Today's Liberal News

The Lie at the Heart of the Western

Anne Rearick / Agence vu / ReduxA gentleman comes from the East Coast to make his fortune. When the train lets him off in a dusty Wyoming town, he encounters an array of cowpunchers, card sharps, and ne’er-do-wells, whose coarse manners shock and intrigue him. At the saloon, he’s treated to their opinions on the local women, as well as one man’s boast that he never forgets a face—so long as that face is white.

Against the Parts of Me That Think They Know Anything

They want to put out the light of God with their mouths—want, like the sovereignty of the dead, extending just short of flesh. Theirtoday is broken, they suggest tomorrow, who right now is dancing in the sun withputty over his eyes. Like an ocean coughing up trash, I’m squeezing Godout from my pores, intention throbbing like a moon. Which ofthe jokes I told was best—the difference between man and light?Light won’t ask for your tongue. Good joke, the taste of lemon.

America Didn’t Need Sports After All

The night that sports began shutting down was the night that the United States began shutting down. On March 11, 2020, an announcer at the Oklahoma City Thunder’s home arena told fans just before tip-off that the evening’s game had been postponed. Within an hour, the visiting Utah Jazz revealed that a player—soon identified as the center Rudy Gobert—had tested positive for COVID-19, and the NBA also declared that it was indefinitely suspending the season.

The Surprising Key to Combatting Vaccine Refusal

Why wouldn’t someone want a COVID-19 vaccine?Staring at the raw numbers, it doesn’t seem like a hard choice. Thousands of people are dying of COVID-19 every day. Meanwhile, out of the 75,000 people who received a shot in the vaccine trials from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax, zero died and none were hospitalized after four weeks.

A Playlist for Your Next Walk

Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox.When asked to curate an hour of new music for Atlantic readers to listen to while walking, my mind immediately went to Sophie Xeon, the brilliant electronica producer who died at age 34 in January.