It mentions my largest critique of the institution, which is that it seems to have been weaponized against poor black and brown countries. Of course, that isn’t to say that these indicted war criminals are innocent. Definitely not. Warlords and human rights violators need to be taken to trial and held accountable, regardless of color.

But for an institution that claims to be uphold justice, its convictions seem to be dubiously one-sided. Why aren’t the architects of war in the U.S. being tried at The Hague? Kissinger and Cheney more recently died surrounded by family and lauded by the establishment, despite them being responsible for thousands of deaths across the Global South? We don’t even have to look that far back. What about Netanyahu? Bush? Heck, even Obama has plenty of blood on his hands.

But it seems like the ICC—and the broader global community at large—isn’t interested in justice when meting it out is politically inconvenient. The worst part is that this story was written more than a decade ago and still so little has changed. And we wonder why people don’t believe anymore in this so-called rules-based order.

Hit Man | TexasMonthly, $

Really interesting profile of a cop who often plays the role of a hitman to help law enforcement catch criminals.

This one has all the trappings of a Skip Hollandsworth story, but I’d say it leans further into questioning our morality as a species. Through a crime lens, this story questions whether each of us has an innate and deep capacity for evil. To that end, I’d say this piece perfectly achieves its goal. At some point, this article crosses over into horror as you realize how these seemingly everyday people can fall so far into their own despair as to actually pay for someone to get killed.

Inside the Hunt for the Most Dangerous Asteroid Ever | MIT Technology Review, $

One of those really fun science stories, following a dispersed group of top scientists tasked with tracking an asteroid that could have a catastrophic impact on the planet. The way it’s structured feels like a movie, jumping from one location to another. And the story does a good job at giving these experts their flowers, highlighting the very crucial work they do.

A nitpick: Some of the language here felt a little try-hard, like the writer was exerting too much effort to make the piece more relatable to a non-specialist readership. I commiserate. And I understand, given how difficult it is to make 3% sound like steep odds. But I can’t shake the sensation that it sounds a bit amateurish in some spots.

Thirty-Six Thousand Feet Under the Sea | The New Yorker, $

Again, this is one of those stories that was heavily carried by the writing. And while I concede that there is a thrill that comes with pushing the depths of the sea, I can’t seem to shake the feeling that the main people here are way too rich and white for my taste. They have this grating disregard for regulations and safety. Sure, there may be an argument to be made that pioneers cannot be held back by such trifling concerns—but that’s what I mean by them being too white and too rich. I simply can’t fathom being that reckless. Good for them, though, that things turned out well for them.

Thanks for reading! Please, please reach out if you have feedback, suggestions, or questions. Alternatively, you can fill out this super quick survey form. I promise it won’t even take five minutes of your time, and it’ll be a HUGE help!

ALSO: I know some of the stories I recommend might be behind paywalls, and maybe I can help you with access to those. Send me a message and let’s see what we can do 😊

Until next Monday! 👋