Global Comment

Where the world thinks out loud

Must reads: Anarchists, Peloton, opioids, Italian food, Shroud of Turin

two pigeons

Welcome back to our weekly reading roundup!

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Holy Sheet (Megan Gannon for Topic)

Most scientists and historians are happy to accept that the Turin shroud is a medieval European creation, either a skilled forgery or a now-faded devotional icon—just one of many Christian relics residing in European churches.

The Bizarre History of Buca di Beppo, America’s Most Postmodern Red Sauce Chain (Priya Krishna for Bon Appetit)

Yes, a place showcasing enough pope paraphernalia to border on evangelistic was founded by a Lutheran from central Illinois who told me that the best Italian restaurant in his hometown growing up was a Pizza Hut.

One Doctor’s Answer to Drug Deaths: Opioid Vending Machines (Issie Lapowky for Wired)

t’s not enough to just give people safe spaces to use drugs anymore, he says. He also wants to give them safer drugs to use. And he wants to distribute them in vending machines.

The Peloton Effect (Michelle Ruiz for Elemental)

It’s 6:32 a.m. on a recent Tuesday, and the living room of my New York City apartment is dimly lit. My husband and children are mercifully still asleep, and I’m about to Peloton. Yes, it has become a verb, like Google or Xerox.

The Anarchists Who Took the Commuter Train (Amanda Kolson Hurley for Longreads)

On a wet morning in May 1915, more than 100 people stepped off the train from Manhattan at the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Stelton Station. They slogged a mile and half through the mud to reach their new home, which consisted of a dilapidated farmhouse, a barn, and an unfinished dormitory building.

Photo: .jocelyn.