Today's Liberal News

What Did Medieval Peasants Know?

In the foreword to her book A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, the historian Barbara W. Tuchman offered a warning to people with simplistic ideas about what life was like in the medieval world, and what that might say about humanity as a whole: You think you know, but you have no idea.The period, which spans roughly 500 to 1500, presents some problems for people trying to craft uncomplicated stories.

The Messy Line Between Faith and Reason

A cancer diagnosis is a shocking blow for anyone. But you might imagine that someone like Timothy Keller, a Presbyterian minister who has spent years talking with people about mortality, would be well prepared to deal with that kind of news. Keller has sat at people’s bedsides as they died, and he’s written a book called On Death. Perhaps most crucially, he believes in God and an afterlife. And yet, when Keller received a diagnosis of Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, he was terrified.

“I Was Raped by My Father. Abortion Saved My Life”: Prof. Michele Goodwin on SCOTUS & the New Jane Crow

As the Supreme Court is poised to strike down Roe v. Wade, we speak with law professor Michele Goodwin, who has written extensively about how the criminalization of abortion polices motherhood. She discusses how on the eve of the court’s oral arguments in the Dobbs case in November, she wrote about how an abortion saved her life. She describes how the U.S.

The Demise of ’90s Feminist-Zine Culture

In the late 1990s, learning about something obscure took effort. You’d have to make your way to the right bookstore or know the edgy older person who might turn you on to a special record, a book, or a zine. These pre-internet objects were community builders; if you met someone who had heard of the specific thing you were into, you made a very cool friend. That was Bitch magazine.

Premature “Normalcy” Could Backfire as U.S. COVID Death Toll Passes 1 Million & New Variants Spread

Governments around the world are eagerly returning back to pre-pandemic conditions by relaxing preventative restrictions, lifting mask mandates and pulling back public funding. Dr. Abraar Karan, infectious disease fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine, says these moves are overly optimistic and that the U.S. is not prepared for new variants spreading around the country. “We’re trying to say it’s over. It’s not true,” he says.

News Roundup: Louisiana bill will imprison women who obtain abortions; McCarthy as seditionist

With the leaked news that the Supreme Court has the votes to erase federal abortion rights, allowing states to push forward whatever new bans they might desire, Republican states are wasting no time in writing up even more extreme legislation. In Louisiana, that means a new bill criminalizing abortion and charging women who obtain abortions with murder. Republican senators continue the tradition of lying flat-out about their own declared policy stances.

Ukraine update: At the turn of the tide

There’s a line in the Lord of the Rings trilogy that appears in both the books and the films, though with slightly different words and at slightly different times. The wizard Gandalf, having been thought lost in the depths by most of his company, returns unexpectedly, appearing before a group of his friends in his new, bright white robes. “Be merry!,” Gandalf says to them. “We meet again, at the turn of the tide.

Call for Koscar nominations #9: Outstanding Rant

Daily Kos was born on May 26, 2002. That makes 2022 our 20th anniversary year, and just one of the ways we’re celebrating is by bringing back the Koscars! One of the things that makes Daily Kos special is our open platform, where community members can publish stories alongside staff. The Koscars seeks to acknowledge and honor outstanding writing contributions from everyone. The entire Daily Kos membership is “the Academy,” so your votes decide the winners.

GOP senators demand parental warnings for shows featuring LGBTQ characters

There’s a scene in the Bible where Lot offers up his daughters to be raped by a mob in order to protect two angels he’d invited into his home. Turns out the rapists had actually wanted to rape the angels, but Lot decided that would be be gauche, since they were invited guests. So, yeah—he offered the raping rabble his daughters. And Lot explicitly sweetened the deal by revealing that his daughters were both virgins.

David Lynch’s Unfathomable Masterpiece

One day, deep into production on David Lynch’s 2006 film, Inland Empire, a producer approached the actor Laura Dern in a panic, trying to parse a strange request from the director. “He took me aside and said, ‘Laura, David called me this morning, and I can’t figure out if it’s a joke,’” Dern, the movie’s lead, recalled in an interview. “‘He said, “Bring me a one-legged woman, a monkey, and a lumberjack by 3:15.

Paxlovid Mouth Is Real—and Gross

More than two years into this pandemic, we finally have an antiviral treatment that works pretty darn well. Paxlovid cuts a vulnerable adult’s chances of hospitalization or death from COVID by nearly 90 percent if taken in the first few days of an infection. For adults without risk-heightening factors, it reduces that likelihood by 70 percent. Also, it might make your mouth taste like absolute garbage the whole time you’re taking the pills.In Pfizer’s clinical trials, about 5.

Arcade Fire’s Cringeworthy Dystopia

The love song, the breakup song, the party song—all are excellent pop traditions, but a good doomsday song can do the work of all three. What connects David Bowie’s “Five Years” to Prince’s “1999” to Lana Del Rey’s “The Greatest” aren’t just visions of civilizational collapse.