“Oliver Sacks: my periodic table,” the New York Times
If you haven’t heard, Oliver Sacks – physician, professor of neurology and best-selling author (“Musicophilia,” “Awakenings,” “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat”) — is terminally ill, and more eloquent, thoughtful, matter-of-fact and poetic about the end of his life than most of us can ever hope to be. This story is one example of that. —Pamela Espeland, Artscape columnist
“Sisi’s regime is a gift to the Islamic State,” the Brookings Institution
In a time of Syrian civil war, the rise of ISIS and the Iran nuclear deal, neither the spread of democracy in general nor the relatively new, sort-of elected, military-led government hasn’t gotten so much western attention lately. But Egypt, the biggest and in many ways most important Arab nation, matters a lot. In this piece, Brookings Scholar Shamid Hamid, senior fellow in the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World and the Center for Middle East Policy, focuses on the quality of the new version of democracy in Egypt. It isn’t a pretty picture. — Eric Black, columnist
“The ‘boys’ in the bunkhouse,” the New York Times
A couple of weeks ago, it was my good fortune to hear Dan Barry and Kassie Bracken — a writer-videographer team from the New York Times — describe their 2014 multimedia series, “The Boys in the Bunkhouse.” It’s an intimate, powerful piece in which words and images are interwoven to tell the life stories of some three dozen men with severe intellectual disabilities living involuntarily, in isolation and subject to regular abuse, in a boarding house in Atalissa, Iowa. They were paid $65 a month for their work processing poultry. —Beth Hawkins, education reporter
“How to build a city on the moon,” CityLab
Hard to resist a story with this title, though I’d argue that it should be: ‘Why haven’t we built a city on the moon yet?’ Yet as this piece from the Atlantic’s CityLab explains, it’s actually the European Space Agency that is most interested in the idea. Come on America, we can do this. — Tom Nehil, news editor
“Should prison sentences be based on crimes that haven’t been committed yet?” FiveThirtyEight
What if our criminal justice system began basing decisions on how long we should lock people up not just on past misdeeds – but on future behavior? This could soon be a reality in Pennsylvania, where judges are considering implementing statistical tools to help predict factors such as likelihood of recidivism, according to this fascinating expose by FiveThirtyEight in collaboration with The Marshall Project. Risk assessment isn’t new to criminal sentencing and parole decisions in America, but Pennsylvania would be among the first states to work future behavior into the formula. Oh, and if this concept sounds familiar, it’s because sci-fi author Philip K. Dick predicted it would happen 60 years ago. —Andy Mannix, data reporter
“Mike Brown means,” Medium
Micky Jones is a theologian/activist friend of mine from Nashville who, among other things, studies indigenous and black theology at a Portland-based seminary. She reflects here on the year since Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, and what the movement arising out of it has meant to her life and work. —Jonathan Stegall, user experience engineer
