We hope as you enjoy your weekend you’ll also find some time to kick back and survey some of the best writing from around the web. Check them out, but don’t forget to check out Hulafrog’s Weekend Guide to the best Chester County activities for families this weekend.

• “Death of A Young Black Journalist”, by Sarah Stillman for The New Yorker.
  • “On the night of May 27th, Charnice Milton, a twenty-seven-year-old journalist, was heading home from an assignment. She’d stopped to transfer buses in Anacostia, in Washington, D.C., after covering a neighborhood meeting for a Capitol Hill paper called the Hill Rag. According to police, Milton took a bullet aimed at another passerby, in a neighborhood that’s seen much of the twenty-per-cent increase in homicides in D.C. from this time last year. Her killing remains unsolved.”

• “Best of Enemies”, by Jim Holt, for New York Magazine.
  • “In 1968, there existed two especially splendid exemplars of a now-extinct species: “celebrity intellectual.” They were Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr. Then in their early 40s, Vidal and Buckley became nationally famous in a way that no intellectual is today. Both got onto the cover of Time; both were regulars on The Tonight Show; both made much-publicized runs for office; both provided fodder for stand-up comics. Unlike the common ruck of intellectuals, even “public” intellectuals, these two were performers: skilled controversialists whose highbrow combat could be staged as mass entertainment.”

• “Required Reading Essay Questions Written By a First-Year Adjunct Professor Who Does Not Have the Time or Wherewhithal to Do the Required Reading“, by Shay K. Azoulay, from McSweeney’s.
  • “Who sent The Scarlet Letter? To whom was it addressed? Was it a letter of recommendation? Is there some sort of easy-to-follow format for letters of recommendation which you can use for students you don’t really know that well, but on whose evaluations you depend for continued employment?”

Enjoy your weekend and we’ll see you next week!

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