Before we delve into the posts we’re reading and loving elsewhere on the internet, don’t miss our most popular post last week…Philippa Willitts on the hypocrisy of the UK conservatives who want no takebacks on Brexit but still think it’s okay to have a no confidence vote on the PM.
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Queens of Infamy: Zenobia (Anne Thériault for Longreads)
Here’s the thing about the Roman Empire: they talked a good game about peace — Pax Romana and all that — but their entire business model depended on military action. If the Romans weren’t invading new territories , they were fighting to hold onto the ones they had already conquered. The Romans had a pretty good knack for maintaining control of what they’d taken by brute force, but the larger the Empire grew, the more unwieldy and difficult to defend it became. On top of that, by Zenobia’s time Rome itself was mired in economic and political crisis due to war being really fucking expensive and their Emperors’ centuries-long tendency to get killed on the job.
Ghosts of Highway 20 (Noelle Crombie for the Oregonian)
This rich multimedia feature explores a serious of mysterious deaths along a lonely stretch of highway…and the man who might be responsible for them.
He Helped Build an Artists’ Utopia. Now He Faces Trial for 36 Deaths There. (Elizabeth Weil for the New York Times)
At Massachusetts College of Art and Design, he studied everything: painting, photography, sculpture, metalsmithing, video art. Outside class, he played and composed music: industrial jazz, future classical and surreal glockenspiel. Along with technique, his professors taught him what would prove to be their most indelible lesson: the value of living in collaborative, creative spaces. In a contemporary-art-history class, he studied Andy Warhol’s Factory, John Cage’s early happenings. He seized on the importance of artists inspiring one another, cross-pollinating and fueling their ideas by living under one roof.
How the IRS Was Gutted (Paul Kiel and Jesse Eisinger for ProPublica/The Atlantic)
Had the billions in budget reductions occurred all at once, with tens of thousands of auditors, collectors and customer service representatives streaming out of government buildings in a single day, the collapse of the IRS might have gotten more attention. But there have been no mass layoffs or dramatic announcements. Instead, it’s taken eight years to bring the agency that funds the government this low. Over time, the IRS has slowly transformed, one employee departure at a time.
Julia Louise-Dreyfus Acts Out (Ariel Levy for the New Yorker)
In the fall of 2016, on the Friday before the Emmys, Louis-Dreyfus’s father died. She won the award, and during her acceptance speech her voice cracked as she dedicated it to his memory. “I’m so glad that he liked ‘Veep,’ ” she managed, “because his opinion was the one that really mattered.”
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Photo: taki Lau