Dan Rather: Revelations
Sarah Inama teaches sixth grade. Like many teachers, she has adorned her classroom with posters and signs meant to inspire her students. One of those posters depicts hands of various hues with the text “Everyone is welcome here.”
In January, Inama was told that the poster violates school district policy and that she must take it down. The policy “ensures that classrooms remain neutral.” The school district informed Inama that the poster is considered a “personal opinion” and that “everyone is welcome here” is not something everyone believes.
Though she took down the poster immediately, after reflecting on what happened, she put it back up a few days later. In an email to her principal, Inama explained, “I don’t agree that this is a personal opinion. I feel that this is the basis of public education.”
For now, the poster remains on her classroom wall, but it must be gone by the end of the school year, or she could face repercussions for insubordination.
Now, to what the poster reminded me of and our reason to smile: Alvin Ailey’s dance masterpiece “Revelations.”
In the first movement, the dancers — Black, brown, and white — raise their hands, reaching upward to rise. The imagery and the sentiment are similar to Inama’s poster.
Ailey, the acclaimed dancer, choreographer, director, and activist, was born in rural, segregated, Depression-era Texas in 1931. He choreographed “Revelations,” his most enduring piece, when he was just 29 years old. It has been described as a fusion of ballet, modern dance, jazz, and Black vernacular set to spirituals, gospel, and blues.
I recommend watching the entire dance. The transcendent finale is more than worth your time.
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – March 22, 2025
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Mills was a former state attorney general, and her position is that it is her job as governor to follow state and federal law. But Trump seems to be trying to make his fight with her personal. So long as she is willing to kowtow to him, the “case” can be “settled.” Exactly what she is supposed to be apologizing to him for is unclear, unless it is that she stood up to him, a rare enough event that at the time, Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times noted: “Something happened at the White House Friday afternoon that almost never happens these days. Somebody defied President Trump. Right to his face.”
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Dan Pfeiffer: How to Channel Your Anger at Elon Musk
The Supreme Court race in Wisconsin is a chance to show that grassroots activism can beat the World’s richest man
Thousands are protesting at Tesla dealerships all across the country. Those peaceful protests are having their intended effect by drawing attention to Musk’s deranged actions. Still, there is another opportunity to send a message to Musk right around the corner.On April 1, Wisconsin will hold an election for a key Supreme Court seat. While the race is technically non-partisan, the Democrats lined up behind Dane County Judge Susan Crawford and Republicans Brad Schimel, a former state attorney general. However, the race has primarily become about Musk. The world’s richest man already spent $10 million to help elect Schimel.
Electing Susan Crawford would be good for democracy in Wisconsin, but if grassroots activists can defeat Musk, it will send a powerful signal to Republicans about the dangers of enabling Musk’s worst behavior.
Express: Jeremy Clarkson ‘declares victory’ over Elon Musk 17 years after Tesla CEO sued him
Former Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson took aim at Elon Musk as Tesla sales tank after the CEO’s appointment into the Trump administration.
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On Sunday (March 23), the motoring journalist revealed that he’d been sued by Musk back in 2008 after he gave the Tesla Roadster a bad review on the BBC evening show. In his latest column for The Times, Clarkson explained that he found the car “unreliable”.
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“Musk was very angry about this and sued us for defamation, claiming I had a problem with electrical cars and had written the piece before even setting foot in the car. He lost the case, and the appeal, and he’s never really got over it.”
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Christina Pagel: We are learning the wrong lessons from lockdown
And unless we learn the right ones, we risk making the same mistakes in a new pandemic
England started its first of three lockdowns exactly five years ago. The immediate impacts of lockdown were devastating for many, and the longer term harmful impacts are becoming increasingly clear and still emerging. Lockdown was a massive society wide intervention – it is right and proper that its impacts be studied in detail and lessons learned from its implementation and extent. But the tenor of reporting and public opinion seems to be that “lockdowns were terrible and so we must not have lockdowns again”. This is the wrong lesson. Lockdowns are terrible but so are unchecked deadly pandemics. The question should be “lockdowns were terrible, so how can we prevent the spread of a new pandemic so we never need one again?”.
