Today's Liberal News

The digital revolution puts color back into the past

Happy holidays! With the advent of higher digital resolutions and more affordable access to digital editing technology, photography has become one of the most degraded and the most elevated artistic places for creativity. One of the great leaps in digital technology has been the ability to restore old photography. Being able to clean up scratched or eroded negatives or prints, ripped memories in picture books has never been easier.

How Zelenskyy conquered Moscow (as Napoleon), only to fall for a Russian general’s cunning plan

Russian President Vladimir Putin could only sit and watch as Volodymyr Zelenskyy led an army that invaded Russia and captured Moscow. Only a cunning plan by a Russian general was able to save Russia from being conquered.

But it was only a movie—a raunchy historic comedy, Rzhevsky vs. Napoleon, released on the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s ill-fated 1812 invasion of Russia. And Zelenskyy starred in this totally weird, over-the-top farce as Napoleon.

Sedition and dishonor: Thoughts on evidence in the Oath Keepers trial

There’s something I’ve been thinking about while I have been listening to testimony at the seditious conspiracy trial of Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes. 

Every time a witness who was or is part of the organization testifies, as they introduce themselves to the jury and they explain, in effect, how they got to where they now find themselves, there’s a sort of fawning that happens when these mostly old, mostly white men talk about the group.

Dolphins Might Have Elite Spice Tolerance

This article was originally published in Hakai Magazine.Fishers around the world are desperate for a reliable way to stop dolphins from plundering their catch. Dolphins’ net burgling—known as depredation—costs fishers income and also puts dolphins at risk of injury and entanglement. Proposed solutions, such as using noisemakers, have had mixed results.

We Still Don’t Know What Fundamentally Causes Canker Sores

A canker sore—a painful white ulcer inside the mouth—might be brought on by stress. Or the wrong toothpaste. Or certain foods: tomatoes, peanuts, cinnamon. Or an iron deficiency. Or an allergy. Or a new prescription. Or an underlying autoimmune disease.Even though millions of people suffer from them every year, researchers still don’t know much about what fundamentally causes these sores.

Harassment in Economics Doesn’t Stay in Economics

Betsey Stevenson, a professor at the University of Michigan and a former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, told me that when she hit her mid-40s, she had an “aha moment.”“I was thinking, It’s so great having gotten to this stage of my career where I’m a little more established. It’s very freeing,” she told me. “And I realized: Oh, I think I just aged out of sexual harassment.

Dr. Gabor Maté on “The Myth of Normal,” Healing in a Toxic Culture & How Capitalism Fuels Addiction

In an extended interview, acclaimed physician and author Dr. Gabor Maté discusses his new book, “The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture.” “The very values of a society are traumatizing for a lot of people,” says Maté, who argues in his book that “psychological trauma, woundedness, underlies much of what we call disease.

Lakota Historian Nick Estes on Thanksgiving, Settler Colonialism & Continuing Indigenous Resistance

Lakota historian Nick Estes talks about Thanksgiving and his book “Our History Is the Future,” and the historic fight against the Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock. “This history … is a continuing history of genocide, of settler colonialism and, basically, the founding myths of this country,” says Estes, who is a co-founder of the Indigenous resistance group The Red Nation and a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe.

Filipino Climate Activist Yeb Saño on COP27, Climate Reparations & Philippines’ New President Marcos

This week U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris visited the Philippines, where she said the U.S. would defend the Philippines “in the face of intimidation and coercion” from China and vowed to expand the U.S. military presence in the country even after former bases leaked toxic waste into the environment. We recently spoke about the environment and more with Filipino activist Yeb Saño at the U.N. climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Ukraine update: Let’s take stock of the current front lines

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As I noted yesterday, what was Russia’s five axes of attack at the start of the war has been gradually whittled down to a single front in The Donbas. Still, it’s a long front line, across two different oblasts (which collective make up the Donbas), with several directions of action. So let’s take a look at what should be the front lines for the foreseeable future (unless Ukraine surprises everyone with a new push into southern Kherson oblast or even Crimea).

Writer Sarah Fawn Montgomery talks ableism, COVID-19, and the reality of teaching at a state college

Years into the COVID-19 pandemic, people are understandably eager to try and get back into “normal” life again. But the hard reality is that the public health crisis is far from over, and we are still learning how COVID-19 impacts us in both the short and long term. While some folks are eager to move away from masking—including in indoor spaces, like restaurants and classrooms—we know that masks actually do work pretty darn well at reducing the spread of the virus.