Whoops of selfish delight by Robin Givhan

Set aside for a moment that the federal mask mandate for airplane and other mass transit was struck down through legal reasoning of questionable merit by an unqualified judge given her position because of overt adherence to ideology over all other considerations. Instead, focus of the renewed revelations of willful ignorance and brazen selfishness among the populace that the court decision revealed. Social media was filled with videos of jubilant travelers and airline employees casting off their cloth face coverings as if they were rusted-over chains of true oppression. It’s not new, this cavalier indifference to the very real risk posed by a disease that took only two years to kill more than fifteen million people worldwide, but the sight of people exalting the eradication of a reasonable public health measure is still dismaying. Writing for The Washington Post, Robin Givhan expertly, compellingly explains why the reaction is so callous and awful.

They Know How Journalism Works! They’re Just Against It! by Alex Pareene

Some of this week’s phony outrage from the right was directed at a Washington Post reporter who engaged in good, old-fashioned journalism to identify the individual behind an online social media account that specializes in stirring up bigoted harassment against members of the LGBTQ+ community. In part because too many other outlets lapse into antiquated here’s-what-both-sides-say-about-the-issue reporting on the situation, blithely ignoring that one of those sides isn’t operating in good faith, Alex Pareene correctly savages the parties putting on the thick mink coat of assumed aggrievement. They are deliberately lying, and Pareene calls them out on it. Pareene’s truth-telling about bad actors delivers almost startling relief. Pareene wrote this piece for his own newsletter, The AP.