It’s time once again for news and views that you can peruse! It’s another edition of your Weekly Reader! As always, if you find something that you’d like to share, drop a link in the comments!
Free Thought for the Close-Minded (from Slate): “As a longtime Slate contributor, I found that gloss provocative. I would say this site has stood out for its commitment to intellectualism and a freedom from political orthodoxy. But Coyne and Lehmann suggest that creed is now defunct—that today, it’s Quillette that holds these values. So when I read Coyne’s descriptive—more serious, more intellectual, no leftism—I couldn’t help but make my own translation: “Think of it as Slate,” perhaps, “but the way Slate used to be.””
On the Abduction of Jayme Closs and All the Men Angry at the Gillette Ad (from Role Reboot): “We don’t even know yet the extent of the abuse Closs experienced at the hands of Patterson—I expect more details to lodge themselves in my brain before it’s all over. But even now, with the scant information we have, it is much worse—and much more important—to picture what happened to Jayme Closs. To imagine her in the nondescript two-story house of a monster, stuffed under a bed on a hardwood floor. I want you to picture it, too. In your mind’s eye, I want you to see Jayme being bear-hugged by her petrified mother in the bathtub. I want you to see Jayme, bound and hauled over the body of her father and into the trunk of a car. See her barricaded under a bed for three months without the remote possibility that her mom or dad will find a way to rescue her because they are dead, and she knows they are dead. She grieves for them under the bed where weighted household objects are placed around her like prison bars.
I can’t stop seeing it, and neither should you.
Instead, the basement-dwelling incels of America are furious about an ad for razors that asks men to step up in the fight against sexual harassment and assault. Some will say these two things aren’t related. I disagree. If nothing else, the sheer volume of responses from men show which of these things matters more to them, or at least which one they are more comfortable talking about.”
Impeach Donald Trump (from the Atlantic): “Instead, he has mounted a concerted challenge to the separation of powers, to the rule of law, and to the civil liberties enshrined in our founding documents. He has purposefully inflamed America’s divisions. He has set himself against the American idea, the principle that all of us—of every race, gender, and creed—are created equal.
This is not a partisan judgment. Many of the president’s fiercest critics have emerged from within his own party. Even officials and observers who support his policies are appalled by his pronouncements, and those who have the most firsthand experience of governance are also the most alarmed by how Trump is governing.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib cursing got 5 times more coverage on cable news than Rep. Steve King embracing white supremacy (from Media Matters): “On January 4, the day after Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) referred to President Donald Trump by saying “Impeach the motherfucker” during a reception with supporters, cable news outlets (CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC) spent over two and a half hours discussing the topic. In comparison, in the roughly 24 hours following the publication of Rep. Steve King’s (R-IA) comments in The New York Times that showed him embracing white supremacy, cable news devoted just under 30 minutes of coverage to the congressman’s racism.”
Dear Media, Please Cut the Sob Stories About Trump Voters Hurt by Trump Policies (from the Nation): “All of the “economically aggrieved” Trump voters made the same immoral bargain. They calculated that allowing Trump to harass and terrorize “other” people—nonwhites, women, gays, children, whatever—would result in more money in their pocket. Now they want me to be sad when the racist offset-check they were counting on doesn’t clear? You must not know about me.”
The Walls In Our Neighborhoods (from Medium): “Each day, in a hundred little ways, elite American families build a mental wall between ourselves — capable, efficient, and deserving — and the others — the weak, sick, addicted, uneducated, undeserving. We may even pity the latter, but we don’t — as a rule — believe that our thriving has anything to do with their struggle. Not really. We have our house, our car, our country. They have theirs.”
Virginia Study Finds Increased School Bullying in Areas that Voted for Trump (from NPR): “In the 2017 responses, Huang and Cornell found higher rates of bullying and certain types of teasing in areas where voters favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
Seventh- and eighth-graders in areas that favored Trump reported bullying rates in spring 2017 that were 18 percent higher than students living in areas that went for Clinton. They were also 9 percent more likely to report that kids at their schools were teased because of their race or ethnicity.
In the 2015 data, there were “no meaningful differences” in those findings across communities, the researchers wrote.”
To protect kids, don’t send report cards home on Fridays (from UF News): “After comparing a year’s worth of verified child abuse cases to the dates elementary school report cards were issued, the researchers found a correlation between report cards and child abuse — but only when grades went home on a Friday.”
I Don’t Care About a Congresswoman Cussing (And Neither Do You) (from John Pavlovitz): “On Fox news panels and behind megachurch pulpits and on social media tirades and at family gatherings, you’re pretending you’re offended at a single word. You’re not.
If dropping an MF-bomb or profanity or coarse language were at all offensive to you, you wouldn’t have voted for this President a couple of weeks after hearing him talk about women like they’re pieces of garbage—would you?
You wouldn’t have dismissed him saying he could grab them by the p*ssy, as just “boys will be boys locker room banter,” right?
You wouldn’t have held your nose and cast your ballot for him to lead our country, after hearing him say he “moved on” a married woman “like a bitch,” would you?
You wouldn’t have cheered the expletive-laden speeches and vile interview comments as “straight talk from a guy who tells it like it is,” right?
You don’t care about cussing.”
And that’s all for this post. Drop by again for more articles you didn’t know you had to read! Until then, happy reading!
Iacon East 