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The real lessons from lockdown
So – these are my lessons from lockdown. Firstly, lockdowns are devastating in their impacts, both in the short and long term, particularly on younger people and on more deprived communities. Secondly, lockdowns can and should be avoided – but by tackling the spread of an infectious disease not by doing nothing! Preventing future lockdowns requires planning, preparation, investment in public health infrastructure, and investment in testing, virology and medical research – and the fundamental acceptance that you can’t wing a pandemic.Finally, it’s possible that a future pandemic will be severe enough – just reaching our shores too quickly, or being too infectious or too deadly – that our preparation still fails and a lockdown is needed as a last resort.
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Closer to the Edge: Texas abortion disaster: deaths, delays, and desparate damage control
Texas’ war on abortion isn’t just ideological — it’s lethal. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the Lone Star State has become ground zero for one of the most disastrous public health experiments in modern American history. With draconian abortion laws forcing doctors to hesitate in medical emergencies, pregnant women are dying. And now, with blood on their hands, Texas Republicans are scrambling to “clarify” the very ban they once celebrated.
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Jay Kuo: In the middle Kingdom
And a note about coming back through U.S. customs and immigration
For the next few days, I’ll be in Beijing, China settling some matters leftover from Ma’s estate. I arrived this evening to the bustling noise of the Beijing Capital Airport, where the gleaming, tall sweeps of the architecture still prevent the sheer chaos on the ground!
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Many folks on social media have commented worrying about my being able to get back into the U.S. given my anti-Trump writings. I personally don’t think we’re quite there yet, where U.S. citizens are routinely singled out and detained for their political views.
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Closer to the Edge: Jessica Aber’s Sudden Death and the Secrets She Took with Her
Jessica Aber’s death feels like one of those stories that’s meant to fade quietly into the background — a tragic headline that people are supposed to forget. But when a career prosecutor who spent her life chasing Russian cybercriminals, CIA leaks, and war criminals turns up dead just weeks after resigning, forgetting isn’t an option.
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Independent: There could be billions more people on Earth than previously thought
Research warns needs of rural residents could be under-represented in decision-making
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NY Times: Musk Is Positioned to Profit Off Billions in New Government Contracts
The boost in federal spending for SpaceX will come in part as a result of actions by President Trump and Elon Musk’s allies and employees who hold government positions.
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Fast Company: Trump is dismantling the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Here’s what it does
The IMLS provides financial support to a wide array of cultural and educational institutions, including art, science, and history museums, zoos, aquariums, botanical gardens, and historic sites.
Boing Boing: Reading between the lines: Trump restricts access to border-straddling library (video)
For over 100 years, Canadians and Americans have shared the Haskell Free Library and Opera House. The Trump Administration is aggressively ending this harmony.
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NPR: Humming along in an old church, the Internet Archive is more relevant than ever
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As one of the few large-scale archivists to back up the web, the Internet Archive finds itself in a particularly unique position right now. After President Trump’s inauguration in January, some federal web pages vanished. While some pages were removed entirely, many came back online with changes that the new administration’s officials said were made to conform to Trump’s executive orders to remove “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility policies.” Thousands of datasets were wiped — mostly at agencies focused on science and the environment — in the days following Trump’s return to the White House.
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Graham noted that, for example, the Internet Archive is currently the only place the public can find a copy of an interactive timeline detailing the events of Jan. 6. The timeline is a product of the congressional committee that investigated the Capitol attack, and has since been taken down from their website. Graham said it’s in the public’s interest to save such records.
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The Internet Archive doesn’t catch everything. A report about the risks of bird flu to people and pets briefly appeared and disappeared on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. Graham said it appeared that the Wayback Machine wasn’t able to record it in time.
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Intercetpt: Texas’s GOP Governor Can Arbitrarily Deny Democrats a Seat in Congress Until Next Year
Texas’s heavily Democratic 18th Congressional District has an empty seat. State law gives Greg Abbott the power to delay the election to fill it.
