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TODAY IS A different Sunday than usual for us at The Journal, but given all the election news, we figured that some readers might appreciate a break.
We’ve hand-picked some of the week’s best reads for you to savour.
Cyberia – the world’s first cyber cafe. It set up shop in Central London in the 1990s and was a haven for ravers, gamers, and Kylie Minogue. Kyle MacNeill of Vice remembers the the early mornings and late nights spent in the infamous cafe.
(Vice, approx 7 mins reading time)
It’s early on a Sunday morning in late 1994, and you’re shuffling your way through Fitzrovia in Central London, bloodstream still rushing after a long night at Bagley’s. The sun comes up as you come down. You navigate side streets that you know like the back of your hand. But your hand’s stamped with a party logo. And your brain’s kaput.
Coffee… yes, coffee. Good idea. Suddenly, you find yourself outside a teal blue cafe. Walking in is like entering an alien world; rows of club kids, tech heads, and game developers sit in front of desktops, lost in the primitive version of some new reality. Tentacular cables hang from the ceiling. Ambient techno reverberates from wall to wall. Cigarette smoke fills the air.
Welcome to Cyberia, the world’s first internet cafe.
In 1971, a man identified himself as DB Cooper on an airplane, hijacked said plane, and jumped with $200,000 in cash. He was never seen or heard from again. But more than 50 years on, a parachute discovered could be new evidence that could crack the case.
(Cowboy State Daily, approx 12 mins reading time)
More than five decades ago, a mild-mannered passenger in a business suit boarded a Seattle-bound flight in Oregon under the name Dan Cooper on Nov. 24, 1971. He ordered a bourbon and soda, and once in the air, handed a stewardess a handwritten note demanding $200,000 in cash and four parachutes under the threat of what appeared to be a bomb in his ratty briefcase.
The plane landed in Seattle, and authorities complied with the hijacker’s demand. After refueling, the airliner took off again.
Somewhere between takeoff and Portland, the mysterious man jumped out of the plane and into the dark sky, attempting to hold onto the freshly acquired satchel of cash.
He was never seen or heard from again, nor was the money ever found except for $5,800 in $20 bills that washed up on the banks of the Columbia River years later.
Kat Lister writes about her diagnosis with bowel cancer after losing her husband to brain cancer, and learning to appreciate her body despite her illness.
(The Guardian, approx 7 mins reading time)
Over the last year, I have witnessed my body tackle its losses in such an extraordinary way that I have often felt like a bystander in my own internal recovery. Yet standing in front of my bathroom mirror, only weeks after surgery, I looked at the bruised swell of my belly and was overcome by a sense of achievement. Which is, at the heart of it all, my body’s strength – its will to recover.
As my scars begin to soften and fade, I am no longer feeling diminished by it as I did when I was diagnosed. I don’t know what the future holds and I may still need a stoma bag in the years that follow. But somewhere in the uncertainty of what comes next, I have found a sureness that feels just as potent. Yes, my body has failed me. But in spite of the odds, it has saved me too.
Have you ever wondered how juries are selected? What about juries that have to decide on the death penalty? The New Yorker examines historical cases and what prosecutors look for in jurors.
(The New Yorker, approx 30 mins reading time)
Picking a jury in a capital case was far more onerous than in a typ9ical homicide case. Prospective jurors had to fill out questionnaires and be interviewed individually by lawyers for both sides to determine not only whether they could be fair but whether they were “death qualified”. (Those who said that they could never vote for the death penalty wee dismissed, as were those who said that they would always vote for it.)
This part of the process could take a couple of months, and eventually the prospective jurors who remained – perhaps a hundred people – returned to the courthouse for the second phase, known as the Big Spin. On that day, they sat together in the spectator section of the courtroom while a clerk spun a metal cannister, pulled out cards, and read off names. The first twelve people who were called took seats in the jury box.
Dr Gwen Adshead writes of her time as a therapist to murderers as she examines the case of Lyle and Erik Menendez, two brother who murdered their parents in their home in Beverly Hills in 1989. Now, people are supporting their release from prison. have they really changed? asks Adshead.
Warning: this article may include some details readers may find disturbing
(BBC, approx 10 mins reading time)
In my 30 years as a forensic psychiatrist and psychotherapist working in psychiatric hospitals and prisons across the UK, including Broadmoor, I have spoken to hundreds of criminals who have committed terrible offences in an attempt to help them take responsibility.
Some people assume that this is an impossible task. I’ve been asked: “But surely they can’t be helped? Aren’t they born that way?” The implication being that only an abnormal monster could inflict dreadful damage on another person – or that killers, from Ted Bundy and Rose West to Harold Shipman and the Menendez brothers, are somehow not human.
Certainly, when I first started working in this field, I assumed that people who have committed violent and murderous acts are very different from the rest of us.
But I no longer think this.
Tanya Kearns, a victim of spiking, is amongst those lobbying Stormont for legislative change. Having been spiked three years ago in a quiet pub in Belfast, she wants to see the conversation broadened to raise awareness to the issue.
(The Irish Times, approx X reading time)
Among those lobbying Stormont for legislative change is Tanya Kearns (31), a victim of spiking herself.
She believes the conversation needs to be broadened, given the many ways spiking can happen: through a tablet or powder, an injection, or more alcohol being added to a drink without consent.
The community arts worker’s traumatic experience in a quiet Belfast bar three years ago led her to set up a campaign and awareness group, Safe Night NI, in January.
To date, the group has received more than 900 contacts from people – mostly women – affected by spiking. It is backing calls for a dedicated law.
For Kearns, the issue is personal.
Yesterday, US President-elect Donald Trump announced his aim to make loyalist Kash Patel the next director of the FBI. In August, The Atlantic wrote a profile on Patel: The man who will do anything for Trump.
(The Atlantic, approx X mins reading time)
Kash Patel was dangerous. On this both Trump appointees and career officials could agree.
A 40-year-old lawyer with little government experience, he joined the administration in 2019 and rose rapidly. Each new title set off new alarms.
When Patel was installed as chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense just after the 2020 election, Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, advised him not to break the law in order to keep President Donald Trump in power. “Life looks really shitty from behind bars,” Milley reportedly told Patel. (Patel denies this.)
When Trump entertained naming Patel deputy director of the FBI, Attorney General Bill Barr confronted the White House chief of staff and said, “Over my dead body.”
When, in the final weeks of the administration, Trump planned to name Patel deputy director of the CIA, Gina Haspel, the agency’s head, threatened to resign. Trump relented only after an intervention by Vice President Mike Pence and others.
Who was this man, and why did so many top officials fear him?
Note: The Journal generally selects stories that are not paywalled, but some might not be accessible if you have exceeded your free article limit on the site in question.
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