Welcome to the weekly recap. In this post, I’ll be linking to my work from the week, sharing some stories from others I thought were interesting, and providing a few casual thoughts on [gestures at everything]. If you’d like to receive this weekly email ONLY, please go to your account page and under “Email notifications” uncheck every box except “TPA Weekly Recap.” If you don’t want to receive the weekly recap, leave all boxes except “TPA Weekly Recap” checked.
From me this week: trans athletes, war of the words (and images and videos), and a very revealing series of SCOTUS hearings
Fine, let’s talk about trans athletes. On Monday, I published a piece about trans swimmer Lia Thomas and the right’s attempt to use her success to justify banning younger trans kids from playing sports. The tl;dr here is that no matter what your opinion on whether or not it’s fair for Thomas to have competed in the national championships, right now it’s important to stand against the anti-trans bills targeting trans children. This is the only piece from this week that I put behind a paywall, but I think it’s worth the price of a subscription (also, for a few more days, you can get a 90 day free trial on all annual plans…)
On Wednesday, I posted a piece about viral misinformation during the first month of the war in Ukraine. BBC journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh shared some tips for spotting fake and misleading stories on the internet.
And yesterday, I wrote about the absolute chaos that was the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearings on President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. It was, to say the least, a very revealing series of hearings that tell us a lot about what kind of world Republicans want to create should they retake power.
The Present Age is a reader-supported project. From now until the end of the month, I’m offering free 90 day trials to the premium-tier newsletter content. If you like it and think it’s worth paying for, that’s great. If you don’t think it’s worth paying for, just cancel the trial before the 90 days is up. Sound good? Click this link to get it:
Posts from others that I want to draw attention to:
Sam Thielman has a great post over at Spencer Ackerman’s Forever Wars about Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX)’s anti-trans crusade targeting trans kids. This is one of those issues that has been keeping me up at night. I’m scared for myself (as Katelyn Burns points out, now that the effort to attack trans kids is seeing success, you’re starting to see some people arguing that trans adults should also have their healthcare made effectively illegal), for these families, and for the future we all deserve.
If you’re looking for more info on the right-wing culture war chaos during this week’s SCOTUS hearings, Dan Pfeiffer has you covered over at The Message Box.
And for the flip side of that, Adam Johnson has a piece at The Column about why simply calling this “culture war” stuff trivializes exactly what the GOP is doing. I think both Dan and Adam have solid points on this.
And finally, kudos to Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby at Popular Info for staying on top of the Disney story following the company’s (in)action on Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Given that Disney is basically the reason for some of our copyright/trademark laws, it’s laughable that they want to pretend that they aren’t “political” (while continuing to donate to GOP lawmakers).
I recommend watching World Cup qualifiers this weekend. We’re at the stage where teams are getting knocked out left and right, so the drama is intense. I was on a bus in Mexico City yesterday when someone said “North Macedonia just scored on Italy in the 90th minute” and we all went nuts. Major African nations are facing each other: Ghana plays Nigeria, only one of them gets to go to the World Cup, it’s bonkers. Games from Africa and Europe are on ESPN+, most games from North/Central America are on Paramount Plus but the USA-Panama game Sunday is on ESPN, and even New Zealand beating on tiny Pacific island nations are available to stream somewhere. It’s all I’m gonna do once I get home (I’m on another bus in Mexico City right now, geez this trip has had a lot of buses).