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Roundup

This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in each source note. Quotation marks are not used.

  • SOURCE: Scientific American
    11/30/2021

    Humans Are Doomed to Extinction

    by Henry Gee

    From the perspective of a natural historian, humanity has had a good run, but "I suspect that the human population is set not just for shrinkage but collapse—and soon."

  • SOURCE: Religion News Services
    11/29/2021

    Taylor Swift Takes a Familiar Path to Hell and Back

    by Peter Manseau

    "In its own way, “All Too Well” tells a story not unlike myths of yore. It dabbles not in mythology, per se, but in the so-called “monomyth,” popularized as “The Hero’s Journey” by the folklorist Joseph Campbell almost 75 years ago."

  • SOURCE: Foreign Affairs
    11/29/2021

    Can Cold War History Help Stop a Disastrous US-China Conflict?

    by Li Chen and Odd Arne Westad

    The emerging superpower rivalry between the US and China is not exactly like the Cold War, and simplistic historical analogies are a poor strategic guide. But Cold War history does offer examples of potential pitfalls. 

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    11/25/2021

    What Slavery Looked Like in the West

    by Kevin Waite

    "Historians typically study Black and Native slavery as discrete systems. But America’s wealthiest slaveholders didn’t draw a fixed line."

  • SOURCE: Politico
    11/29/2021

    Biden Doesn't Need a "Sister Souljah" Moment

    by Seth Masket

    The evidence that the Democrats can win White voters by signalling disapproval of Black protesters is slim; why do strategists keep insisting on distancing themselves from a core constituency?

  • SOURCE: Salon
    11/23/2021

    Does Rittenhouse Show America's Crossed a Rubicon?

    by Jim Sleeper

    Do those applauding Kyle Rittenhouse's acquittal understand the chaos that could be unleashed when (not if) armed vigilante squads feel invited to show up not just at protests but at polling places? 

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    11/24/2021

    Why Norman Rockwell Left Thanksgiving Americana Behind

    by Andrew L. Yarrow

    Norman Rockwell left the Saturday Evening Post because its editors suppressed his calling to illustrate the moral imperatives of the growing civil rights movement. His later work is illustrative of how the privileged must be willing to take risks to confront injustice.

  • SOURCE: Los Angeles Review of Books
    11/28/2021

    Utopia’s Settler Colonialism Problem

    by Jessica Namakkal

    The commune movements of the 1960s counterculture were organized around a number of pernicious assumptions about indigenous people and the prerogatives of whites to settle and reorganize land. 

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    11/29/2021

    The Invention of America's Most Dangerous Idea

    by Gene Slater

    How did a right-wing conception of "freedom" rooted in the individual's absolute property rights supersede an idea of freedom based in social equality? Blame the real estate industry. 

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    11/23/2021

    The Conservative War on Education that Failed

    by Adam Laats

    "A full century ago, the most effective school-ban campaign in American history set the pattern: noise, fury, rancor, and fear, but not much change in what schools actually teach."

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    11/29/2021

    Can Biden Avoid Carter's Biggest Blunder?

    by Meg Jacobs

    “I’ll give it to you straight,” Carter said. “Each one of us will have to use less oil and pay more for it.” This arguably sensible position was disastrous politics. Can Biden do more to encourage conservation while acknowledging the economic pain fuel prices inflict?

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    11/15/2021

    How to Ensure a New Redlining Initiative Succeeds

    by Robert Henderson and Rebecca Marchiel

    Ensuring equity in mortgage lending requires understanding why the Community Reinvestment Act failed to achieve the same goal decades ago, through a better awareness of the ongoing problems in mortgage lending. 

  • SOURCE: Boston Review
    11/16/2021

    SNCC's Unruly Internationalism

    by Dan Berger

    SNCC activists' global understanding of the problem of racism, expressed at the height of the Cold War, cost the organization external support, but left a vital legacy for international movements for justice. 

  • SOURCE: Los Angeles Review of Books
    11/16/2021

    A Beautiful Mess: On “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”

    by Emily Suzanne Johnson

    "The people who made this film seem to care about its subject, but the film does not know itself well enough to be itself and love itself. Tammy Faye’s heart and soul just aren’t in it."