We often set aside articles that are longer, deserve a re-read, are broader in scope…or just for fun — for weekend reading. Below are some from this week — pour yourself a hot cup of coffee & enjoy...

• How Republics Unravel: From Rome to America (TFP)

• Philosophy of the people: How two amateur schools pulled a generation of thinkers from the workers and teachers of the 19th-century American Midwest (Aeon)

• Controlled Descent -The Contingency Contingent: My fake job in Y2K preparedness (N+1)

• Follow up to a story we included in the spring. Spoiler alert: he did it!! 100-year-old veteran parachutes to raise money for Sick Kids hospital (YouTube)

• Low-carbon technologies need far less mining than fossil fuels (Our World in Data)

• Network of Georgia election officials strategizing to undermine 2024 result (The Guardian)

• We Helped John Roberts Construct His Image as a Centrist. We Were So Wrong. (Slate)

• The Power Broker. Robert Caro’s classic book on politics and unchecked power was published 50 years ago this week. Even its author said no one would buy a book about Robert Moses, New York’s megalomaniacal city planner. Today, The Power Broker is in its 74th printing and is on everyone’s list of the most important books of the 20th century. (Penguin Random House)

• Balance. The mainline media is often criticized for ‘balance as bias’ (also called bothsidesism) that gives both sides of an issue equal time or space. This assumes all issues (abortion, climate change, vaccines, Trump) are morally equal. They aren’t, as Jeff Jarvis points out about The New York Times.

• Not fake news. Indeed, all-too-true news. Steve Ballmer, former Microsoft CEO and 7th richest person on earth, has created (and stars in) a series of instructional videos, Just the Facts, on big issues like immigration in America, healthcare and the economy.

• It took 75 years for a 75% adoption rate of the flush toilet Smartphones took 10 years to accomplish the same (@MikeZaccardi)

What are you reading or listening to?