Links of the Week, vol. 16

The following are links to interesting content we’ve read recently. If you would like to recommend a piece to share with our readers (no paywalled content, please), please use the contact form on our About page.

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Mosab Abu Toha’s Substack

is among the most important documentation I’m reading these days. All eyes on Gaza and the West Bank.

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Diamonds, Dior and Dubai Vacations: The Luxurious Lives of Georgia’s Call-Center Scammers

I recently looked into ELVTR, trying to decide whether it was a scam, when I (unwisely) shared my contact info and was repeatedly contacted by a rep whose name I then Googled. And I found him here:  | Organized Crime and Reporting Project.

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The Topeka Fools

“It’s not a book set in Kansas, but against it. It is not a book that a Kansan would want to read, it is a book for New Yorkers who want to think they understand the red states.”

The Baffler|Jessa Crispin 

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The radical 1960s schools experiment that created a whole new alphabet – and left thousands of children unable to spell

“Decades ago, a generation of UK schoolchildren unwittingly took part in an initiative aimed at boosting reading skills – with lasting consequences.”

The Guardian | Emma Loffhagen 

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Looks like The Chicago Sun-Times used AI to write a reading list—and wound up with slop.

“Today, a Bluesky user shared a photograph of what appears to be a summer reading insert published in this Sunday’s edition of the Chicago Sun-Times. The feature looks normal enough, until you actually read it and discover that only five of the fifteen books recommended by this supposedly legitimate newspaper “to deliver the perfect summer escape” are actually, um, real.”

Literary Hub |Emily Temple

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He Was Laughed Out of Academia for This Take About Technology. Turns Out He Was Right.

“Marshall McLuhan was warning us about the internet long before it was invented.”

Slate | Nick Ripatrazone

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The English land agent who inspired the “boycott” in 19th-century Ireland

Charles Cunningham Boycott, who died on June 19, 1897, was an English land agent who became infamous in Ireland.

Irish Central | Niall O’Dowd