Our weekly recap highlighting the best feature stories from around the internet.
Andre Iguodala and Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors. Photo: Photosport
The Warriors Were Too Good at Everything to Ever Really Lose Anything – by Andrew Sharp, Grantland
“It was always going to end this way. The Warriors can shoot and outscore teams, and the Warriors can ruin teams with defense. They can go small with Draymond at center, they can go big and rotate Festus Ezeli with Andrew Bogut. They can go fast, or they can go warp speed. They are basically unbeatable at home, and they might be even better on the road. They can win 79 games with one lineup, and then they can go down a game in the NBA Finals, reinvent their entire rotation, and go win the title. After a playoffs colored by injuries and exhaustion, it’s perfect that the last team standing is the one able to adapt to anything.”
Let's get it on: the race for the world's best condom – by Zoe Cormier, The Guardian
“Brendan and Christina are part of an accelerating race for better 21st-century contraception, perhaps among the closest to understanding what future safe sex might look and feel like. The bottom line is, there are problems with the condom: while it is 98% effective when used correctly, it is hugely unpopular – worn by an estimated 5% of men worldwide. This is a fatal flaw in developing countries, where an HIV diagnosis remains a death sentence, due to the high cost of antiretroviral drugs. Condom design, almost unchanged in 120 years, is ripe for a makeover.”
If this is the beginning of the end of Reddit, then Reddit deserves to die – by T.C. Sottek, The Verge
“The great irony in all this hair-trigger martyrdom is that Reddit has always been friendly to censorship. For most of the site's history the most meaningful rules were created and enforced by its community moderators, who could be anyone that decided to create a subreddit. Reddit moderators have censored all kinds of material, including reputable journalism. It's never actually been a model of free speech, unless the ideal of free speech includes 6,000 nations run by the kind of tyrants who have the time and inclination to moderate internet message boards.”
Will the Most Heroic Character on 'Game of Thrones' Join the Army of the Dead? – by David Perry, Vice
“I've spent quite a bit of this season baffled by pointless or poorly crafted changes from the books. Why keep adding new torture and rape scenes? We get it. Why are the Unsullied suddenly so incompetent when they were the greatest warriors in Essos? Why can't the Sand Snakes defeat Bronn and a left-handed Jaime? George R. R. Martin and show-creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss have collaborated in crafting an exquisite world, the likes of which we've never really seen in a television series. It has extraordinary depth, an awesome set of plot lines, and so many interesting characters. It's why I get upset when I see Benioff and Weiss squandering these resources, both in terms of the world in which they get to play and the vast sums of money at their disposal. Averaging $6 million an episode, the HBO show dropped $200K for Cersei's walk of shame alone.”
The Real Meaning Of ‘Transracial’ – by Zack Ford, Think Progress
The revelation that Rachel Dolezal, now former head of Spokane, Washington’s NAACP chapter, is white but identifies as black has prompted a social media and cable news blitz as the country tries to make sense of a person who has artificially constructed her racial identity. Many have dubbed her as “transracial,” while others have decried that “transracial” is not actually a thing. Caught in the crossfire is a group that actually does identify as transracial, but whose identities and experiences in no way relate to Dolezal’s fabrications.
Does This Ex-Con Know the NBA Better Than LeBron – by Pat Jordan, NY Mag
“Donaghy had been an NBA referee for nine years when, in 2003, he began to place bets on NBA games — though he swore in an FBI lie-detector test, which he passed, that he never “fixed” a game with dubious calls. “I didn’t have to,” he says. “It was too easy using my insider’s knowledge.” After he resigned from the NBA and pleaded guilty in 2007, he was sentenced to 15 months in prison, lost what he describes as his $300,000 annual salary and his six-figure pension, and was ordered to pay $195,000 in restitution. His gambling exploits netted him only $100,000 in winning bets, he swears.”
An Incomplete List of Donald Trump’s Dumbest Moments – by Jason Bailey, Flavorwire
“Donald Trump officially announced his candidacy for President of the United States, a sentence that is either the funniest or most chilling thing I’ve ever typed. And when he made that announcement, he entered to the sounds of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.” The notion of an oligarch like Trump reappropriating such a song is comical enough, but come to find out — and seriously, will they ever learn — Mr. Young wasn’t wild about Trump using it, and made his displeasure known. Such a stumble might slow down some candidates, but not Trump; why, if you made a list of the dumbest things Trump’s ever done, this wouldn’t even make the cut. And how do I know? Because I just made such a list.”
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