Today's Liberal News

For those who are high risk, the pandemic is far from over

There are times over the last three-plus years that I’ve wondered if I’ve been a little too heavy-handed in handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Those questions cropped up anew after Emily Oster of The Atlantic suggested that we declare a “pandemic amnesty” for how we reacted when the pandemic first mushroomed. With few exceptions, even though I’m vaccinated and boosted, I still wear a mask indoors. I also have a hair trigger for displays of covidiocy on social media.

Father of Clarity

Each day the same now:
I wake her up—she’s a woman
in the making, and me,
I’m still a boy, given this responsibility
of another, and my boy,
he’s visiting his mother, one
thousand miles away. We drive
to school each morning, discussing
the state of all things—
how she will need to use my razor
blades, for my legs, she says,
and armpits, except she doesn’t say
armpits, she says for under my arms.
I mention the color of the sky
at 8:15 a.m.

Football Has Found Its New Bogeyman

An analytics revolution comes for every sport sooner or later. MLB had Moneyball in the early 2000s and has moved well beyond it in the years since. The NBA has used efficiency to all but kill the mid-range jump shot. Soccer has seen an influx of countless new ways to measure passes and scoring chances down to the finest detail.The NFL’s change became most evident in 2018.

The Generation

Editor’s Note: Read an interview with Hernan Diaz about his writing process. We’re gathered around Victor’s body. I can’t look at his face and don’t want to look down like the others. Find myself staring at the glass of water on the counter. The nervous little ripples. This is why I know the hum is there, although I can’t hear it. None of us has ever heard the hum, because we were born into it.

Hernan Diaz on Erasing Subjectivity

Editor’s Note: Read Hernan Diaz’s new short story “The Generation.” “The Generation” is a new story by Hernan Diaz. To mark the story’s publication in The Atlantic, Diaz and Oliver Munday, the associate creative director of the magazine, discussed the story over email. Their conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.Oliver Munday: Your story “The Generation” follows a 13-year-old in a grim future where the fate of humanity is in peril.

What the Body Means to Say

Patient: Mechanism of injury: self-immolation. Pt conscious upon EMT arrival. Lighter fluid and matches on scene. When asked about the incident, pt reported intent to “turn herself into a phoenix.” Psych eval ordered.The summer before last, I met a woman who lit herself on fire. I’ll call her R. One evening in June, she poured lighter fluid over and into her body—down her mouth and up her rectum—and struck a match.

At Last, the Americans Have Arrived

The worst American soccer chant goes, “I … I believe … I believe that we will win.” It betrays the anxieties of those who bellow it; far from arrogantly assuming victory, it seems to argue that the success of the United States men’s soccer team is a matter of prayerful thinking. Beating England is not a dream, if you will it.But the chant, for many years, was also an honest assessment of the quality of the U.S. Men’s National Team.

Empires of Soccer

This is an edition of The Great Game, a newsletter about the 2022 World Cup—and how soccer explains the world. Sign up here.Day six of the World Cup and it’s the United States versus England, big Satan versus little Satan in the great battle of the evil imperialists. At stake, a place in the next round of a competition that would likely never have existed without the soccer-spreading British empire, taking place in a country that is unlikely to have existed without it either.

Black Friday Special: Howard Zinn & Voices of a People’s History of the United States

This year marks 100 years since the birth of the historian Howard Zinn. In 1980, Zinn published his classic work, “A People’s History of the United States.” The book would go on to sell over a million copies and change the way many look at history in America. We begin today’s special with highlights from a production of Howard Zinn’s “Voices of a People’s History of the United States,” where Zinn introduced dramatic readings from history.

Dr. Gabor Maté on “The Myth of Normal,” Healing in a Toxic Culture & How Capitalism Fuels Addiction

In an extended interview, acclaimed physician and author Dr. Gabor Maté discusses his new book, “The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture.” “The very values of a society are traumatizing for a lot of people,” says Maté, who argues in his book that “psychological trauma, woundedness, underlies much of what we call disease.

Lakota Historian Nick Estes on Thanksgiving, Settler Colonialism & Continuing Indigenous Resistance

Lakota historian Nick Estes talks about Thanksgiving and his book “Our History Is the Future,” and the historic fight against the Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock. “This history … is a continuing history of genocide, of settler colonialism and, basically, the founding myths of this country,” says Estes, who is a co-founder of the Indigenous resistance group The Red Nation and a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe.

Filipino Climate Activist Yeb Saño on COP27, Climate Reparations & Philippines’ New President Marcos

This week U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris visited the Philippines, where she said the U.S. would defend the Philippines “in the face of intimidation and coercion” from China and vowed to expand the U.S. military presence in the country even after former bases leaked toxic waste into the environment. We recently spoke about the environment and more with Filipino activist Yeb Saño at the U.N. climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

The digital revolution puts color back into the past

Happy holidays! With the advent of higher digital resolutions and more affordable access to digital editing technology, photography has become one of the most degraded and the most elevated artistic places for creativity. One of the great leaps in digital technology has been the ability to restore old photography. Being able to clean up scratched or eroded negatives or prints, ripped memories in picture books has never been easier.