The Week’s Best Longreads: The Daily Beast Picks for August 4, 2012

The Last Refuge of Radical America
Jonathan Mahler, The New York Times Magazine

The Occupy movement is still wreaking havoc in Oakland, the world capital of anticapitalism.

Fussbudget
Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker

How Paul Ryan captured the GOP.

The Long, Lawless Ride of Sheriff Joe
Joe Hagan, Rolling Stone

Locking up the innocent. Arresting his critics. Racial profiling. Meet America’s meanest and most corrupt politician.

Undead
Monica Murphy and Bill Wasik, Wired

The rabies virus remains a medical mystery.

Vera’s Kidney, Walter’s Money
Arndt Ginzel, Wolfgang Kraushaar and Steffen Winter, Der Spiegel

She was a poor Russian immigrant in Israel, he was a well-off German businessman. The case of Vera and Walter reveals a thriving illegal trade in kidneys and other organs—and shows how it is fueled by desperation.

How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America
Kiese Laymon, Gawker

Growing up black, and on parole in Mississippi.

For more great longreads, visit our friends at Longreads.com.