Opinion | Don’t Cancel That Newspaper Subscription – By Margaret Renkl – The New York Times

By Margaret Renkl

Contributing Opinion Writer

• June 29, 2020
• • 432

The Tennessean publisher John Seigenthaler reads over the day’s paper on May 13, 1982 in his office.Credit…Bill Welch/The Tennessean, via USA Today Network

“NASHVILLE — In 1954, a man called the city desk of The Tennessean, Nashville’s daily morning newspaper, to say he planned to take his own life by jumping from the Shelby Avenue Bridge. If the paper wanted the story, he said, they should send a reporter.

At the scene, a young journalist named John Seigenthaler spent 40 minutes talking with the man, who was sitting astride a gas pipe that ran beneath the bridge’s railing. When the man turned to look at the water below, Mr. Seigenthaler, one leg anchored in the bridge’s grillwork, reached down, grabbed him by the collar and held on till nearby police officers could haul him to safety. Today the historic bridge, which spans the Cumberland River, is known as the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge in honor of the journalist who risked his life to save another’s — and got a front-page byline in the process.

Mr. Seigenthaler was a journalist with The Tennessean for 43 years. As the paper’s editor, he led its principled coverage of civil rights in spite of vocal white opposition. Nashville was the first major city in the South to desegregate public facilities, and The Tennessean’s fierce support of civil rights is often credited with contributing to the city’s relatively peaceful integration. “If it wasn’t for the newspaper, Nashville could’ve been a nasty, awful place,” said the former Tennessean columnist Dwight Lewis.

Mr. Seigenthaler died in 2014, and The Tennessean, like every other local newspaper in the country, is a shadow of its former self — smaller, thinner, slighter, diminished in every measurable way. Even before the coronavirus pandemic shut down the economy and took advertising revenue with it, The Tennessean had already endured round after round of layoffs as its parent company, Gannett, struggled. Its decline accelerated last year when Gannett merged with GateHouse Media, a company known for “the ransacking of local journalism,” as Boston Magazine put it.

A staggering 7,800 journalists lost their jobs in 2019, according to Business Insider. Once the pandemic hit, another 36,000 media-company employees got the pink slip. And all these disasters came on top of continuing losses that collectively cost American newsrooms half their journalists between 2008 and 2019.

I remind you of all this — the decades-old history of a newspaper known for advancing progressive causes and the recent history of a media company in thrall to corporate investors — to provide some context for an appalling advertisement that ran in The Tennessean on June 21.”

Opinion | These kids are done waiting for change – By Margaret Renkl – The New York Times

By Margaret Renkl

Contributing Opinion Writer

• June 15, 2020

Teens for Equality at Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park in Nashville, TN. From left: Kennedy Green, Emma Rose, Mikayla Smith, Jade Fuller, and Nya Collins.Credit…Kristine Potter for The New York Times

“NASHVILLE — In real life, Nya Collins, Jade Fuller, Kennedy Green, Emma Rose Smith, Mikayla Smith and Zee Thomas had never met as a group when they came together on Twitter to organize a youth march against police violence. It was unseasonably hot, even for Middle Tennessee, with rain predicted, and earlier protests here had ended in violence, with the Metro Nashville Courthouse and City Hall in flames. Collectively, these are not the most promising conditions for gathering a big crowd, much less a calm one. But the teenagers were determined to press on, even if hardly anyone showed up.

On June 4, five days later, the founding members of Teens for Equality — as the young women, ages 14 to 16, call their organization — were leading a march of protesters some 10,000 strong, according to police estimates. “I was astonished,” Kennedy Green, 14, told me in a phone interview last week. “I did not know there were that many people in Nashville who actually see a problem with the system. I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, there are so many people here who actually care.’”

The protesters, most in their teens and 20s, chanted “Black lives matter” and “No justice, no peace” and “Not one more” as they marched for more than five hours. There was not one hint of disarray in their ranks, no angry confrontations with National Guardsmen or police officers clad in riot gear.”

 

Opinion | Bring On the 28th Amendment – By Richard L. Hasen – The New York Times

By Richard L. Hasen

Mr. Hasen is the author of “Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust and the Threat to American Democracy.”

