I haven't done one of these in a while, but feel the tug to come back to the "trusty (rusty) old blog" to write more, to perhaps have my expressions into the void be a bit more authentic then it would otherwise be on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram. I'm still sorting through my thinking on all that, so perhaps a post at point in the future. But for now, a couple stories/articles that grabbed my attention this past week or so ...
1. The Militias Against Masks - A longer read from The New Yorker focusing on the anti-masks rallies in Michigan and their connection with various militia groups. Having grown up in Michigan, and remembering the strong connotations of the "Michigan Militia" following the OKC bombings, the story was both an act of revelation and remembering. The type of piece that makes The New Yorker a great magazine - a deep dive into a particular area and issue that leaves you a better sense of culture and understanding.
2. Democrats set factionalism aside - From The Economist, a weekly columnist's take on Biden's nomination as the Democratic Party candidate for President and some of the internal divisions between the centrist faction of the Party with its more progressive wing.
3. This is your party on Trump - By Ezra Klein at Vox, a very revealing piece at what the current incarnation of the Republican Party has become. The fact that the Republican Party refused to write a party platform this year, simply saying that would reassert strong support for the President's agenda and administration (whatever that may be), shows itself as a personality cult rather than a political organization seriously interested in the project of governing. A revealing piece, and, knowing that Trump can certainly win in November, a scary one as well.
4. IRS Says Companies Responsible for Deferred Payroll Taxes - Speaking of the President and his agenda, this short piece is in follow up to his "executive orders" to have a payroll tax holiday in an effort to stimulate the economy. This was always an absurd idea - a payroll cut does nothing to help the 11% of the country who are unemployed. Further, the fact that the taxes are simply deferred to the first quarter of next year - meaning if implemented everyone would then have to pay double taxes for the first 3 months of 2020 (unless extended), is just not good. Payroll taxes fund Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid, all programs that shouldn't have their funding messed with in this fashion, and placing responsibility on employers to do the collection means that few will do it now. So, as with so much with Trump, its a bad idea, but he sticks with it with all his bluster and blundering, but it ends up not doing much in the end because he doesn't have a clue how things actually work.
5. Not a piece, per se, but just the link to the Washington Post's tracking of U.S. cases and deaths from the Coronavirus. Amid everything else going on, we should not forget that COVID-19 is now responsible for nearly 180,000 deaths in the United States this year, with an average of 1,000 deaths a day for most of August. My father-in-law died from COVID in early April, and our family, along with all the other families that have experienced loss, deserve better than what the current administration has offered in terms of responding to the pandemic, and acknowledging the loss and suffering that has occurred.
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Besides these pieces, I continue to read towards my goal of 84 books this year (currently on pace to meet and exceed). Finished books 63 and 64, with Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk (a very well done, somber middle-grade fiction book) and Zora Neale Hurston's Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" (Hurston's research and interview with Cudjo Lewis, an individual from the last slave ship to America). Both were good reads. I'm now into Beyond the Bright Sea, another middle-grade work by Lauren Folk, and How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, a book I was very excited finally became available at my library (also good to know that many others were interested in reading it as well).
And so I read.
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