Today's Liberal News

V-Day to Earth Day: How Women in 70+ Countries Are Rising to End Violence Against Women & Our Planet

Valentine’s Day kicks off a campaign by feminist leaders in 70 countries across the world to celebrate One Billion Rising, an initiative by V-Day to end violence against women — cisgender, transgender and gender nonconforming — girls and the planet. ”COVID has ushered in a very strange and perplexing time for women. We are on the frontlines everywhere,” says V-Day founder V (formerly Eve Ensler).

What Nancy Meyers Understands About Love After Age 50

To some people, Valentine’s Day encourages the notion that there is a blueprint for experiencing love—a pink greeting card, an appreciation post on Instagram, or a prix-fixe dinner. I find this notion stifling. To me, the holiday should instead provide an opportunity to rethink the rote role of romantic love in our culture.

“American Reckoning”: 55 Years After KKK Murder of Mississippi NAACP Leader, Case Remains Unsolved

This month marks 55 years since the assassination of an NAACP leader. The new documentary “American Reckoning” seeks justice in the cold case of murdered civil rights activist and local NAACP leader Wharlest Jackson Sr. in Natchez, Mississippi. No one was ever charged with his 1967 murder, despite evidence pointing to the involvement of the inner circle of the local Ku Klux Klan. It’s one of many unsolved crimes targeting civil rights activists.

Spotify Signed Joe Rogan for $100 Million But Won’t Hold Him Accountable for Spreading Misinfo, Hate

Comedian Joe Rogan has come under fire for spreading COVID-19 misinformation, using racial slurs and other harmful rhetoric on his Spotify podcast. Musicians such as Neil Young and Joni Mitchell have pulled their music from the platform in protest of his $100 million contract reportedly paid by Spotify, raising questions how responsible audio platforms should be over hateful content.

Rep. Ro Khanna: The U.S. Could End the Yemen War Tomorrow. It’s Time to Stop Arming the Saudis

President Joe Biden had promised to end support for offensive operations by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen and stop all “relevant” arms sales, but the U.S. continues to service Saudi warplanes, and the administration recently approved the sale of $650 million in air-to-air missiles to Saudi Arabia. Congressmember Ro Khanna, one of the most outspoken congressional critics of the war, says the U.S. has the power to stop the fighting.

Hip-Hop Gets Its Halftime Show, Finally

One of the incredible things about hip-hop is that a quick song can feel as grand and sweeping as an album, or a novel, or a galaxy. Great rappers do a generous thing—give listeners a trove of phrases to obsess over, of inflections to imitate, of messages to absorb, and of observations to steal. When the music works, it seems effortless and impossible at once.

The Illinois Department of Corrections’ commissary shortage harms incarcerated people

by Mai Tran

This article was originally published at Prism

As a vegetarian on a restricted diet, Joel Davis is often the first to notice when commissary items become scarce.

“I literally have to remove the vegetables from my lunch tray and save them until I can see if there is anything on the dinner tray to combine them with,” Davis said. “I’m used to fasting a lot, so I often just go without eating.

Politics first, health second: Heed Virginia’s example on electing ‘moderate Republicans’

I’ve spent the past two years working in the emergency room on the front line of this pandemic, where I have lost count of how many people have been intubated, brought back to life, were told they will never see a loved one again, or learned they have life-altering conditions due to COVID-19. So to say I’m disappointed about Wednesday’s passage of an anti-masking bill in the Virginia Senate is an understatement.

Lauren Smith-Fields and the Black TikTokers who made sure we knew her name

This story was originally published at Prism.

In late December, J. Stokes was on Twitter when he first learned about the 23-year-old Black woman who was found dead in her apartment after meeting up with a Bumble date in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Wary about the accuracy of stories typically shared on the social media platform, Stokes searched to find a link to a Connecticut-based news site.

Nuts & Bolts—Inside a Democratic campaign: Helping voters in poverty vote

Welcome back to the weekly Nuts & Bolts Guide to small campaigns. It’s Super Bowl Sunday, so if you are here reading this in real-time, then you are thinking about the difference in America between the haves and have-nots. Watching the game at your house is one thing, attending a game like the Super Bowl in person? We are talking an expense that runs from $6,600 to $100,000 per ticket. Imagine that as an expense.

Gladiators

Each had been terrible
enough to himself
already, to that truestself, inside, as only he
could know it, so it
seemed it shouldmatter less what ways
in particular they’d been
terrible to each other,or even that they’d been
terrible at all.

What Reality TV Reveals About Motherhood

Most mothers have never glued lashes to their daughters’ eyelids for pageants. They’ve never, as the moms on Toddlers & Tiaras have, gotten their children’s legs spray-tanned. They haven’t stood in the audience, cuing their kids’ routines with kissy faces and arm sweeps, hollering, “Get it, girl!” and “Sparkle, baby!”But they may have let their kids sit too long in front of the TV, faces slackened and minds empty.

What American Mental Health Care Is Missing

During my last year as director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), I was in Oregon, giving a presentation to a roomful of mental-health advocates, mostly family members of young people with a serious mental illness. During my tenure as the “nation’s psychiatrist,” the nickname for my role, I oversaw more than $20 billion for mental-health research, and I was eager to share evidence of the agency’s scientific success.