An Unexpected Bright Spot in Theater? Look to Wisconsin. by Elisabeth Vincentelli

It was a delight and a surprise to flop open the most recent Sunday edition of The New York Times and discover an admiring article about American Players Theatre, the bastion of high culture located in Spring Green, Wisconsin. School field trips allowed me to attend a couple of production there when I was high school student, making it probably the first place where I was exposed to real theater. Later, in my recently concluded second adult stint as a proper Madisonian, venturing out to witness APT’s expert theatrical handicraft was a regular summer highlight. Elisabeth Vincentelli does right by the Dairyland institution in this piece.

Beware the Pundit-Brained Version of the Democratic Convention by Meredith Shiner

Framed as a preemptive warning about the faulty approaches that major media outlets were likely to take in covering the 2024 DNC, Meredith Shiner’s article is a useful compendium of the broader failings of news coverage that is tainted by political punditry. Now at least a decade into reckoning with a moronic conman as the standard bearer of one of the two major U.S. political parties, those in the news media still don’t know how to responsibly inform the public from the buckshot blasts of lies and hatred that emanate from him and his putrid enablers. This article is published by The New Republic.

What Minnesota’s Law on Free Tampons in Public Schools Actually Does by Emily Cochrane

Reporting for The New York Times, Emily Cochrane lays out the basic facts of the Minnesota laws that mandates public schools to provide free menstrual products in student bathrooms. Tempting as it is to view the Republicans harping on this policy as some insidious evil as evidence that they are baffled about how to attack someone as fundamentally decent as Tim Walz, the animosity towards the policy is genuinely in keeping with that rotting political party’s hatred for women and heartless animosity for any government action that actually improves the lives of non-wealthy citizens. The GOP are not flailing; they’re living their ugly principles.

A Gay Student Needed Help. Enter Coach Walz. by Ernesto Londoño

In recounting the biography of Tim Walz, plenty of journalists have shared the fact that he was the advisor to the gay-straight alliance club at the same high school where he coached football. Ernesto Londoño actually went out and talked to the former student, Jacob Reitan, who started the club in question and worked with Walz. Personalizing the story makes it more moving. Through his support, I’ve little doubt that Walz saved lives. This article is published by The New York Times.