• June 29, 2020
• • 

After nearly two hours, people determined to vote continued to wait in line to cast their ballots in the Georgia primary election on June 9.Credit…Audra Melton for The New York Times

“What if we made voting an agent of equality, not inequality? And how can we get there?

If you are a college student or a working recent high school graduate, poor, Latino, or someone who moves more frequently, you are less likely to vote. Seniors are much more likely to vote than young people, in some elections at twice their rate. Those with college degrees vote in higher numbers than the less educated. Minority voters are more likely to wait longer in line to vote in person, sometimes for hours, and they, young people, and first-time voters are more likely to have an absentee ballot rejected for nonconformity with technical rules. Poor voters are less likely to have the time off work to vote at all, much less wait in a long line to vote. Voters in big cities, who tend to be younger, poorer and browner, have coped with more serious election problems than others in voting in person and by mail during our coronavirus-laden primary season, like the voters in Milwaukee voters who saw 175 out of 180 polling places closed during the April 7 Wisconsin primaries.

In a democratic system, we expect our elected officials to be responsive to the views and interests of the voters. If the universe of voters — and, of course, campaign donors — is skewed toward older, wealthier, better educated whiter voters, political decisions will be as well. We need equality in voting rights and turnout to assure responsive representation and social policy that reflects everyone’s needs, not just those most likely to turn out with their votes and dollars.

Let’s start with the causes of the problem. The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare three pathologies with how we protect voting rights in the United States, and why the skew in voter turnout remains persistent.”

Here’s What You Need to Know About Elijah McClain’s Death – By Lucy Tompkins – The New York Times

By Lucy Tompkins

• June 25, 2020

“As outrage over police brutality has erupted across the country in the wake of George Floyd’s death, a wave of fresh attention and scrutiny has been applied to older cases in which people died after encounters with the police.

One such case is that of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old black man who died last summer after the police in Aurora, Colo., restrained him with a chokehold that has since been banned.

Mr. McClain was walking home from a convenience store on Aug. 24 when someone called 911, saying he “looked sketchy” and was wearing a ski mask and waving his arms.

The police arrived, and after struggling to handcuff Mr. McClain, officers brought him to the ground and used a carotid hold, which restricts blood to the brain to render someone unconscious. When medical responders arrived, after about 15 minutes, paramedics injected him with ketamine, a powerful sedative.

Mr. McClain went into cardiac arrest on the way to a hospital. He died a few days later.

Who was Elijah McClain?

Mr. McClain was a massage therapist who is said to have loved animals and who taught himself to play the guitar and the violin, according to The Cut. A photograph of Mr. McClain playing the violin for stray cats, which he believed helped soothe them, has gone viral.”

Poll Shows Trump Dragging Down G.O.P. Senate Candidates – The New York Times

By Jonathan Martin and Matt Stevens

• June 25, 2020
• • 329

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s erratic performance in office and his deteriorating standing in the polls is posing a grave threat to his party’s Senate majority, imperiling incumbents in crucial swing states and undermining Republican prospects in one of the few states they had hoped to gain a seat, according to a new poll of registered voters by The New York Times and Siena College.

Senator Martha McSally of Arizona, a Republican, trails her Democratic opponent, Mark Kelly, by nine percentage points while Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina is behind his Democratic rival, Cal Cunningham, by three. Both incumbents are polling below 40 percent despite having recently aired a barrage of television advertisements.

In Michigan, which Senate Republicans viewed as one of their few opportunities to go on the offensive this year, Senator Gary Peters, a first-term Democrat, is up by 10 percentage points over John James, who is one of the G.O.P.’s most prized recruits.”

Opinion | America Is Facing 5 Epic Crises All at Once – By David Brooks – The New York Times

By David Brooks

Opinion Columnist

• June 25, 2020
• • 1817

Marchers on the Brooklyn Bridge on Juneteenth.Credit…Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times

“There are five gigantic changes happening in America right now. The first is that we are losing the fight against Covid-19. Our behavior doesn’t have anything to do with the reality around us. We just got tired so we’re giving up.

