Here’s your week in review, in haiku.
1.
Xi’s crossed arms, D.P.’s deep thirst,
Canada’s trash canned
2.
[Man smiles at mirror]
“President de Blaaaaaaasioooo.”
He nods. [Cue laugh track]
3.
sitting in a tree P-L-
A-Y-I-N-G
4.
Linda Brown walked and
walked and walked and walked to school:
5.
“I had fun once,” she
purred to Saint Peter. “And it
wasn’t that awful.”
Wishing you the least-grumpy weekend possible.
On Point
| President Trump’s new immigration plan seems doomed from the start |
| Most experts agree that his latest plan, which involves instituting a “merit-based” system for issuing green cards, is unlikely to be taken up by Congress. The new scheme, which would prioritize highly skilled workers over people with family members in the U.S. And score potential workers on certain factors such as English fluency, is called a “Build America” visa. But without any details on implementation, it’s unlikely to be anything more than campaign rhetoric. “Internally, a number of White House aides are skeptical the plan has any chance of passing and believe the president holding a Rose Garden speech on it was a waste of his time, when he should be promoting trade or working on international affairs,” reports The Washington Post. |
| Washington Post |
| Taiwan legalizes same-sex marriage |
| The Western world wakes up to some wonderful and affirming news: LGBTQ couples are getting engaged all over Taiwan today after the country became the first in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. In a 66-27 vote, same-sex married couples now enjoy the same benefits as opposite-married ones. Thailand is the only other Asian country that has proposed a law to recognize same-sex unions. According to Jennifer Lu, a member of the Marriage Equality Coalition Taiwan, the country has shown that tradition doesn’t necessarily mean a rejection of LGBT culture. “[T]hat’s the message we want to send the world.” |
| Washington Post |
| West Point graduating class has the largest number of black women ever |
| This year’s graduating class at West Point will have 34 black women, the largest in the military academy’s history. It’s up from 27 last year. “[T]he expectation is next year’s class will be even larger than this year’s,” says a spokesperson. This historic class also has the highest number of Latina graduates along with the 5,000th female cadet of any race to graduate since the academy's first class of women in 1980. Cadet Tiffany Welch-Baker says, “My hope when young black girls see these photos is that they understand that regardless of what life presents you, you have the ability and fortitude to be a force to be reckoned with.” Click through to see what she means. |
| CNN |
On Background
| Why are federal nominees so wishy-washy about Brown v Board of Education? |
| The landmark Supreme Court decision striking down school segregation turns 65 day, and it’s long been heralded as a ground-breaking achievement, publicly lauded by people on all sides of the political spectrum. Especially during job interviews. But lately, judicial appointees are refusing to say whether they agreed with the decision as part of their normal confirmation hearings. “Even if you believe nominees have spent decades telling polite lies about the enduring importance of Brown, the fact that we are now dispensing with those polite lies is extraordinary,” says Perry Grossman and Dahlia Lithwick writing for Slate. It matters. “It’s frightening and destabilizing to watch ridiculous notions about pregnant migrants and transgender service members make their way into the legal discourse,” they say. “Basic ideas about equality and race are slipping out of the canon of universally accepted legal truths. That shouldn’t be met with silence.” |
| Slate |
| An immigration lawyer burns a candle for her young charges |
| Brianna Rennix is an immigration lawyer, writer, and editor at Current Affairs. In this extraordinary essay, she explains life in Dilley, Texas, where she works as a lawyer at a child detention center. While shopping at a non-home improvement grocery store that happened to be called Lowes, she stumbled on a devotional candle with the image of a saint she hadn’t heard of before, called the Holy Infant of Atocha. “Who would’ve thought that a little vestige of the medieval world would turn up in my local grocery store?,” she says. “Secondly, what better patron for someone who works at a jail for child refugees than a child-saint who defends both travelers in peril and the unjustly imprisoned?” You will want to read and share this piece, I promise. |
| Current Affairs |
| Abortion access is in trouble |
| With abortion access and reproductive health care under siege in Georgia, Ohio, Alabama, Missouri and increasingly across the country, women have taken to social media to share their abortion stories under the hashtag #YouKnowMe. Actor and late-night talkshow host Busy Phillips was one of the first women in this most recent wave of public sharing to tell her own story and encourage others to do the same.“The statistic is one in four women will have an abortion before age 45,” she said on her show. “That statistic sometimes surprises people, and maybe you’re sitting there thinking, ‘I don’t know a woman who would have an abortion.’ Well, you know me.” If sharing your story isn’t for you, Huffpost has a list of other ways to show support. |
| New York Times |
Aidan Taylor assisted in the preparation of today's summaries.
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