Welcome back to our weekly round-up of the long reads on the web that are worth the investment. If you want to make sure you don’t miss future Global Comment content, don’t forget to sign up to our newsletter right at the bottom of this post.
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Now, the links you’re here for:
Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo-Hoo: A Childless Millennial’s Guide to Falling Apart at Disney World (Christy Lynch, Longreads)
“I approached the entrance to the Magic Kingdom in absolute horror, as a train of princesses rolled into the station above my head and released a cloud of soft, white smoke and a cheerful scream. Once I was through the gates, I power walked to Space Mountain, which was closed due to technical difficulties, then drifted toward the opposite side of the park, feeling suddenly and urgently lost. Spontaneity isn’t, shall we say, one of my gifts, and panic wiped my mind clean every time I tried to think of another attraction to visit. I worried that if I slowed down long enough to consider where I was or what I was doing, I might barf into a colorful flower bed. So I kept walking, weaving through pockets of smiling families just to stay ahead of my own thoughts.”
How Do We Preserve the Vanishing Foods of the Earth? (Lenore Newman, LitHub)
“Imagine a treasure hunt. The earth is covered in interesting plants and animals, and some are unbelievably useful. New foods and new medicines wait somewhere over the horizon, still to be discovered. Other wild plants we know well. They are the ancestors of our current crops, and we turn to these wild relations when we need to breed a new cultivar to resist a disease or pest. I called this wealth of biodiversity a library in the previous chapter, and for a good reason; it has much to teach us even now.”
The Leaders Of Australia’s “Time’s Up” Movement Made Big Promises They Couldn’t Keep (Hannah Ryan and Gina Rushton, Buzzfeed)
“Publicly, NOW had enjoyed a positive reception on launch, though it had raised only half of its quarter of a million dollar fundraising target. Privately, the blowback had been swift.
“The feedback from people and organisations in the women’s and legal sectors was unanimous: there was “no way in the world” NOW should offer a triage service.
““We weren’t a trauma-informed organisation, we weren’t legally qualified, we weren’t counselling qualified, and we didn’t have enough money,” said LJ Loch, NOW chairperson and a communications expert.”
One Night at Mount Sinai (Lisa Miller, The Cut)
““I’m like, ‘Wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa. This is not okay.’ And I am immediately concerned. I’m going under way too fast,” she remembers. But even then, it didn’t occur to her that David had any intention of harming her. Aja had been born at Mount Sinai, as had her six siblings and her own three children. Her grandmother had been a nurse there, and she grew up in the neighborhood. Mount Sinai was “my hospital,” as she puts it, and her general attitude regarding the professionals there was “Hey, Doc, do your thing. I trust you.””
When Medical Debt Collectors Decide Who Gets Arrested (Lizzie Presser, ProPublica)
“In jurisdictions with lax laws and willing judges, jail is the logical endpoint of a system that has automated the steps from high bills to debt to court, and that has given collectors power that is often unchecked. I spent several weeks this summer in Coffeyville, reviewing court files, talking to dozens of patients and interviewing those who had sued them. Though the district does not track how many of these cases end in arrest, I found more than 30 warrants issued against medical debt defendants. At least 11 people were jailed in the past year alone.
“With hardly any oversight, even by the presiding judge, collection attorneys have turned this courtroom into a government-sanctioned shakedown of the uninsured and underinsured, where the leverage is the debtors’ liberty.”
Image credit: Chris Luczkow