Second, all Americans, but especially white Americans, are undergoing a rapid education on the burdens African-Americans carry every day. This education is continuing, but already public opinion is shifting with astonishing speed.

Third, we’re in the middle of a political realignment. The American public is vehemently rejecting Donald Trump’s Republican Party. The most telling sign is that the party has even given up on itself, a personality cult whose cult leader is over.

Fourth, a quasi-religion is seeking control of America’s cultural institutions. The acolytes of this quasi-religion, Social Justice, hew to a simplifying ideology: History is essentially a power struggle between groups, some of which are oppressors and others of which are oppressed. Viewpoints are not explorations of truth; they are weapons that dominant groups use to maintain their place in the power structure. Words can thus be a form of violence that has to be regulated.

Fifth, we could be on the verge of a prolonged economic depression. State and household budgets are in meltdown, some businesses are failing and many others are on the brink, the continuing health emergency will mean economic activity cannot fully resume.

These five changes, each reflecting a huge crisis and hitting all at once, have created a moral, spiritual and emotional disaster. Americans are now less happy than at any time since they started measuring happiness nearly 50 years ago. Americans now express less pride in their nation than at any time since Gallup started measuring it 20 years ago.”

David Lindsay Jr.

Hamden, CT | NYT Comment:

I love this column by David Brooks, even though most of the criticism in the comments are are either correct, or have some merit. Basically, I have to agree with Brooks in general, while specifically, he rushed his writing, went too lightly on his Republican party, and continued to leave out climate change and the 6th extinction. How could such a brilliant, well read, and sensitive man, sound so blind to our poisoning of our own environment? And yet, in his defense, you can’t say everything in 800 words. In Hamden CT, there are new members of the Town Legislative Council who have many of the ugly traits that Brooks describes in the the social justice and politically correct movement. There is a profound truth in Brook’s statement, that the real work will be hard, long and feel boring, like on C-span, rather than flash mudslinging and cancelling on social media like on Instagram. You have to actually learn the details of local and state government, not just tear things up.

Opinion | America Didn’t Give Up on Covid-19. Republicans Did. – By Paul Krugman – The New York Times

By Paul Krugman

Opinion Columnist

• June 25, 2020
• • 1859

A doctor at a drive-up Covid-19 testing site in Scottsdale, Ariz., in May. The recent rapid spread of the virus has overwhelmed the state’s testing capacity.Credit…Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press

“Earlier this year much of America went through hell as the nation struggled to deal with Covid-19. More than 120,000 Americans have now died; more than 20 million have lost their jobs.

But it’s looking as if all those sacrifices were in vain. We never really got the coronavirus under control, and now infections, while they have fallen to a quite low level in the New York area, the pandemic’s original epicenter, are surging in much of the rest of the country.

And the bad news isn’t just a result of more testing. In new hot spots like Arizona — where testing capacity is being overwhelmed — and Houston the fraction of tests coming up positive is soaring, which shows that the disease is spreading rapidly.

It didn’t have to be this way. The European Union, a hugely diverse area with a larger population than the U.S., has been far more successful at limiting the spread of Covid-19 than we have. What went wrong?

The immediate answer is that many U.S. states ignored warnings from health experts and rushed to reopen their economies, and far too many people failed to follow basic precautions like wearing face masks and avoiding large groups. But why was there so much foolishness?

Well, I keep seeing statements to the effect that Americans were too impatient to stay the course, too unwilling to act responsibly. But this is deeply misleading, because it avoids confronting the essence of the problem. Americans didn’t fail the Covid-19 test; Republicans did.”

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable – Nassim Nicholas Taleb – Books – Review – By Gregg Easterbrook – The New York Times

Possibly Maybe

By Gregg Easterbrook

• April 22, 2007

“On the eve of the 2006 hurricane season, the National Hurricane Center forecast a “hyperactive” summer and fall, with eight to 10 Atlantic cyclones; instead there were five, smack on the 20th-century average. At the beginning of 2006, The Wall Street Journal forecast a bad year for stocks; the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 16 percent that year. (Disturbingly, The Journal has forecast a good year for 2007.) The British government recently said climate change could reduce global G.D.P. by 13.8 percent in the first year of the 23rd century. Not by 13.7 percent, not by 13.9 percent — by 13.8 percent. In response to an astronomer’s discovery, The New York Times in 2004 declared that the universe might have a “peaceful end” in “tens of billions of years,” but cautioned that it could not rule out the cosmos’s exploding in a few billion years. Writing of the same discovery, The Washington Post predicted that the demise of the cosmos would require 30 billion years, adding this vital caveat: “It remains impossible to predict the fate of the universe with certainty.” Oh, so we can’t be certain what will happen 30 billion years from now!

