“‘Why do you think she did it?’ I asked as we stepped back into the sunlight. For that’s all any of us were thinking, had been thinking since we got the news.” David Sedaris reflects on his sister’s suicide: Now We Are Five.

+ “My old man would sit there for hours, in his underwear, playing games. He wasn’t into golf or sports cars or expensive booze. He was really into sitting in his underwear and pushing buttons and winning games … He admired three people: Jesus, Patsy Cline, and Link, the hero of his all-time favorite game. That game was The Legend of Zelda, which he would play and defeat and play again.” John Devore: Son of Pong.

+ “I don’t vote because to me it seems like a tacit act of compliance; I know, I know my grandparents fought in two world wars (and one World Cup) so that I’d have the right to vote. Well, they were conned. As far as I’m concerned there is nothing to vote for.” Russell Brand wants a revolution.

“But Ayungin is different. In the reef’s shallows there sits a forsaken ship, manned by eight Filipino troops whose job is to keep China in check.” From the NYT Magazine, a well-designed piece called A Game of Shark and Minnow.

+ PBS Newshour: The 37 year-old refugee situation you know nothing about.