Six of the Best 460

Viktor Orban

"Descriptions matter, I’m not saying they don’t – but when the politics of language pushes the rest aside, it seems to me that what it does most of all is remind us of our own powerlessness." David Boyle discusses the absence of big issues from today's politics.

Ian Ridley on why he still wants to see a change of Liberal Democrat leader.

"To be black and interact with the police is a scary thing. The fear doesn't have to come from any kind of historical antagonism, which, trust me, would be enough; it can also come from many data points of personal experience, collected over time. Almost all black men have these close-call-style stories, and we collect and mostly keep them to ourselves until one of us is killed." Lanre Akinsiku writes on the experience of being a young Black man in America for Gawker.

Amy Brouillette on Foreign Policy explains why Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban has transformed himself from a dissident compatriot of Vaclav Havel to a would-be Vladimir Putin.

Atlas Obscura takes us on a tour of the secret libraries of London.

"On that day, almost 35,000 Allied soldiers landed at Kiska ready to overpower the Japanese. As they stormed the beaches, braced for heavy casualties, they noticed something unexpected: No one was fighting back." Ella Morton on Slate reveals the strange wartime history of an Aleutians island.