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Trash decisions (Erica C. Barnett for Grist)
James Shepard, a member of Seattle’s Navigation Team (a joint effort of the city’s human services and police departments responsible for cleaning up and removing encampments), watched as the 1-800-Got-Junk truck pulled away. He said that people come here and to other nearby encampments “in the middle of the night” and unload stuff from their cars and trucks, including furniture and other heavy items that are supposed to go to the local dump. “I don’t see them toting stuff down during the day, but I’ll come up here in the morning and there will be mattresses there,” Shepard said.
A black principal, four white teens and the ‘senior prank’ that became a hate crime (Jessica Contrera for the Washington Post)
In the central office, teachers who had led diversity and empathy training for students were crying. Police were arriving, asking to see security footage. Phones were ringing with calls from reporters. Photos of the damage were about to be broadcast on TV, making their way into homes across the region.
Landscape with Beavers (Stacy Passmore for Places)
Once hunted nearly to extinction, North American beavers have recovered to a population of about 10 to 15 million. That sounds impressive, until you realize that they were once ten times as numerous. Before the colonial fur trade, beavers outnumbered humans and played nearly as big a role in shaping the environment.
The Strange Political Silence On Elder Care (Grace Gedye for Washington Monthly)
Sandra Levitsky has a theory about why long-term care has not yet gained traction as a political issue. A sociologist at the University of Michigan, she’s the author of Caring for Our Own: Why There Is No Political Demand for New American Social Welfare Rights, a book she researched in part by schlepping between adult day care centers, nursing homes, and a hospital in Los Angeles, interviewing caregivers and scribbling notes at the back of support group meetings.
My Unsexual Revolution (Diane Shipley for Longreads)
Nothing I’ve read or written has brought me any closer to understanding why I’m like this. The majority of studies and articles about vaginismus focus more on how to enable women to have (if not necessarily enjoy) penis-in-vagina sex, rather than the physical, psychological, and cultural forces that might explain it.
Photo: Greg Schechter