Today's Liberal News

A Bug’s Life

Photographs by Tine PoppeThis article was published online on March 13, 2021.When you are an ant, the stakes are always high. There are those who would eat you—birds, snakes, bigger bugs—and those who could trample you and your environment in a single sneakered step. These enormous beings may not mean you any harm, but it is impact, not intention, that matters most.

Meghan Markle Racism Revelations Are “Shocking, But Not Surprising” to People of Color in U.K.

The British royal family is facing intense criticism over its treatment of Meghan Markle, who revealed shocking details about life as a royal in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, including mistreatment and bullying from other royals, relentless harassment by the British press, and racist comments about Markle, who was born in the United States to a Black mother and a white father. One member of the royal family, according to Markle, even speculated how dark her child’s skin would be.

“Hell on Earth”: Yemeni Children Starve to Death as U.S.-Backed Saudi Blockade Devastates Nation

The World Food Programme is warning Yemen is headed toward the biggest famine in modern history, with the U.N. agency projecting around 400,000 Yemeni children under the age of 5 could die from acute malnutrition this year as the Saudi war and blockade continues. CNN senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir says Yemen is accurately described as “hell on Earth.

The End of Trickle-Down Economics? Joe Stiglitz on the “Transformational” $1.9T American Rescue Plan

President Biden has signed the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, which Democrats are hailing as the largest anti-poverty bill in a generation. It includes stimulus checks to most adults, expanded unemployment benefits and an overhaul of the child tax credit. One study projects the law will lift almost 14 million Americans out of poverty, including 5.7 million children. “This is transformational,” says economist Joseph Stiglitz.

News Roundup: Fauci prods Trump, Treason Ted is bored, and yet another charity scandal

For today’s sleepy little news day, we have a little of everything. Ted Cruz is upset that the new president is “boring.” Dr. Fauci took to Fox News for a thinly veiled plea to the previous guy to step out of the buffet line for a stitch and maybe convince his admirers to get vaccinated against a deadly pandemic, maybe? But the family grift keeps going, and going, and going.

Nuts & Bolts: Inside a Democratic campaign: Land does not vote

It’s another Sunday, so for those who tune in, welcome to another discussion of the Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic campaign. If you’ve missed out, you can catch up any time: Just visit our group or follow the Nuts & Bolts Guide. Every week I try to tackle issues I’ve been asked about. With the help of other campaign workers and notes, we address how to improve and build better campaigns, or explain issues that impact our party.

Black family threatened after detailing horrific bullying at middle school sleepover, attorney says

A Texas mother is reportedly facing threats after she went public about allegations her son was bullied for more than a year, targeted because of his race, and tricked into drinking urine at a sleepover. Summer Smith told NBC DFW she allowed her 13-year-old Black son, a student at Haggard Middle School, to attend the sleepover in mid-February without knowing his bullies, former football teammates, would be there.

Cowbell

We come across a ridge and hear
a cowbell in the cove beyond,
a tinkle sweetening the air
with vague rubato as the breeze
erases tones and then the notes
resume like echoes from the past
or from a cave inside the cliff,
a still, calm voice in dialect
and keeping its own company,
both out of time and long as time,
both here and from a higher sphere,
as if the voice of history
were intimate as memory.

The Archbishop Who Fears for Joe Biden’s Soul

Archbishop Joseph Naumann is anxious about President Joe Biden’s soul. The two men are in some ways similar: cradle Catholics born in the 1940s who witnessed John F. Kennedy become America’s first Catholic president. Both found a natural home in the Democratic Party—in Naumann’s midwestern family, asking Catholics if they were Democrats was a redundancy. Naumann became a priest and Biden became a politician, but their paths really diverged over the issue of abortion.

When Did Following Recipes Become a Personal Failure?

Katie Martin
This article was published online on March 14, 2021.Last spring, early in the pandemic, the host of a radio food program called to ask whether I thought the lockdown would catapult women back to the 1950s. That sure looked likely: Families were home demanding three meals a day, and most of that food was coming from their own kitchens. I started wondering whether the pandemic would succeed where years of cajoling on the part of cookbook writers had failed.

What Happens When a Slogan Becomes the Curriculum

Last month, a public-school district that serves mostly elementary and middle-school students in Evanston, Illinois, held its third annual Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action—using a curriculum, created in collaboration with Black Lives Matter activists and the local teachers’ union, that introduces children as young as 4 and 5 to some of America’s most complex and controversial subjects.