From Ron DeSantis's Antics to Problems in Portland....
Here's some commentary and recommended reading. And let me know in the comments if it's useful.
Since I’ll be resuming my column (and email newsletter) at The New York Times this fall, I’ve been wondering how to use this Substack newsletter. I’m still pondering that, and that’s why I haven’t posted here lately. But as an experiment, I’m posting some of my recent tweets that offer commentary and reading suggestions. I’d be curious if you find these useful and worth repeating.
An earlier version of the Ron DeSantis playbook.
JFK Library @JFKLibrary
A @washingtonpost editorial argues that "Saudi Arabia’s crackdown shows MBS duped Biden." I agree: The US should engage Saudi Arabia, but we reflect neither US interests nor values when we confer legitimacy on a misogynist and unstable tyrant.
Why child poverty hit a historic low in 2021 vox.com/2022/9/14/2335… via @voxdotcom by Prof Luke Shaefer, one of the great advocates for the enhanced child tax credit that accomplished this feat. It’s a stunning result: for the first time, child poverty is below adult poverty.
It’s not enough. But this plunge in child poverty should remind us that it’s not hopeless, that we have the solutions and the resources to give kids better outcomes. We just lack the political will. The child tax credit, home visiting, early childhood programs — they work.
A searing article in Obstetrics & Gynecology explores what happens when anti-abortion laws interfere with medical decisions: A 31-year-old dentist suffering a miscarriage doesn't get medical help because the hospital fears the law, and she dies of sepsis. journals.lww.com/greenjournal/F…
The Green Journal @greenjrnl
Nurses rock!
Ian Cassette FOX 35 @iancassette_wx
“In one secret book club in Kabul, Afghan girls have connected to another girl, from another time and place, who was forced to live her own life in secret.” 😢 https://t.co/iq4CkZIHkE
Eleanor Beardsley @ElBeardsley
I just reread @Harvard Professor Michael Sandel's book, "The Tyranny of Merit" and enjoyed it as much the second time. He argues that educational elites unfairly scorn those with lesser credentials. The last acceptable prejudice, he argues, is the one against the less educated.
Oregon has one of the worst high school gradation rates in the US, so the state is seeking to drop requirements that students show proficiency in reading and math, while no longer requiring algebra 1. The @Oregonian rightly gives these proposals an F.
Video of a Russian T-72B3 tank retreating from Ukrainian forces outside of Balakliya. Several soldiers fall off the tank before it drives into a tree. It drives right past Ukrainian SSO and soldiers on trucks. Also an abandoned Russian R-149MA1.
t.me/c/1307866449/2…
.@Harvard researchers find a dramatic rise in cancers striking people before the age of 50. Each successive cohort born after 1950 seems to be developing more cancers, often related to the digestive system.
One gauge of the crisis in Portland, Oregon: Three downtown hotels are in foreclosure proceedings, and the downtown office vacancy rate is so high that it may not fall to 10 percent until 2034. One risk is that companies move their offices to the suburbs.
Devastating piece about Xi Jinping by Cai Xia, a former Chinese insider, in @ForeignAffairs. A great read that will be secretly passed around among Chinese officials and intellectuals:
There's now a big gender gap in high school GPA. 2 out of 3 of the top scorers are girls, and the gap is reversed at the bottom.
(Sneak peak of a chart from Of Boys and Men, out this month & available for preorder amzn.to/3Bgx9k9.)
That’s it for now. Again, I’d be curious whether you find this interesting and useful, or redundant and irrelevant!
I hope you continue the substack format. Possible directions would be to drill down on a topic for x amount of time:
1. Children's issues...you have done this well. They are our seed corn. Remind us to care about the post-born. There are no standard bearers for children right now.
2. Equality issues: gender, salary, race would all be part of it
3. Explain background of hot topics: e.g. race now matters because for hundreds of years x,y,z which each extends into the present in these ways (homeownership etc)
4. Discuss over time: Cults, what they are, what they do how to end them.
5. Climate. We all need to breath and drink water. There are no boundaries to who this impacts.
Mr. Kristof, I’m always more knowledgeable, and made more aware, of the hateful and harmful injustices going on in this country after reading your reporting. Your writing literally takes my breath away. I will never forget the Child Marriage article you wrote in the NYT, exposing its legality in more than half of our states. I had to put the paper down and take a deep breath. I was so stunned. Whether it’s Twitter, a letter, an article, a book or just crayon on a napkin, if you wrote it, I want to read it!
Thanks for all the empathy you put into your work!