The hubris of predictions — and our perpetual surprise when the not-predicted happens — are themes of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s engaging new book, “The Black Swan.” It concerns the occurrence of the improbable, the power of rare events and the author’s lament that “in spite of the empirical record we continue to project into the future as if we were good at it.” We expect all swans to be white and are shocked when a black swan swims by.

Born in Lebanon in 1960, Taleb lived through a “black swan” when his serene homeland was cast into the chaos of civil war in 1975. After emigrating to the United States, he attended Wharton, then worked on Wall Street; today he is a professor at the University of Massachusetts. Black Monday in 1987, when Wall Street suffered its worst single-day decline in modern history — in a drop that started for no clear reason — was his epiphany. Chance, he realized, has far more influence than we care to admit.

Opinion | Trump Is Feeding America’s Coronavirus Nightmare – By Nicholas Kristof – The New York Times

By Nicholas Kristof

Opinion Columnist

• June 24, 2020
• • 1129

“President Trump says the coronavirus is “fading away” and pats himself on the back for “a great job on CoronaVirus” that saved “millions of U.S. lives.”

“It’s going away,” Trump said Tuesday at a packed megachurch in Phoenix where few people wore masks.

That’s what delusion sounds like. We need a Churchill to lead our nation against a deadly challenge; instead, we have a president who helps an enemy virus infiltrate our churches and homes. Churchill and Roosevelt worked to deceive the enemy; Trump is trying to deceive us.

For a reality check, look at this map by my colleague Nathaniel Lash showing how much of America is trending in the wrong direction.”

David Lindsay:  This dark op-ed reminds me that I read a piece about an actor discussing the teaching dialects. He said he had a favorite off color joke about giving someone a good Irish accent, only I don’t remember it well, something like, just say the following words quickly, and sort of run them together.
Weave,     beaf,      hooked.

 

Opinion | Who Are the Key Voters Turning Against Trump? – by Ruy Teixeira – The New York Times

by Ruy Teixeira, who is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

“. . . . But the Democrats have a secret weapon in 2020 on the other side of the age spectrum: senior voters. Among this age group — voters 65 and older — polls so far this year reveal a dramatic shift to the Democrats. That could be the most consequential political development of this election.

The bipartisan States of Change project estimates that Mrs. Clinton lost this group by around 15 points. By contrast, the nonpartisan Democracy Fund + U.C.L.A. Nationscape survey, which has collected over 108,000 interviews of registered voters since the beginning of the year, has Mr. Biden leading among seniors by about six points. We are looking at a shift of over 20 points in favor of the Democrats among a group that should be at least a quarter of voters in 2020. That’s huge.”

David Lindsay Jr.

Hamden, CT | NYT comment:

Hear ye, hear ye, I don’t have good news, I have great news. Older Americans are coming to their senses! Thank you Ruy Teixeira. “The bipartisan States of Change project estimates that Mrs. Clinton lost this group by around 15 points. By contrast, the nonpartisan Democracy Fund + U.C.L.A. Nationscape survey, which has collected over 108,000 interviews of registered voters since the beginning of the year, has Mr. Biden leading among seniors by about six points. We are looking at a shift of over 20 points in favor of the Democrats among a group that should be at least a quarter of voters in 2020. That’s huge.” DL; Ya, that’s huge! The article is full of wonderful details, and so are the comments, for the most part. Also, note the data on how very conservative this group is by and large. They are strongly against many of the far left ideas of Bernie Sanders. Joe Biden is according to this massive poll of 108,000 interviews, their type of conservative, liberal progressive.