Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
(Photo: Photick/shutterstock.com) In 1961, when a KGB counterintelligence officer showed up at a CIA station in Helsinki, Jeanne Vertefeuille held the keys to the office safe. “Responsibility for office funds was part of my normal administrative duties,” the former CIA officer writes in Circle of Treason, the book she co-authored in 2013, “and therefore I could…
A-Force, Spider-Gwen, Ms. Marvel, Captain Marvel, Thor: There’s never been a better time for female superheroes and fans. Longer than a New York City block and bigger around than a California redwood, the shark bursts skyward from a turquoise whirlpool, jaws gnashing, purple energy beams flying from its mouth. “It’s a Megalodon!” shouts Captain Marvel,…
Updated Oct. 20, 2009 12:01 a.m. ET This week, game players and enthusiasts from 40 countries will descend upon Las Vegas to compete in the Monopoly World Championship, held roughly every four years. The winner of the Hasbro Inc. HAS 0.48 % -sponsored tournament will take home $20,580 — the precise sum stashed in the…
Buckminster Fuller was a world-renowned architect, math-obsessed designer, and affable weirdo. He died in 1983, but Fuller is still remembered fondly today for his geodesic domes and his three-wheeled cars. Despite extensive historical interest in the man, his FBI file has never been made public. Until now. Photo: Buckminster Fuller in 1929 with a model…
Above, Le Musée National du Moyen-Âge (otherwise known as The National Museum of the Middle Ages) and The University of Geneva recreate fight scenes from the 15th century, demonstrating the movements and techniques of combatants who clanked around in full suits of armor. If you’re like me, you’re watching with surprise — surprised by their agility and dexterity….
How roleplaying games and fantasy fiction confounded the FBI, confronted the law, and led to a more open web On January 17, 1980, FBI agents descended on a small business in Wisconsin to investigate a plot against the life of an American business executive in Beirut, Lebanon, named William Weatherby. The tip came to local…
4 Lessons No One Saw Coming From Bruce Jenner By now you’ve probably already watched Diane Sawyer’s interview with Bruce Jenner, or at least heard the snippets that mattered: that the Kardashian step-dad is now living as a woman, he’s a Christian Republican, and, most shocking of all, all the stuff he was doing to…
Baltimore Police officers in riot gear on April 27. Drew Angerer / Getty Images As Edward Ransford, a sociologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, listened to reports from his car radio of the rioting in Baltimore this week, he was transported back to the summer of 1965. Then a young graduate…
In 1994, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer finally got what was coming to him when fellow inmate Christopher Scarver beat him to death in a prison bathroom. And which of Dahmer’s many crimes finally pushed Scarver over the edge? Being too damn good at pranks. From the New York Post: Christopher Scarver — who fatally beat…
The revolution WILL be given permission Great Moments in Peaceful Protest History — The Nib — Medium.