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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: Washington Monthly
    10/20/2020

    How Jimmy Carter Kept Me Sane

    by Jonathan Alter

    "I wrote my Carter biography during the toxic Trump years. The Georgian’s kindness and honesty are an inspiration for me and should be for America, too."

  • SOURCE: Made by History at The Washington Post
    10/22/2020

    Will Muting Trump and Biden Save the Presidential Debates?

    by Tizoc Chavez

    Americans deserve better from the Presidential debates; if the Commission on Presidential Debates can't find a way to elevate substance over style, it should step aside for another organization to meet this civic function. 

  • SOURCE: Perspectives on History
    10/21/2020

    History, Deliberation, and Civic Culture

    by Jim Grossman

    "Equating a mode of inquiry with a heinous crime should induce not only a private shudder but a public disavowal. No reasonable definition of patriotism can accommodate this despicable metaphor."

  • SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
    10/20/2020

    The Crimes of the Campus Police

    by Grace Watkins

    "The problems with the campus police are already apparent to anyone willing to look, and gender-based violence by campus officers is an important part of the case for abolition."

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    10/17/2020

    The Women Behind the Million Man March

    by Natalie Hopkinson

    Community archives such as the District of Columbia’s are critical interventions into the omissions of history. This one, like others, makes clear that behind every great feat in the public record lies an untold story of the unsung foot soldiers, architects, analysts and fixers — and these are often women.

  • SOURCE: Made by History at The Washington Post
    10/21/2020

    Disenfranchisement in Jails Weakens our Democracy

    by Charlotte Rosen

    Because the pretrial population is disproportionately non-White, this kind of “de facto disenfranchisement” constitutes an abhorrent form of racist voter suppression, despite rarely gaining the headlines and outrage that long voting lines do. 

  • SOURCE: The Conversation
    10/19/2020

    Religious Identity And Supreme Court Justices – A Brief History

    by Nomi Stolzenberg

    In recent decades, religious influence on the Court has been shaped by conservatives of different faiths, construed as part of a mythical Judeo-Christian tradition, coalescing around a common agenda defined less by affiliation with a religious denomination than with opposition to liberalism and secularism.

  • SOURCE: TomDispatch
    10/22/2020

    Sending Trump to Hell

    by Ariel Dorfman

    How would the earthly transgressions of Donald Trump fit into the schema of eternal punishment Dante described? 

  • SOURCE: Labor and Employment Law Daily
    10/13/2020

    Labor Pulse: Is This Election Labor's Last Chance?

    by Jim Castagnera

    The election presents organized labor with a choice between a death sentence and a reprieve that will prove temporary unless unions can put their needs at the center of a Biden presidency's priorities. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    10/19/2020

    What Fans of "Herd Immunity" Don't Tell You

    by John M. Barry

    Prolonged isolation measures to fight COVID-19 do cause harm--social, emotional, and economic. But advocates of "herd immunity" are not offering a practical or safe plan to protect the vulnerable if the virus spreads on a mass scale.