Longreads For the Holidays

The holidays is a perfect time to indulge in a book or a longread. In Twitter nomenclature, a longread is an online article which will typically take longer than the usual five minutes or less one might spend reading a web page. There is a good reason searching the internet is called "surfing": one doesn't want to spend too much time on that big wave. It will either peter out and disappoint or it will come crashing down and inundate us.

In any event, the following is a list of 5 longreads I found:

1.Karyn McCluskey: the woman who took on Glasgow's gangs: This is an article of one person's fight to find peace in a turbulent City. Karyn McCluskey, a former nurse, forensic psychologist, and head of intelligence analysis for Glasgow, turned the City's gang mentality around by understanding how violence worked "like an infectious disease" and beget "recreational violence," which in turn created the City's gang mentality. Through the use of a Boston-based initiative called "focused deterrence strategy," the scheme couples zero tolerance with, what I can only describe as, an intense collective "scared straight" program. 

2. Sleep Disorders Common Among Cops: Study Fascinating longread of a study which indicates 40% of police officers in North America suffer from sleep disorders, which may impair their judgment and reaction time. The actual journal article from JAMA is for purchase only but the Abstract is here. There is also a companion author video here.

3. A Guide to the Occupy Wall Street API There is so much out there on the Occupy movement but this longread puts an apt API spin on it. 

4. Armenian Genocide Articles: I have connected some short read articles on the Armenian genocide issue, which has been re-ignited by the recent French Bill criminalizing denial of the World War I massacre. The incredible reach of this issue makes these connections even more fascinating but the real issue of the massacre is what makes world politics disturbing. Read the articles here, here, here, here, and finally for an article on how art connects to life: here.

5. Who Owns The Words? This is from 2010 but a very relevant longread, Texts Without Context. This is a book review of Reality Hunger, a "book" by David Sheilds. The book is a compilation of excerpts of other writer's works, which are at times manipulated or micro-managed to suit Sheilds's intent. Many of the quotes are taken out of context and as such, become, through a fresh reading of the words, imbued with a new meaning. In this way, Sheilds makes these words his own. Two connections come to mind for me: Stanley Fish's Is There A Text In This Class? and the use of music sampling and remixing in hip-hop and dubstep.

So kick back and relax this weekend with some #longreads or better yet, find some for yourself! As Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote as Sherlock Holmes: "What one man can invent, another can discover."