Today's Liberal News

The latest conservative hot take: Greta Thunberg is like Hitler

Dave Rubin is a political commentator and talk show host who appears on YouTube and BlazeTV, a conservative network that also hosts famed Algonquin Diaper-Changing Station members Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, and, erm, one of those Duck Dynasty dudes. You know, the one with the shitty beard. No, not the shitty Rip Van Winkle beard. The other one. The one that looks like a rent-by-the-hour motel for boisterously horny sea otters. You know, that  guy.

Two health care worker strikes highlight a broken system, this week in the war on workers

Around 2,000 health care workers at South Buffalo Mercy Hospital are on strike after weeks of negotiations left them without a deal. The workers’ own health care costs are at issue, as are staffing ratios to ensure the best care of patients. There’s an important point made in the tweets below:

My wife gets the travel nurse notices for these kinds of gigs. The pay is insane to scab.

Now Explain What the Problem Is

Academics like me love to describe things as “problematic.” But what do we mean? We’re not saying that the thing in question is unsolvable or even difficult. We’re saying—or implying—that it is objectionable in some way, that it rests uneasily with our prior moral or political commitments.

The Power of Artistic Exile

The filmmaker and polymath Melvin Van Peebles died last week at the age of 89 at his home in New York. He is best known as the auteur behind the first hit blaxploitation film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971), but he was an artist of great breadth and versatility: sculptor; poet; painter; composer and, with Gil Scott-Heron, progenitor of rap and hip-hop; playwright; gifted novelist. I would continue, but I have run out of semicolons.

Missing White Woman Syndrome: Media Obsess Over Some Cases as Black, Brown & Indigenous Women Ignored

Wall-to-wall coverage of the case of Gabby Petito — a 22-year-old white woman and blogger who went missing while traveling with her fiancé Brian Laundrie and whose remains were found in a national park in Wyoming — has renewed attention on what some call “missing white woman syndrome,” the media’s inordinate focus on white female victims and the disparity in coverage for women of color.

News Roundup: Biden wins bad on immigration; U.S mail slows down; GOP exposes its military hypocrisy

Hello Friday people! This week, like the last week, and the one before that, and the one before that has been filled with the disappointing scent of eau de Manchinema. The consequences of having had four years of an administration hell-bent on raiding the coffers and obliterating the public trust in our democracy are hurdles we must continue to overcome on the march toward progress.

Texas lawmaker introduces uber-unconstitutional resolution to make the Bible the official state book

While Texas having an official state book may seem a little like Wisconsin naming an official nonalcoholic beer and vegan goat cheese, at least the state is trying to encourage reading. Officials should probably ease into it, though. Maybe start with an official “back of a Cocoa Pebbles box” or an official misspelled, ungrammatical neck tattoo?

That’s not to say everyone in Texas is less than well-read, of course.

Well wishes come in from everywhere as Jimmy Carter turns 97

On Friday, Oct. 1, 2021, former President Jimmy Carter turned 97. The oldest living American president spent the day at home. President Joe Biden offered up this salutation: “Happy 97th Birthday to my dear friend, President Jimmy Carter. A humble servant of God. A beacon of light and moral clarity. A leader of extraordinary character, honor, and integrity. @FLOTUS and I send our love to you and Rosalynn on this special day.

Yet another high school weighs whether trans students should have basic dignity and respect

One of the simplest and most fundamental ways to respect a trans person in your life—whether they’re family, friends, coworkers, or someone you’re just meeting for the first time—is to use the correct name and pronouns. Using the correct name and pronouns is just as important as, say, pronouncing or spelling someone’s name correctly. It’s not a matter of “opinion” or “comfort” but of being accurate, respectful, and frankly, correct.

In Netflix’s Squid Game, Debt Is a Double-Edged Sword

For the chance to escape severe debt, the characters in Netflix’s hugely popular survival drama Squid Game would risk anything, even death. Take the protagonist Seong Gi-hun. Unemployed, he spends his days in Seoul gambling on horse races and has signed away his organs as collateral to his creditors. His deficits, both financial and personal, hurt the people closest to him: He hasn’t paid child support or alimony to his ex-wife; he mooches off his elderly mother.

Jeff Bezos Is Being Knocked Back Down to Earth

On the night he went to space, Jeff Bezos threw a party for his employees. The hotel restaurant in Van Horn, a town in West Texas not far from the launch site, was thrumming. Inside, someone had cut into the frosted Blue of Blue Origin on a big vanilla sheet cake. Outside, a live band jammed beneath a tent skimmed with café lights. Everyone was a little buzzed and a lot relieved. They had just launched their boss to space from the middle of the desert.

The New Anti-comedy of Jon Stewart

It seems obvious now, in hindsight, that people expected too much from comedy in the first two decades of the new millennium—that it could make us better, make us healthier, undermine despots, change minds, enable progress, even save the republic. Those were enticing ideas, but Jon Stewart never seemed to fall for them. His job was making a comedy show, as he essentially told Tucker Carlson during a 2004 appearance on CNN’s Crossfire.