Evicting the Landlord by Matthew Desmond In a compelling, deeply considered piece in The New York Times Magazine, Matthew Desmond uses the experience of one group of renters in Minneapolis — and the organization that worked tirelessly on their behalf … Continue reading Outside Reading — Too Damn High edition
America’s postal service is a rural lifeline—and it’s in jeopardy by Sarah Smarsh One of the most frustrating elements of the headlong scramble currently underway to demolish the U.S. Postal Service is that the effort is being led by the … Continue reading Outside Reading — Small Town, USA edition
Voter Fraud Is a Right-Wing Fiction by John Nichols It can’t be put much plainer — or more accurately — than it is in the headline to this article by John Nichols, published by The Nation. The cheap hand-wringing of … Continue reading Outside Reading — Postmarked Democracy edition
Wisconsin Is on the Brink of a Major Outbreak by Robinson Meyer This article is a week old as I post this, and it’s been weighing on me ever since. This is the state I was born in, this is … Continue reading Outside Reading — America’s COVIDland
Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. About the only good … Continue reading Laughing Matters — Veeps
The dismal truth of our nation’s sad moment in time is that there was no time to properly mourn the death of a significant public figure, a U.S. icon who started her career underestimated by a chauvinistic legal profession and … Continue reading Outside Reading — The State May Not Bolt the Door to Equal Justice edition
Buying Myself Back by Emily Ratajkowski Although I haven’t conducted a definitive analysis of the responsive media coverage to Emily Ratajkowski’s piece, written for New York magazine, I’ll wager that most of it focuses on her convincing recounting of sexual … Continue reading Outside Reading — Model Writing edition
How Conspiracy Theories Are Shaping the 2020 Election—and Shaking the Foundation of American Democracy by Charlotte Alter Admitting that there is no shortage of social-breakdown symptoms to fret about right now, I’m beginning to believe that the mainstreaming of nonsensical … Continue reading Outside Reading — The Brain Likes Crazy edition
The Future of Black Politics by Jessica Byrd One day after The New York Times rain this piece on their op-ed pages, there was a news article with on-the-ground reporting from Kenosha suggesting that the current round of wholly justifiable … Continue reading Outside Reading — Electoral Capture edition
A New Orleans Chef Navigates Disaster by Helen Rosner Helen Rosner offers an exceptional profile of Nina Compton, one of the more famous Top Chef runners-up (because most viewers found it baffling that she was denied the top prize). Because … Continue reading Outside Reading — Bywater edition
Coffee for Two 