Today's Liberal News

What will you take away from 2020?

In thinking about how to describe 2020, I’m reminded of a TV show that compared all of the events over the course of an awful year in an effort to make sense of it. History books tell us the year 1937 was not a good one for the people of Earth. Japan invaded China, leading to numerous atrocities including the Nanjing Massacre. Tens of thousands died as Francisco Franco began to turn the tide in his favor during the Spanish Civil War.

In favor of the weekly meatless meal

Even with Thanksgiving in the shadows, as the holiday season—or simply colder winter months—near, many people are eager to dig into some comforting and hearty cooking. Food can, of course, have a lot of cultural meaning and family memories that go beyond the specifics of any recipe. Food can also have a lot of religious significance for those who celebrate.

Trump signs spending bill with relief package, but still wants $2,000 checks and other changes

Emily Cochrane at The New York Times reports:

 President Trump on Sunday abruptly signed a measure providing $900 billion in pandemic aid and funding the government through September, ending last-minute turmoil he himself had created over legislation that will offer an economic lifeline to millions of Americans and avert a government shutdown.

The signing was a sudden reversal for the president, who last week appeared poised to derail the bill.

While pandemic deaths soar, Mike Pence is on an extended ski vacation

The United States is facing still-rising pandemic deaths and both a federal government shutdown and the end of supplemental unemployment checks to those newly out of work, but Donald Trump is, of course, currently on vacation. You may be wondering where the ostensible head of the White House coronavirus “task force” has gotten to, since we haven’t heard much from him either.

Alleged vice president Mike Pence is in Vail, Colorado.

What the Living Do

Marie Howe’s “What the Living Do” begins with an address to her brother: The kitchen sink has been clogged for days, she writes. The Drano won’t work … it’s winter again … the heat’s on too high.The poem might seem at first like a list of complaints, but it’s a list of gratitudes. Most readers won’t know that Howe’s younger brother John died of AIDS-related complications in 1989.

What Congress Could Do to Keep More College Students Enrolled

This fall I received desperate messages from many of my students at Temple University, Philadelphia’s public university. They wanted to know where they could find help catching up on bills, and described having to choose between rent, groceries, and gas. Five of my undergraduates lost a family member to COVID-19.A college education is more essential than ever to economic stability.

2020 Changed What TV Is For

“When television is good, nothing—not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers—nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse.”Nearly 60 years ago, the FCC chair Newton Minow delivered an excoriation of television that was officially titled “Television and the Public Interest” but would be remembered, among the broader American public, as the “vast wasteland” speech.

‘I Believe That the U.S.A. Can Be the Crucial Player’

Protest movements aren’t designed to last forever. And when they do reach their inevitable conclusion, they tend to follow one of two familiar sequences: In one scenario, a protest triggers the resignation of an opposed leader, the reversal of an unpopular policy, or other concessions (think of the successful recent revolutions in Algeria and Sudan).