Import 2022-12-14 09:40

Happy Thursday, loyal readers. Thank you very much for opening today’s issue of The Highlighter. I’m a big fan of all four of this week’s articles. Although they focus on a range of topics ( phalloplasty , anti-Asian violence , voter suppression , gentrification ), the pieces all explore a common th…

Loyal readers, I hope you are doing well. Let me make a promise to you right here and now that today’s issue will not be about Omicron (or Omarion ), or about how schools and teachers and educators and parents are freaking out. My sense is that most of you would prefer to read great articles on a di…

Happy New Year, loyal readers, and thank you for being here. This week we’re honoring bell hooks , who passed away last month. A visionary thinker and outstanding writer, Ms. hooks taught me that education is a practice of freedom, that literacy is a means of critical consciousness, and that classro…

Long ago, when I taught U.S. Government, I believed in the soundness and durability of American institutions, in particular the Supreme Court. My students learned about the rule of law and the power of precedent. But last week’s oral argument in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson reminded me that abortion…

Last week, the white men who killed Ahmaud Arbery were convicted of murder. But we know how The World works: Life goes on, we don’t take time to reflect, and we move on to the current day’s threats – whether that’s Omicron or Dobbs v. Jackson or the various other many calamitous events popping up in…

Happy Thanksgiving, loyal readers. I am grateful for you. Last week’s issue focused on the exhaustion many of us feel after living in lockdown for the last two years. But yesterday’s conviction of Ahmaud Arbery’s murderers again confronted us with the profound and unrelenting exhaustion of injustice…

Lately I’ve noticed that I’m more tired than usual. (You too?) As far as I know, there’s no rational reason for this. After all, it’s not like living my life requires large amounts of energy. But still it’s something I’ve noticed. My latest theory about the cause of my exhaustion is that I want thin…

Happy Thursday , loyal readers. I’m happy that you’re here. If you didn’t receive last week’s issue, you’re not alone. For some reason, for about 300 of you, Gmail sent the newsletter to your spam folder. (Boo, Google.) To prevent this from happening again, you can train Google to deliver The Highli…

Happy Thursday, loyal readers. Thank you very much for being here. One of the very best people in our reading community, loyal reader Marni , just had her second child, Hazel Ruth. Congratulations! This is great news, because The Highlighter gains a new avid reader, and because our world gains a new…